Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-q99xh Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T19:41:12.205Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Legitimacy, Social Identity, and the Mobilization of Law: The Effects of Assembly Bill 540 on Undocumented Students in California

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Leisy Abrego
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines the instrumental and constitutive effects of California Assembly Bill 540. The law grants undocumented immigrant students an exemption from out-of-state tuition, thereby making some forms of higher education more accessible. Despite the narrow actionable aspects of the law, it unintentionally legitimizes this disenfranchised group. This longitudinal study of undocumented immigrant youth consists of in-depth interviews before, shortly after, and four years after the passage of the law. The findings demonstrate that AB 540 immediately relieved stigma and later provided a socially acceptable identity that, within a legal consciousness informed by meritocracy, empowered these students to mobilize the law in a number of unforeseen ways. The case strongly suggests that it is possible for unintended constitutive functions to have more transformative effects on the daily lives of targeted beneficiaries than the intended instrumental objectives of law.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 33 , Issue 3 , Summer 2008 , pp. 709 - 734
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2008 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abrego, Leisy J. 2006. “I Can't Go to College Because I Don't Have Papers”: Incorporation Patterns of Latino Undocumented Youth. Latino Studies 4 (3): 212–31.Google Scholar
Bartindale, Becky. 2001. Bill Seeks Tuition Break for Illegal Immigrants. (San Jose) Mercury News, August 21, 1A.Google Scholar
Beiner, Theresa M. 2002. Let the Jury Decide: The Gap Between what Judges and Reasonable People Believe is Sexually Harassing. Southern California Law Review 75:791–846.Google Scholar
Bumiller, Kristin. 1988. The Civil Rights Society: The Social Construction of Victims. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Calavita, Kitty. 1998. Immigration, Law, and Marginalization in a Global Economy: Notes from Spain. Law & Society Review 32 (3): 529–66.Google Scholar
Carrera, John Willshire. 1989. Educating Undocumented Children: A Review of Practices and Policies. A Trends and Issues Paper. Charleston, WV: ERIC Clearinghouse on Rural Education and Small Schools.Google Scholar
Castles, Stephen. 2004. The Factors that Make and Unmake Migration Policies. International Migration Review 38 (3): 852–84.Google Scholar
Chavez, Leo R. 1998. Shadowed Lives: Undocumented Immigrants in American Society. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace.Google Scholar
Coutin, Susan B. 1996. Differences within Accounts of U.S. Immigration Law. PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 19 (1): 11–19.Google Scholar
Coutin, Susan B. 1998. From Refugees to Immigrants: The Legalization Strategies of Salvadoran Immigrants and Activists. International Migration Review 32 (4): 901–25.Google Scholar
Coutin, Susan B. 2000. Legalizing Moves: Salvadoran Immigrants’ Struggle for U.S. Residency. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Coutin, Susan B. 2002. Questionable Transactions as Grounds for Legalization: Immigration, Illegality, and Law. Crime Law and Social Change 37 (1): 19–36.Google Scholar
De Genova, Nicholas P. 2002. Migrant “Illegality” and Deportability in Everyday Life. Annual Review of Anthropology 31:419–47.Google Scholar
De Genova, Nicholas P. 2004. The Legal Production of Mexican/Migrant “Illegality.” Latino Studies 2 (2): 160–85.Google Scholar
Engel, David M., and Munger, Frank W. 1996. Rights, Remembrance, and the Reconciliation of Difference. Law & Society Review 30 (1): 7–54.Google Scholar
Engel, David M., and Munger, Frank W. 2003. Rights of Inclusion: Law and Identity in the Life Stories of Americans with Disabilities. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Ewick, Patricia, and Silbey, Susan S. 1998. The Common Place of Law: Stories from Everyday Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Fernández-Kelly, Patricia, and Curran, Sara. 2001. Nicaraguans: Voices Lost, Voices Found. In Ethnicities: Children of Immigrants in America, ed. Rumbaut, Rubén G. and Portes, Alejandro, 127–55. Berkeley: University of California Press and Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Gonzales, Roberto. 2006. Born in the Shadows: How the Sons and Daughters of Unauthorized Migrants Make Ends Meet. Paper presented at the Conference of Ford Fellows, October 20, in Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Hagan, Jacqueline Maria. 1994. Deciding to Be Legal: A Maya Community in Houston. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Haney, Craig, and Hurtado, Aida. 1994. The Jurisprudence of Race and Meritocracy: Standardized Testing and “Race-Neutral” Racism in the Workplace. Law and Human Behavior 18 (3): 223–48.Google Scholar
Heyer, Katharina. 2007. A Disability Lens on Sociolegal Research: Reading Rights of Inclusion from a Disability Studies Perspective. Law & Social Inquiry 32 (1): 261–93.Google Scholar
Hillygus, D. Sunshine. 2005. The Missing Link: Exploring the Relationship Between Higher Education and Political Engagement. Political Behavior 27 (1): 25–47.Google Scholar
Hochschild, Jennifer. 1995. Facing up to the American Dream: Race, Class, and the Soul of the Nation. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Hoffmann, Elizabeth A. 2003. Legal Consciousness and Dispute Resolution: Different Disputing Behavior at Two Similar Taxicab Companies. Law & Social Inquiry 28 (3): 629–57.Google Scholar
Kaiser, Cheryl R., and Brenda, Major. 2006. A Social Psychological Perspective on Perceiving and Reporting Discrimination. Law & Social Inquiry 31 (4): 801–30.Google Scholar
Lopez, Nancy. 2003. Hopeful Girls, Troubled Boys: Race and Gender Disparity in Urban Education. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Macías, Patrisia. 2006. Criminalizing Migration in an Era of Rights: Ethnographic Observations from the U.S.-Mexico Border. Paper presented at the American Sociological Association Annual Meetings, August 11, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.Google Scholar
Mahler, Sarah J. 1995. Salvadorans in Suburbia: Symbiosis and Conflict. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon.Google Scholar
McNamee, Stephen J., and Miller, Robert K. Jr 2004. The Meritocracy Myth. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Menjívar, Cecilia. 2000. Fragmented Ties: Salvadoran Immigrant Networks in America. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Menjívar, Cecilia. 2006. Liminal Legality: Salvadoran and Guatemalan Immigrants’ Lives in the United States. American Journal of Sociology 111 (4): 999–1037.Google Scholar
Merry, Sally Engle. 1990. Getting Justice and Getting Even: Legal Consciousness among Working-Class Americans. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
National Immigration Law Center. 2006. Basic Facts about In-State Tuition for Undocumented Immigrant Students. http://www.nilc.org/immlawpolicy/DREAM/in-state_tuition_basicfacts_041706.pdf (accessed April 1, 2008).Google Scholar
Ngai, Mae M. 2004. Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Nielsen, Laura Beth. 2000. Situating Legal Consciousness: Experiences and Attitudes of Ordinary Citizens about Law and Street Harassment. Law & Society Review 34 (4): 1055–90.Google Scholar
Olivas, Michael. 1995. Storytelling Out of School: Undocumented College Residency, Race, and Reaction. Hastings Constitutional Law Quarterly 22:1019–86.Google Scholar
Passel, Jeffrey. 2005. Estimates of the Size and Characteristics of the Undocumented Population. Report published by Pew Hispanic Center. http://pewhispanic.org/files/reports/44.pdf (accessed April 1, 2008).Google Scholar
Portes, Alejandro, and Rumbaut, Rubén G. 2001. Legacies: The Story of the Immigrant Second Generation. Berkeley: University of California Press and Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Rumbaut, Rubén G., and Portes, Alejandro, eds. 2001. Ethnicities: Children of Immigrants in America. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Sanchez, Leonel. 2001. Law Grants in-State Tuition to Undocumented Immigrants. San Diego Union-Tribune, October 12, News.Google Scholar
Sarat, Austin, and Kearns, Thomas R., eds. 1993. Beyond the Great Divide: Forms of Legal Scholarship and Everyday Life. In Law in Everyday Life, 21–62. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Swanson, Christopher B. 2005. Who Graduates in California? Report published by the Urban Institute. http://www.urban.org/url.cfm?ID=900794, (accessed April 1, 2008).Google Scholar
University of California, Office of the President. 2003. Statistical Summary of Students and Staff, University of California, Fall 2003. http://www.ucop.edu/ucophome/uwnews/stat/statsum/fall2003/statsumm2003.pdf (accessed April 1, 2008).Google Scholar