Sociology Department Colloquium: Robert Smith

Please join us for a colloquium being given by Robert Smith, Professor, School of Public Affairs, Baruch College, and Sociology Department, Graduate Center, CUNY.

"Horatio Alger Lives in Brooklyn, But Check His Papers"

Abstract:

The title intends to convey a central finding from this very long term research: that children of Mexican immigrants in New York are, in the main, at least modestly upwardly mobile, and some much more so, except those whose long term undocumented status significantly blocks their mobility.  The book seeks to understand this bifurcated integration of children of Mexican immigrants in New York.  The talk will analyze the construction and impact of long term undocumented status on long term outcomes, and how that status affects the meaning of being “Mexican” in everyday life.   The talk also examines other processes that promote or block upward mobility in the larger Mexican community, including the interaction of the New York City school choice/zone system with stages of Mexican immigration; evolving intra-family social and economic dynamics, and how immigration policy can nefariously undermine the immigrant bargain; how the contexts one moves into affect not only life chances but also the meaning of Mexicanness;   the effects of Dreamers and DACA; and related topics.   The book’s secondary goal is to contribute to longitudinal, ethnographic methods and epistemology. The project employs a net-effects logic of analysis via a Variable Oriented Database; and case study logic of analysis via biographical and comparative Narrative Case Studies, and the Lifecourse Multidimensional Analytical Protocol (LMAP), a set theoretic, QCA method.  This enables analysis of ethnographically identified practices and beliefs within the entire dataset, while also explicating process via case methods.