Divided By The Wall:
Progressive and Conservative Immigration Politics at the U.S.-Mexico Border
2020, University of California Press
2020 C. Wright Mills Award Finalist
2022 Thomas and Znaniecki Best Book Award, Honorable Mention
2020 C. Wright Mills Award Finalist
2022 Thomas and Znaniecki Best Book Award, Honorable Mention
The question of building a wall on the U.S.–Mexico border has become one of the most polarizing issues in American politics. A standoff over its funding produced the longest government shutdown in U.S. history and deepened partisan divides across the country. In the Arizona borderlands, these debates have long been lived on the ground: for decades, groups of predominantly white Americans have mobilized on opposite sides of the divide—some assisting undocumented immigrants in evading detection, others aiding law enforcement in apprehending them. Many of these activists act without an immediate personal connection to immigration and with little expectation that their efforts will bring about sweeping change. Why, then, do they devote themselves so passionately to the cause?
Divided by the Wall answers this question through twenty months of immersive ethnographic research. The book shows how immigration politics has come to stand in for broader struggles around class inequality among white Americans. Offering a rare comparative study of pro-immigrant activists and their restrictionist opponents, it reveals how people mobilize not only to alter immigration policy but also to transform themselves—seeking meaning, belonging, and agency in an era of deepening inequality and insecurity. As one reviewer observes, “Divided by the Wall offers one of the most sensitive accounts of the social roots of activism available in sociology.”
Divided by the Wall answers this question through twenty months of immersive ethnographic research. The book shows how immigration politics has come to stand in for broader struggles around class inequality among white Americans. Offering a rare comparative study of pro-immigrant activists and their restrictionist opponents, it reveals how people mobilize not only to alter immigration policy but also to transform themselves—seeking meaning, belonging, and agency in an era of deepening inequality and insecurity. As one reviewer observes, “Divided by the Wall offers one of the most sensitive accounts of the social roots of activism available in sociology.”
PRAISE
"This riveting book studies pro- and anti-immigrant stances together and mines the meanings of the juxtapositions. Its centering of government policies, especially policing, shows how profoundly the pro-immigration restriction positions attach themselves to the law, partly to wave away charges of racism. Conversely it shows how often and profoundly pro-immigrant groups array themselves against state power."
--David R. Roediger, author of How Race Survived U.S. History
"In this vivid ethnographic account of progressive and conservative activism at the Arizona border, Emine Fidan Elcioglu shows how these movements are about much more than immigration. She deftly illuminates how border activism is animated by gendered politics of whiteness and how privileged participants manage conflictual identities. This is a must read for anyone interested in immigration-focused movements and border issues."
--Sharon Erickson Nepstad, Distinguished Professor of Sociology, University of New Mexico
"Deftly comparing the social composition, emotional motivations, and worldviews—especially with regard to the state—of activists on both sides of the immigration divide, Elcioglu makes a powerful contribution to the burgeoning ethnographic literature on white working-class nativism. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, her careful analysis illuminates the central political question of our time."
--Ruth Milkman, author of Immigrant Labor and the New Precariat
"Who mobilizes for or against international migration in the United States? How and why they do so? What kind of experiences prompt them into action? Looking deeply and systematically, both to the right and to the left, Elcioglu unearths paradoxically opposing understandings of the state and dissects how these shared perceptions shape feelings and fears about others and how they sustain collective action. This is relational political ethnography at its best."
--Javier Auyero, Professor of Sociology, University of Texas at Austin
"This riveting book studies pro- and anti-immigrant stances together and mines the meanings of the juxtapositions. Its centering of government policies, especially policing, shows how profoundly the pro-immigration restriction positions attach themselves to the law, partly to wave away charges of racism. Conversely it shows how often and profoundly pro-immigrant groups array themselves against state power."
--David R. Roediger, author of How Race Survived U.S. History
"In this vivid ethnographic account of progressive and conservative activism at the Arizona border, Emine Fidan Elcioglu shows how these movements are about much more than immigration. She deftly illuminates how border activism is animated by gendered politics of whiteness and how privileged participants manage conflictual identities. This is a must read for anyone interested in immigration-focused movements and border issues."
--Sharon Erickson Nepstad, Distinguished Professor of Sociology, University of New Mexico
"Deftly comparing the social composition, emotional motivations, and worldviews—especially with regard to the state—of activists on both sides of the immigration divide, Elcioglu makes a powerful contribution to the burgeoning ethnographic literature on white working-class nativism. Drawing on extensive fieldwork, her careful analysis illuminates the central political question of our time."
--Ruth Milkman, author of Immigrant Labor and the New Precariat
"Who mobilizes for or against international migration in the United States? How and why they do so? What kind of experiences prompt them into action? Looking deeply and systematically, both to the right and to the left, Elcioglu unearths paradoxically opposing understandings of the state and dissects how these shared perceptions shape feelings and fears about others and how they sustain collective action. This is relational political ethnography at its best."
--Javier Auyero, Professor of Sociology, University of Texas at Austin
Virtual Talk. Center for Ethnographic Research, University of California-Berkeley. October 27, 2020.
