Civic Engagements

For refugees and immigrants in the United States, expressions of citizenship and belonging emerge not only during the naturalization process, but also during more informal, everyday activities in the community. Based on research in the Dallas-Arlington-Fort Worth area of Texas, this book examines the sociocultural spaces in which Vietnamese and Indian immigrants are engaging with the wider civic sphere. As Civic Engagementsreveals, religious and ethnic organizations provide arenas in which immigrants develop their own ways of being and becoming "American." Skills honed at a meeting, festival, or banquet have resounding implications for the future political potential of these immigrant populations, both locally and nationally. Employing Lave and Wenger's concept of "communities of practice" as a framework, this book emphasizes the variety of processes by which new citizens acquire the civic and leadership skills that help them to move from peripheral positions to more central roles in American society.

Caroline B. Brettell is Professor of Anthropology at Southern Methodist University. She is the coeditor of Citizenship, Political Engagement, and Belonging: Immigrants in Europe and the United States (2008), with Deborah Reed-Danahay, and Twenty-First Century Gate-ways: Immigrant Incorporation in Suburbia (2008), with Audrey Singer and Susan Hardwick. Deborah Reed-Danahay is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Center for European Studies (CEUS) at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York. She is the coeditor of Citizenship, Political Engagement, and Belonging: Immigrants in Europe and the United States (2008), with Caroline Brettell, and the author of Locating Bourdieu (2005).