The latest wave of anti-immigrant sentiment exemplified by the rise of Donald Trump reveals the extent to which the purported “Nation of Immigrants” has become afflicted by what migration scholars refer to as “sedentary bias.” Though many wealthy, white U.S. citizens experience mobility without the dislocation of migration, fewer can sympathize with the plight of undocumented Latinx immigrants who undertake traumatic migration experiences only to suffer immobility under the daily threat of deportation. Alvaro Huerta's Defending Latina/o Immigrant Communities: The Xenophobic Era of Trump and Beyond addresses this bias by actively defending Latinx immigrants from racist and nativist discourse.
Over the course of more than 40 short essays written from 2008 to 2019, Huerta reframes the country's meta-narrative vis-à-vis Latinx immigrants and in doing so answers the call by sociologist Leo Chavez to offer a “Latino Contribution Narrative” as a counter-discourse to endemic stereotypes of Latinxs as economic, cultural, and criminal threats. Huerta eschews the premises of anti-immigrant nativists that reinforce the “good” (legal) immigrant versus the “bad” (undocumented) immigrant binary, opting instead to present Latinx immigrants and their families with dignity and respect. While Huerta's academic background lies in urban planning and ethnic studies, he intentionally foregrounds his life of activism and years of supporting Mexican immigrant gardeners of Los Angeles. This focus on the importance of grassroots organizing and the wider fight for immigrant rights privileges the voices of poor and working-class Latinxs, whom Huerta refers to on many occasions as los de abajo.
Defending Latina/o Immigrant Communities challenges the standard confines of academic texts. Although the book contains a variety of writing styles including essays, editorials, and calls to action, it derives its greatest ethical and moral clarity from Huerta's reliance on the storytelling tradition. The use of personal family stories, including the immigrant experiences of his Mexican parents, reflects the contemporary plight of many undocumented Latinx migrant workers who in the midst of a pandemic are labelled paradoxically as “illegal” yet also “essential.”
Although the writings span both the Obama and Trump eras, Huerta shows how an unfortunate constant across both administrations is the suffering of Latinx immigrants. While some may take issue with this assertion, Huerta argues that the outcomes were largely indistinguishable: widespread fear and anxiety among Latinx immigrant workers. With this critical lens in place, readers can see parallels between Obama's futile enforcement-first approach that tallied a record number of deportations without delivering a pathway to citizenship and Trump's cruel “enforcement-only measures” (p. 162). Huerta's ability to situate these contemporary patterns of anti-immigrant measures and anti-Latinx rhetoric within the nation's long history of anti-Mexicanism (an idea thoroughly articulated in a guest essay by the late Chicano Studies scholar Juan Gómez-Quiñones) stands as one of the text's major contributions. The repeated historical connections allow readers to see how Trump's vilification of Mexican immigrants and calls for a “deportation force” are not aberrational but rather firmly ensconced within a pattern of anti-Mexican ideas used to justify previous government actions like the “repatriation campaigns” of the 1930s and Operation Wetback.
Scholars interested in the study of immigrant rights movements and social justice will appreciate how Huerta's essays on the immigration policy debate invite a critical reassessment of comprehensive immigration reform principles. Huerta contends that comprehensive immigration reform solutions are (1) grounded in the misguided logics of deterrence and retribution and (2) premised on the public shaming of Latinx immigrants, which only serves to reinforce their second-class status. For example, he asks, what is the value in stipulating that undocumented immigrants pay back taxes despite the years of labor abuse and exploitation that many endure? Similarly, why must undocumented immigrants enter a needlessly long pathway to citizenship (yet another precarious non-citizen status) as a way to prove their fealty to a country they sustain through their labor? In presenting this critical alternative perspective, Huerta argues that only by reimagining the answers to these questions can scholars reflect upon the deeper meanings of social justice, human rights, and citizenship.
Another major contribution of the text is Huerta's insight for scholars, activists, and political campaigns wishing to collaborate with working-class Latinx immigrants in ways that are effective without being extractive or disrespectful. Scholars interested in exploring community-based research methods would do well to first heed Huerta's call to build confianza, a deep form of trust that is based in reciprocity and mutual respect. A major theme of Huerta's academic and advocacy work with Latino immigrant workers, including the Association of Latin American Gardeners of Los Angeles (ALAGLA), is that in the absence of financial capital, immigrant entrepreneurs cultivate confianza among their social networks. Although Huerta's recommended do's and don'ts are intended for community organizers involved in grassroots politics, they hold lessons for political parties looking to craft culturally competent GOTV efforts. If, according to Huerta, confianza “isn't something you can establish overnight,” and it can only be accumulated through “patience, honesty, transparency, consistency and good deeds,” (p. 30) then it is clear that when political parties make last-minute appeals prior to an election with little input from community members they violate the norms of confianza in the Latinx communities they seek to mobilize.
In sum, Defending Latina/o Immigrant Communities illustrates the unfortunate reality that Latinx immigrant workers in the United States, when not rendered invisible, are often treated with outright hostility. This dynamic is sustained by a zero-sum logic that rights and protections extended to immigrants pose liabilities for the economy, public safety, and the nation's social fabric. Though some may question his claims, Huerta presents a compelling and urgent counter-narrative through the sharing of human stories corroborated by evidence from the social sciences. Personal narratives of los de abajo alongside academic literature points to a similar conclusion: protecting the labor rights of immigrant workers benefits all workers and treating Latinx immigrants with compassion and dignity strengthens all communities.
