The City as Context:
Spaces of Reception in New Immigrant Destinations*
[Running Head: The City as Context]
Wendy Cadge, Brandeis University
Sara Curran, University of Washington
B. Nadya Jaworsky, Yale University
Peggy Levitt, Wellesley College and Harvard University
Jessica Hejtmanek, Harvard University
*Correspondence to:
Wendy Cadge
Department of Sociology
Brandeis University
MS 071
Waltham, MA 02454
Tel: 781-736-2641
wcadge@brandeis.edu
This research was supported by a grant from the Spiritual Capital Research Program at the
Metanexus Institute, an initiative of the John Templeton Foundation.
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The City as Context:
Spaces of Reception in New Immigrant Destinations
Abstract
This paper explores contexts of reception for post-1965 immigrants in two small New England
cities – Danbury, Connecticut and Portland, Maine – and one Pacific Northwest city – Olympia,
Washington. We investigate variation in localized contexts by focusing on five analytic axes that explain
why recent migrants have been received differently in each city: 1) cultural frames, 2) geographic
factors, 3) the political economy, 4) demographic shifts, and 5) municipal resources. While Portland has
wholeheartedly included immigrants in its political and economic agenda, Danbury has struggled with
their inclusion and has frequently been bitterly divided. In contrast, Olympia’s response is more
ambivalent; there has been little explicit recognition of their presence. We propose that variation in
contexts of reception and a mapping along five analytic axes provides theoretical and methodological
insights for better understanding immigrant incorporation and the continued paralysis around U.S.
immigration policy reform
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The City as Context:
Spaces of Reception in New Immigrant Destinations
INTRODUCTION
Immigrants are moving from traditional gateway cities such as New York, Los Angeles and
Chicago to smaller cities, many of which are new destinations in their own right. While much has been
written about how long-established urban centers receive immigrants, scholars are just beginning to
research how immigrants are integrated into smaller cities, the suburbs and rural communities.
This paper explores the context of reception for post-1965 immigrants in two small New England
cities – Danbury, Connecticut and Portland, Maine – and one Pacific Northwest city – Olympia,
Washington. Previous research about contexts of reception has focused on the nation-state as the focal
conceptual unit. However, immigrant experiences and their incorporation, as well as the promulgation
of policies and community responses to immigrants vary dramatically across physical and political
spaces within nations. In democratic contexts, these local experiences and responses also reverberate
and contribute to national debates and policies. As new immigrants increasingly move into rural
communities, towns, and small and medium sized cities (Singer 2002), these new destinations variously
accommodate, celebrate, and resist their new residents. What this means for immigrant incorporation
has yielded a flurry of descriptive research about these new settlement communities. Thus far, however,
this research has generally paid limited systematic attention to how variations in local contexts affect
immigrant incorporation (Arreola 2004; Kandel and Cromartie 2004; Kandel, Parrado and Arreola 2004;
Kandel and Parrado 2004; Kochhar, Suro and Tafoya 2005; Godzniak 2005; Hernández-León 2005;
Marrow 2005; Saenz and Torrens 2003).
We consider how these three cities have responded to the arrival of significant numbers of
newcomers over the past two decades. We find that Portland is particularly welcoming to immigrants for
several reasons not replicated in Olympia or Danbury. First, immigrants came to Portland gradually and
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from a range of different countries, meaning there was no definitive “other” against which the nativeborn population could position itself. The majority arrived with legal documents, as refugees from wartorn homelands, which made the native-born population more sympathetic. Additionally, when post1965 immigrants began to arrive Portland was in the process of reinventing itself as a choice place to
live and visit. As part of its redevelopment strategy, business and municipal leaders worked hard to
create a welcoming context that included such things as requiring city agencies to devote resources to
immigrants. The city’s reinvention also focused on arts and culture as economic engines, and its leaders
were open to multi-ethnic displays and performances as part of being a progressive, culturally-oriented
city. In these ways, Portland integrated immigrants as part of working to recreate itself as a
multicultural, welcoming, and tolerant place to live. Finally, because of its location as a port city,
Portland had a long history of contact with outsiders which further shaped immigrants’ positive
reception in the city.
Danbury stands in stark contrast to Portland in its recent reception of immigrants. Though home
to Irish, German and Italian immigrants in the nineteenth century and Lebanese, Eastern European, and
Portuguese in the twentieth century, Danbury has been less welcoming of its newest arrivals and, since
2005, has become a hotbed of anti-immigrant sentiment for several reasons. First, unlike previous
generations of immigrants, those who came to Danbury since the 1970s are primarily non-European and
include a large undocumented population (estimated at 12,000-15,000). These large numbers of Latinos
(primarily Ecuadorians and Brazilians) constitute a single threatening “other” to some native-born
residents. Second, in contrast to Portland, where city officials take an immigrant-friendly stance, the
municipal government in Danbury has not acted to welcome and settle immigrants but has often led the
charge against them. Mayor Mark Boughton attracted national attention in 2005 when he requested that
Connecticut state troopers be deputized by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to deal with
the city’s growing “illegal” population. In February of 2008, the Common Council voted to participate
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in the ICE Access Program, which would enable local police to enforce certain federal immigration
laws.
In addition, Danbury’s re-invention of itself after its main industry declined in the 1930s and
1940s involved attracting industrial development in areas such as electronics, machinery, plastics and
furniture. Unlike Portland, it did not focus on creating a new downtown or becoming a center for arts
and culture with a multiethnic flair. The city instead marketed itself as a safe and friendly community in
which to run a business or raise a family, with multiculturalism becoming a selling point only after
immigrants themselves began revitalizing the downtown area in the 1990s. Because of its inland
location, Danbury did not have a history of continuous inflows and outflows of people and goods from a
wide range of countries. But the city became a new gateway for immigrant flows, beginning with
Brazilians in the late 1980s and followed by other Latin Americans, because there were plenty of jobs
and established communities of secondary migrants that had moved from New York City. Today, the
Danbury community is deeply divided over immigration and greets immigrants with a categorically
lukewarm, if not hostile, reception. However, despite the unwelcoming environment, the immigrant
community in Danbury continues to grow, with foreign-born residents (both documented and
undocumented) representing about 35% of the population in 2000 and 44% in 2006.
Olympia, Washington, falls somewhere in between Portland and Danbury in its response to post1965 immigrants. While the city has a history of immigration, it has been decidedly ambivalent in its
reception of those immigrants depending on the time period and particular immigrant group. Since the
late 1960s, Olympia has sometimes been a celebrated place of refuge for Southeast Asians, and in the
1980s, was one of a handful of sanctuary cities for Central Americans. By the 1990s, however,
following a severe statewide economic downturn, Olympia had withdrawn its welcome mat through
English language only initiatives and other measures. In recent years, Olympia has become the home of
a growing number of Hispanic residents, including Central Americans arriving for the first time and
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Mexicans moving from either the eastern Washington agricultural counties or the dairy producing
counties around Olympia into the service sector economy of the city.
Despite the demographic changes in Olympia, the city has yet to celebrate its increasing
multiculturalism or diversity favoring other priorities. Local immigration is not a frequent topic in the
media and the resources dedicated to the immigrant community receive little attention. Olympia is often
touted as one of the top one hundred places to live and has been described as the most secure mid-sized
city and as a “fabulous place to raise your family” (Forbes 2008; Sperling 2007). Family-friendliness,
good jobs, and a pristine environment are the principal traits Olympia markets to drive its economy,
factors unrelated to immigration. Despite its geographic location as a port, and the presumably global
political, economic and cultural openness that affords, Olympia is better described as ambivalent or even
oblivious to immigrants, conceptually situated between Portland and Danbury in its response, with more
concern for creating a middle-American sensibility and defining itself in contrast to its northern
neighbors, the more cosmopolitan cities of Seattle and Vancouver.
We develop our comparison between these cities in three sections. First, we briefly review the
literature on immigration incorporation and integration, with a particular focus on new immigrant
destinations and the place-based role of social capital. We also introduce the historical context of
reception in the three cities. Second, we describe our research methods. Third, we describe how these
three cities differ along five analytic dimensions that shape the context of reception: 1) the cultural
frames or structures of meaning that serve as a collective background representation for the circulation
of discourses and symbols about immigrants, local diversity, and “illegal” entry into the country; 2)
geographic factors such as land-use, geography and the ways in which local and global flows intersect
in particular places within the cities; 3) political economy, particularly the revitalization and the
changing performances of each city’s self-identity; 4) local demographics generally and the types and
characteristics of their immigrant populations; and 5) the role of the municipality in providing services
for immigrants (or not) in each city. By analyzing each of these five dimensions we show how they
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intersect to produce a particular context of immigrant reception that goes beyond the individuals and
social networks in each locale.
THEORETICAL DEBATES
Migrants to the United States traditionally settled in one of several large U.S. cities. Since the
mid 1990s, however, they have been moving to smaller cities and rural areas (Singer 2002; Suro and
Singer 2002). Research on these new destinations has focused largely on the Midwestern and
southeastern United States where many migrants now work in the meatpacking, cattle and poultry
industries. Few scholars have looked at smaller, non-traditional urban gateways not dominated by single
industries that attract immigrants or single immigrant groups. Even fewer researchers have approached
these new geographies with a strong cultural and spatial lens, preferring to concentrate on quantitative
and survey-based methods that map out population shifts, structures of political economy, and other
factors (Godzniak and Martin 2005; Kandel and Parrado 2004; Kochhar, Suro and Tafoya 2005; Marrow
2005; Millard, Chapa and Burillo 2004; Ray and Morse 2004; Saenz and Torrens 2003). Nor have
scholars systematically chosen cities along a theoretically defined continuum from “welcoming” to
“resistant” contexts of reception. Such an approach could prove useful for not only explaining why
there is such variation, but also for generating insights about the continued paralysis of much-needed
comprehensive immigration reform in the U.S. Congress. Our study fills an important gap in the
research by focusing on cities of less than 100,000 people that attract newcomers from a variety of
countries of origin and respond to them in distinctly different ways.
Much exciting work has looked at the relationship between the size and significance of particular
cities and patterns of immigrant incorporation and settlement (Bommes and Radtke 1996; Brettell 2006;
Caglar 2006; Caglar 2007; Faist 2000; Faist and Özveren 2004; Pries 1999; Pries 2005; Rex 1996).1 We
examine the socio-spatial components of the contexts of reception by examining how immigrants in our
three research sites have been incorporated along five analytic dimensions. As Pries puts it, the
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processes that underlie the particular socio-spatial configurations of a particular place occur along
multiple dimensions – economic, political, cultural, social, technological and ecological (Pries 2005,
180-2). In other words, different spaces allow for differences in the shape and response to immigrant
arrivals and incorporation.
The literature on migration suggests that the context of reception strongly influences immigrant
incorporation. Although frequently invoked, the idea of a “context of reception” has been loosely
defined and generally studied at the national level. Frequently, it refers to immigration policies,
economic conditions or labor market needs and compares these across time or immigrant groups
(Guarnizo, Sanchez and Roach 1999; Menjívar 1995; 1997; Portes and Landolt 1996; van Amersfoort
and van Niekerk 2006). More recently, scholars have looked at contexts of reception with more focused
attention on spaces within nations, such as neighborhoods, cities or states (Bloemraad 2006; Guarnizo,
Sanchez and Roach 1999; Itzigsohn and Saucedo 2002). This approach has been expanded to include
perceptions about newcomers or an openness to immigration (Bloemraad 2006; Padín 2005), media and
discursive constructions of immigration and immigrants (Chavez 2001; Padín 2005), and local political
mobilization (Bloemraad 2006). However, these studies have not focused consistently on geography,
history, culture, politics and economics. Furthermore, these studies have not explained why contexts of
reception might vary and how these explanatory factors might influence immigrant incorporation. Our
study continues this line of research by examining how differences in the intersection of history, culture,
politics, economics and geography influence immigrant incorporation. In our conclusion, we suggest
that these approaches towards understanding localized contexts of reception can also help better theorize
and explain the formation and deployment of social capital that works to facilitate or hinder immigrant
incorporation.
CITY BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT
Portland
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Portland is Maine’s largest city and its commercial and cultural capital. The U.S. Census Bureau
estimated its population at 63,011 in 2006. Immigrants have been arriving in Portland since the early
nineteenth century. The Irish were the first to arrive in the mid-1800s, followed by French Canadians,
Portuguese and Scandinavians, and then by Italians, Eastern European Jews, Armenians, Greeks and
Poles who came at the turn of the last century (Eagan 2005). Maine’s earliest economic activities were
fishing, fur trapping and substance farming. Sawmill factories were another early, natural development
given the high percent of forested land in the state (Rose 2003).
During the first half of the twentieth century, the city of Portland and the state of Maine as a
whole, experienced steady population increases. Following World War II, however, the population and
commercial activity declined precipitously. By the 1960s, the maritime industry in Portland had reached
a low point. The population decreased by nearly 10 percent between 1960 and 1970, dropping to levels
from 50 years before. The state of Maine as a whole experienced a net out-migration of 68,789 this
decade (Benson 2004).2 These trends began to reverse themselves in the 1970s, when after nearly 100
years of out-migration, Maine began to attract in-migrants. While the pace slowed after the 1970s, inmigration to Maine has continued since then (Benson 2004). Median household income was about
$5,000 below the national average in Portland, according to the 2000 Census, and the fraction of
individuals living below the poverty line was slightly above national averages.
The influx of newcomers to Portland in recent decades resulted in part from federal immigration
legislation, local policies and, more recently, the city’s designation as a refugee resettlement site. Since
the 1970s, refugees came to Portland from Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, Cuba and the former Soviet
Republics. More recent arrivals come from Iraq, Afghanistan and the African countries of Rwanda,
Congo, Sudan and Somalia. Portland is currently home to 4,895 foreign-born residents (U.S. Census
2000), nearly a 50% increase since 1990. Fifty-three different languages are represented among the
1,172 students in the Portland public school system, which has the largest number of ESL (English as a
Second Language) students in the state. Over the last several years, Portland has also become a
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destination for refugees relocating from their original settlement sites. While there are no official figures
on these secondary migrants, unofficial estimates suggest they may be as many as 10,000, divided
between Portland and the nearby city of Lewiston (Allen 2006). Many find work in meat or fish packing
plants, other factories, or in service-based or medical professions. Though still a working port,
Portland’s economic base today is a broad mix of commercial, retail, manufacturing, and service
industries.
The City of Portland has the largest population of citizens requiring social and other services in
the state and the city has established a wide variety of service agencies. Non-profit organizations and
faith-based initiatives also do a significant amount of the work. Since 1975, Catholic Charities Maine
Refugee and Immigration Services (CCMRIS) has been the primary provider of resettlement services to
refugees in Maine (Bombardieri 2000). In addition, many city agencies have incorporated a
multicultural or immigrant/refugee component into their services, including the Housing Authority,
Health and Human Services, the Police and even the City Manager’s Office. Groups like the Immigrant
Legal Advocacy Project and the Action for Self Reliance Association, an organization founded by and
serving the Sudanese community, also play a critical role in providing for the immigrant community.
Danbury
Throughout its history, Danbury, with an estimated 2006 population of 79,463, welcomed white
ethnic groups, primarily from Ireland, Italy and Poland. After 1965, there was a steady flow of “new”
migrants, largely from Portugal. Since 1990, the number of foreign-born individuals living in Danbury,
particularly from Cambodia, India, the Dominican Republic, Brazil, Ecuador and other Central/South
American countries has increased dramatically. Today, city officials estimate that the foreign-born
represent a much larger proportion than the 34% reported by the U.S. Census Bureau for 2006, possibly
as high as 45%, bringing the actual total population of the city to well over 90,000 residents.3 The public
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school system reports enrolling students from 43 nations, representing every continent except
Antarctica, and speaking 47 different languages.4
Economically, the city shifted from early success in agriculture and artisanry during the colonial
period to being the largest hat-manufacturing center in the country by the mid-nineteenth century. In the
1930s and 1940s, when hats went out of vogue, the industry steadily declined. There were few hatters
left by the late 1950s. Thus, Danbury’s economic fortunes declined sooner than other manufacturing
cities ravaged by deindustrialization. An aggressive redevelopment plan was put into place in 1959 to
attract high technology firms, producing everything from helicopters to pencils and surgical sutures, but
it was not until the construction of two major highways, I-84 and Route 684, and the construction of the
Danbury Fair Mall that industrial and commercial growth increased (Devlin 1984).
By the late 1980s, Danbury, and its surroundings, had re-invented itself as a highly desirable,
suburban small city.5 This expansion included the growth of big-box stores and malls which sent the
downtown area into sharp decline. Beginning with a post-1965 influx from Portugal, followed by
Brazilians in the early 1990s, immigrants have been not only been key to the city’s economic
revitalization, through their work in manufacturing, construction and the service sector, they have also
played a major role in rebuilding this downtown. Today, the city’s economic picture is bright;
unemployment is low, median household income is well above the national average, and a lower
fraction of individuals live below the poverty line than nationally.6
While the city itself provides few direct services to immigrants in Danbury, there are a wide
range of nonprofit organizations working with newcomers. These organizations include civic
organizations such as The Ecuadorian and Hispanic Centers that foster community building, cultural
connections with the homeland, and more recently, have been vocal advocates for immigrants’ rights.7
Numerous religious organizations also provide assistance. The Association of Religious Communities
(ARC) helped resettle Cambodian and Vietnamese refugees in the 1970s and early 1980s and now
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focuses on fighting xenophobia and fostering inter-ethnic and inter-faith dialogues. There are also more
than a dozen Brazilian evangelical churches in Danbury that provide some direct services.
Olympia
Named after the majestic Olympic Mountains visible to the north of the city, Olympia
Washington was founded in 1850 by a Euro-American settler from Maine, Edmund Sylvester. The
original inhabitants were Native American Nisqually, Chehalis and Squaxin tribes, members of which
continue to live in the region both on and off reservations (The Olympian 2000). Early industries
included logging and fishing. As forests were cleared, the region also became a center for dairy farming.
By the 1860s, a thriving shipping industry emerged, in part fueled by the Alaska-Yukon gold rush.
Olympia’s industrial development centered along the city’s waterfront which supported thirty lumber
mills, five shingle mills, two large veneer plants and the Olympia door company at the turn of the
century (Hunt and Kaylor 1917). Besides manufacturing, there were other harbor-side industries
including fruit canning and oyster opening – both of which shipped products around the globe.
Downtown Olympia established itself very close to the port and grew throughout the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, despite the fact that the Pacific Northwest Railroad’s line from
Portland to Tacoma bypassed the city (The Olympian 2000). Eager to prove itself, Olympia managed to
successfully establish its status as the capital in 1853, thereby garnering significant state investments. By
the late 1940s, interstate highway I-5 had been built and passed close to Olympia on its route from
Portland to Seattle to Canada. And, in 1954 the state mandated that the Supreme Court and related
judicial institutions be located in Olympia.
Like the state of Washington as a whole, the city has continued to expand. It is currently one of
the fastest growing areas in the state, though its original industries – lumber, fisheries, and shipping –
have declined significantly. By the middle of the twentieth century, they had been surpassed by public
sector employment and associated service industries supporting the state infrastructure. State
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government is currently the lead employer in the area, which combined with service industries, reflect
the bulk of its economic base. Although the state is currently the largest employer, recognition of flat or
declining state revenues has also meant that city leaders have recently worked to broaden the state’s
economic base to appeal to leisure industries and retirement communities, advertising itself as a gateway
to the beauty of the Pacific Northwest, a safe place with cultural amenities associated with a welleducated population and several higher education institutions.
Olympia has reinvented itself as a destination for tourists, retirees, and people who work in
Seattle, but cannot afford the cost of living there. It attracts new businesses and residents by promoting
its amenities, including safety, services, and the natural environment. For tourists, Olympia touts its
gateway status to the picturesque Olympic Peninsula. For retirees, it promotes its four-year colleges and
rich cultural life as well as its accessible quality health care. And to commuters, Olympia offers a lower
cost of living with all the benefits of living in a thriving economic center (Thurston Economic
Development Council 2008). The median family income in Olympia is approximately the same as in
the country as a whole and poverty levels are also about average (Thurston County Economic
Development Council 2008).
The Census Bureau estimates that there were 44,645 people living in Olympia in 2006. Including
the surrounding metropolitan area, however, brings the population figures up closer to 100,000. Up
from just 1 percent in 1990, foreign-born residents numbered 7% or close to 3,000 in 2000; half are from
Asia and 16% are from Latin America. In neighboring Mason County, located to the south and east of
Olympia and including the Olympia suburbs, the foreign born represent 5% of the population or about
2,500 individuals, 43% of whom were born in Latin America.
The city of Olympia itself has a long history of immigration. Early settlers to the region were
Scandinavian, German and Eastern European Jews soon followed by Chinese and Japanese laborers,
populations that were decimated through exclusionary immigration laws, localized violence and
Japanese internment camps during World War II. Olympia later welcomed refugees from Southeast Asia
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following the Vietnam War and then via networks of former migrants and church communities a second
wave of economically motivated refugees from Vietnam. In the 1980s, Olympia briefly designated
itself as a sanctuary city for Central Americans from El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua. And, in the
1990s, Olympia became a secondary destination for Mexicans from surrounding dairy producing
counties and more Central American migrants from Guatemala and Honduras working in the agriculture,
forestry, and service industries surrounding Olympia. These immigrants have settled along the
boundaries of the city in distinct clusters with Hispanic communities to the south between the city and
the I-5 interchange (the newer areas of development) and the Asian communities to the west and north
(some of which are older and wealthier neighborhoods).
Social services for immigrants in Olympia are provided by a fairly equal mix of faith-based,
private nonprofit organizations, and public sector social service agencies. Interestingly, educational
institutions appear to provide significant glue for immigrant support networks. South Puget Sound
Community College and Evergreen State College provide resources and motivational energy for
community organizing. Both colleges provide volunteers and regularly host heritage community
celebrations, actively link student heritage groups with community heritage groups, and offer forums on
immigrant concerns and rights. While the role these educational institutions have played waxes and
wanes due to student and faculty turnover, they constitute a very different source of social capital than in
Danbury or Portland. For new Hispanic immigrants, resources have come not only from educational
institutions but also from well-established statewide Hispanic associations based in Olympia, also in
contrast to Portland and Danbury.
RESEARCH METHODS
Our analysis of immigrants’ receptions in these cities is based on historical data gathered through
published sources, a review of local newspapers, and approximately ninety in-depth interviews
conducted between the summer of 2006 and the summer of 2008 with individuals representing
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approximately thirty organizations working with immigrants in each city. Organizations included
municipal groups, social service organizations, civic groups and religious and faith-based organizations
that we identified using snowball samples developed through existing contacts and listings in local
directories. Interviews followed the same interview guide in each city which included questions about
the purpose, history and mission of the organization as well as they services they offer, their client
populations, and their experiences and observations about immigrants’ experiences in the city.
Interviews lasted between fifty minutes and two hours and were digitally recorded and transcribed by
professional transcribers.
These interviews were supplemented with reviews of published information about each
organizations and participant observation in relevant locations. In Portland, a researcher volunteered
with Portland’s Office of Multicultural and Multilingual Programs and visited religious services
attended by immigrants in the city. In Danbury, a researcher conducted field observations at social
events, political rallies and fundraisers throughout the city and volunteered at a Portuguese-language
newspaper. And in Olympia a researcher volunteered with the Hispanic Youth Commission, attended
festivals, and visited with religious communities. The locations of participant observation varied in each
city as required to best observe and interact with immigrants and native-born residents.
The historical and qualitative interview data gathered was analyzed inductively following the
principles of grounded theory (Strauss & Corbin 1990). The authors worked collaboratively using AtlasTI software to develop and refine a set of codes, working together with intra- and inter-city cross checks
to ensure that our analytic categories were consistently applied across interviews as well as cities. The
coded data were read in parallel with historical materials to facilitate our understandings of each city’s
particular context.
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EXPLAINING VARIATIONS IN CONTEXTS OF RECEPTION
While both northeastern locales position themselves publicly as multicultural havens, in
Portland, immigrants have generally been integrated into the social fabric, while in Danbury, immigrant
incorporation has been problematic and tense. Olympia does not make claims about immigrant
incorporation or multiculturalism, and immigrants are hardly visible within the city’s current selfconceptualization. We argue that a constellation of factors explain these different contexts of reception
including cultural frames, geographic factors, local political economies, demographic shifts, and
municipal resources. We outline each of these analytic axes in turn.
Cultural Factors
A number of cultural frames or structures of meaning about “diversity” and the increasing
heterogeneity of the population were consistently evoked in each northeastern city. They were mobilized
differently, however, both at the individual and collective levels.
Both Danbury and Portland have expressed a strong sense of pride in being tolerant,
multicultural communities. Ideas such as “America is a nation of immigrants,” and “Multiculturalism is
good for our community” were firmly embedded in the collective cultural reservoir of these largely
liberal, middle-class cities. The City of Danbury’s website welcomes visitors in four languages besides
English,8 and the Mayor often cites the linguistic diversity of the city’s public school system in public
speeches and printed materials designed to attract businesses and families to the area. The City of
Portland similarly lists multicultural sports tournaments and cultural events by and for a range of ethnic
groups on their webpage, in addition to the wide range of services they make available to immigrants.
This is one way the city has used diversity and multiculturalism as a tool to promote urban revitalization,
creating an environment that not only allows for but also thrives because of its diverse population. Its
efforts to become a culturally vibrant, livable city have not gone unnoticed by the media. For the past
decade, Portland has been recognized by national magazine and survey centers as one of the best places
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to live in the United States, with the city webpage describing it as “one of the 10 safest, culturally most
fascinating cities.” The value of diversity is also evident in website content and strategic planning
documents. The city’s immigrants/refugees are often referred to in these documents and by
organizational and city staff as “new Mainers,” a testament to the conscious effort to minimize a
negative otherness that often comes with an immigrant label. In individual interviews conducted with
city leaders in Portland, people’s appreciation for its diversity and cultural cosmopolitanism was
expressed over and over again.
Olympia stands in contrast to these northeast, liberal cities. Olympia’s openness to cultural
diversity has ebbed and flowed and a current welcome to immigrants is not evident on the city’s
webpages. In December 1990, the city council unanimously adopted resolution M1303 – City of
Olympia’s Commitment to Awareness of and Sensitivity to Cultural Diversity. The resolution was to be
implemented by a committee that was appointed to address these issues throughout the city.
Interestingly, the committee was charged with addressing both cultural diversity and human rights, and
it has focused as much on older immigrant communities, such as the Japanese and Chinese, as it has on
new immigrants. City websites and services are not routinely offered in multiple languages, although
some attention has been given to multi-language services in the local newspaper – The Olympian. Issues
of community safety and health prompted these responses, but they were put in place at the same time
that the state was also deeply embroiled in a debate about English-only language initiatives.
Currently, the predominant framing about cultural heritage and success in Olympia celebrates
how perseverance and hard work, whether by Euro-American settlers or Vietnamese refugees, leads to
rewards and achievement. The American ideal of pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps is referenced
frequently – whether during walking tours of its historic neighborhoods or in reflections on Olympia’s
history. A review of media coverage about immigrants in the city’s newspaper, The Olympian, also
reflects ambivalence towards its newcomers and little evidence that the city is actively working to
recruit or welcome them.
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Geographic Factors
In addition to their broad cultural messages, each city’s spatial characteristics, including land-use
policies, geography and the ways in which local and global flows intersect, influence how immigrants
are received. As a port, Portland has been at the intersection of such flows throughout its history, thereby
requiring its residents to adapt continuously to newcomers. Economic relationships between the West
Indies and Portland, for example, began in the early colonial period and turned the city into a key
international port (Sanders & Helfgot 1977). Early on, Portland businesspeople saw the potential for
trade, particularly in rum and molasses with the West Indies. By 1853, as a result of these close
relationships, Portland imported three times more sugar and molasses than Boston. These tight trade
connections with the West Indies promoted immigration from Cuba and other areas in Latin America.
According to the 1850 census, Portland had residents from Ecuador, Argentina, Guyana, Jamaica and
Martinique. One scholar, David Carey has argued that the close relationship between Portland and the
West Indies encouraged Portlanders to, “recognize themselves as global citizens and resist isolationist
tendencies,” which he claims made Portland later more welcoming to Hispanic immigrants (2005, 100).
As a result, Portland has been producing “cultural citizens” since the 1800s. In particular, the rise
in tourism in the last fifty years means that Portland constantly hosts newcomers – as many as 6,000
visitors disembark from cruise ships on any given summer afternoon. There are also several sites
throughout the city that function as what Elijah Anderson (2004) calls “cosmopolitan canopies,” or
places where people come into contact with one another and engage in conversation and "folk
ethnography" that serves as a cognitive and cultural basis for understanding others and constructing
public behavior. International groceries and restaurants, from Eritrean to Salvadoran, are situated
throughout the city and patronized not only by immigrants but also by a diverse group of native-born
Mainers who also attend citywide cultural events and programs throughout the year. Interviewees told
stories about the richness that immigrant and refugees have brought to Portland.
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Many respondents, including the immigrants and refugees themselves, described their positive
contribution to the community and the overall spirit of Portland. They take pride that the city is a “good
place to live,” especially compared to nearby Lewiston, which has not given nearly as warm a welcome
to its new immigrant community. This interest in welcoming “new Mainers” was particularly evident in
the responses we received to questions about how immigrants are treated in Portland. One interviewee
summed up a certain ethos embodied within the culture of the city, “I think as far as being accepted on
the street in general…it’s pretty darn good. I would say the majority of people think it’s pretty
neat….such a mixed bag of people [are] moving in from out of state. And it’s relatively cosmopolitan…
[F]or a teeny little city like this, we’re pretty hip.” A majority of the refugees we interviewed concurred.
One said, “If one to ten, I will give [Portland] a ten…as a great welcoming place,” and another asserted,
“[Portland has] turned out to be a hospitable place; I found that to be the truth.”
Geography also played a large role in how immigrants have been received in Danbury. The city’s
location as the “Gateway to New England” has been responsible for virtually all the major historical
shifts in its economy and demography. Because it was strategically located on the way to New York for
colonial settlers making the arduous two-week trek from Boston, Danbury enjoyed a brisk trade in
agricultural goods and hospitality services. When the first rail line opened in 1852, it provided easy
access to the raw materials and coal power that drove the explosive growth of the hat making industry in
the 1700s. Because hatting was a highly labor-intensive process, its expansion was never really
“industrialization” per se. Instead, it created an attractive destination for immigrants – from the Irish
fleeing the Potato Famine in the 1840s, followed by Germans and Italians. At that time, there was no
question about accommodating immigrants – Danbury’s store clerks rushed to learn the German
language so they could serve the burgeoning immigrant population. And in the 1870s, when the city
experienced a small slump, the German community revitalized” Main Street, opening various businesses
– tailor shops, bakeries, taverns, and of course, wonderful breweries. Toward the end of the eighteenth
century, Eastern European Jews and Arabs brought more religious, and (at the time) “racial” diversity,
19
with Poles, Slovaks, Czechs, as well as Lebanese and Syrians. As the twentieth century dawned upon
Danbury, the majority of its residents came from other countries.
Further, hat making was not only done in large factories – even Danbury’s farmers opened up
small hatting shops in their backyards. This helped contain the “center” of town, keeping it a very tightknit community, both spatially and socially. Although the city of Danbury was incorporated in 1889, and
a century later, saw a major interstate highway run through it, to this day it retains a small-town
atmosphere. But today, Main Street is no longer the typical New England thoroughfare. A majority of
the storefronts now have signs in Portuguese or Spanish, ethnic restaurants abound, and businesses
catering specifically to immigrants, including travel agencies, money transfer outlets and international
groceries, among others, dominate the landscape. In a sense, Danbury’s downtown is a microcosm of the
“Hispanicized” America that Samuel Huntington (2004) warns of – an imagined space of “invasion” by
“illegal” foreigners – or at least that is how some native-born residents experience it.
These tensions were evident among some native Danburians comments and ambivalence, if not
disdain, for their newly rejuvenated downtown, claiming it has little to offer them as a result of its
Spanish and Portuguese language focus and spatial separation. A life-long resident and President of the
U.S. Citizens for Immigration Law Enforcement told us, “You can go down Main Street, and look at the
changes. An awful lot of different people walking around, rather than strictly Americans… [It’s] not
dangerous – just that there’s just nothing there –no reason for Americans to go.” While there is not much
actual danger and crime levels are very low, the perception of fear persists, as does a sense of
incomprehensibility for many residents who cannot shop where they do not understand what they are
buying or where the storekeepers do not speak English. At the same time, Main Street is the proud
domain of post-1965 immigrants, and many respondents in our sample, both foreign- and native-born
alike, emphasized how devastated Main Street had been until the immigrants came in and revitalized it.
Despite its geographic location as a port oriented towards Asia, Olympia’s outlook has not been
as consistently global or focused on immigrants as one might expect. Instead, Olympia’s character is
20
quite different from its more cosmopolitan, northern metropolitan neighbors of Seattle and Vancouver.
The city’s importance as a port was diminished several times, first with the movement of the federal
government’s port authority office to Port Townsend and then Seattle in the mid-1900s, and second with
the loss of a highway linkage between Portland and Tacoma that bypassed Olympia. Instead, the city
relies on the public sector to drive its economy and, in contrast to Seattle and Vancouver, bills itself as a
safe, affordable place to settle with a rich cultural and educational life.
Furthermore, the layout of the city works against the integration of its various economic and
cultural traits. Several geophysical features dissect the city into distinct parts. There is a large lake on
the west side of the city that separates wealthier neighborhoods from the downtown area, and it is
difficult to get to the downtown area by foot from these neighborhoods. Residents of these western
suburbs tend to organize their daily routines around a narrow set of shops. This is where many of the
Vietnamese immigrants reside and work. On the eastern side, the I-5 interstate bounds the sense of the
city, creating a significant barrier to downtown access, despite several underpasses and three exits. Here,
malls and lower-income tract housing dominate the landscape. This is where many of the Hispanic
immigrants live. Finally, Olympia’s downtown offers limited residential opportunities, dominated
instead by state government buildings and a redeveloped port for leisure boats. Thus, the spatial
distribution of the city yields segregation as the path of least resistance and increases the invisibility of
economic and cultural diversity described by some community members.
As a whole, and perhaps because it is the state capital, Olympia has often looked inward,
positioning itself relative to other cities in the state. The city’s political coup to become the state capital
has been overshadowed by its perpetual second- or third-class city status, particularly with respect to the
global aspirations of Seattle. Careful readings of publicity material offer simultaneous interpretations of
the city as different from Seattle (safer, cheaper or affordable, more manageable, greener) and similar to
Seattle (vibrant culturally and economically and high quality of life (especially its K-16 schools)).
Furthermore, city life has a weekly and annual ebb and flow cycle depending on state legislative
21
sessions (legislators often leave town on the weekend and/or for the summer), which empties it regularly
and reinforces the lack of a downtown core. In addition, redevelopment has not taken an urban growth
approach that emphasizes increased density and mixed-use, including investing in residential
opportunities (such as in Portland, Oregon). Thus, the professional class lives to the west or north of the
city, where suburban growth has been greatest and the downtown city life is inconsistently vibrant, often
empty during legislative “off times.”
Political Economy and Shifting Self-Identity
A third factor influencing the different ways these cities received immigrants is each city’s
economic revitalization and shifting self-identity over the past three decades. In Portland, a long period
of stagnation, suburbanization, city center disinvestment and job loss characterized the first half of the
1900s. Revitalization began in the early 1970s, when grassroots activists and business owners interested
in historic preservation, affordable housing and improving the built environment, along with business
owners looking to infuse the city with new life, joined forces. As more housing and historic buildings
were restored, Portland attracted more people, especially members of the artistic and gay communities.
Larger businesses also played a key role during these early years by relocating to the downtown area.
The city actively promoted these efforts, making streetscape, sidewalk, lighting and other improvements
to public spaces. Projects to support an “arts and culture” initiative were implemented, such as
performance centers, museums and public art pieces.
Today, downtown Portland is an eclectic mix of restaurants, galleries, boutiques, and
international shops and services that contribute to Portland’s self-image as a diverse, progressive,
cultural center. These venues border a still active port which hosts a mix of cargo ships, ferries, as well
as large tourist cruise liners and sightseeing boats. While Portland is a work in progress, grappling with
issues such as housing, homelessness, and economic sustainability, it has become not only a tourist
22
destination for international and out-of-state visitors but also a destination for people throughout the
state who see Portland as a vibrant, cosmopolitan, culturally diverse hub.
Danbury’s economic shifts and the story it tells about itself is somewhat different. Its primary
selling point today is as a good place to live and conduct business. After the hatting industry declined in
the late 1950s, the city worked steadily to reinvent itself as one of the nation’s premier small cities –
notably, a multicultural one. However, this trend shifted into reverse as the debates about illegal
immigration escalated, especially since 2005. Danbury still wants diversity but only a certain kind and
at a certain level. The same year Mayor Boughton appeared on Lou Dobbs Live to discuss Danbury’s
immigrant “problem,” he also created the city’s Office of Economic Development (OED), to
“communicate the message that Danbury is a premier place to live, work, and raise a family in a
traditional yet progressive community.”9
In contrast to Portland and Danbury, which include immigrants in their economic development
plans and self-representations, Olympia’s revitalization plan focuses on its amenities and its
attractiveness to tourists, retirees and potential commuters. Immigrants’ role as a source of historical or
contemporary diversity is not stressed. A revitalized port now services pleasure boats rather than
container ships, and future revitalization plans focus on sustainability, green industry, and low-impact
growth to protect the city’s natural resource endowment. While the immigrant population and the ethnic
business base, have increased dramatically, their impact on the overall city economy remains low. The
large Vietnamese community’s limited economic and cultural organization reflects its diversity.
Buddhists, Catholics, and Baptists or pre-communist escapees and political refugees versus more recent
economic refugees create divisions in the community that have not been easily overcome (Buhain 2006).
Economic status also divides Vietnamese communities; there are some very successful Vietnamese
community members compared to lower income members, who tend to be more recent immigrants.
Recent growth among Hispanics has attracted attention from already established stakeholders across the
state, including relatively well-organized economic communities from the east and from Seattle.
23
Recognition of their high rates of growth and likely future importance prompted the establishment of the
Olympia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in June 2008 but this has not yet translated into a core
component of the city’s self identity (Boone 2008).
Demographic Factors
The demographic histories of all three cities and the nature of earlier immigrant influxes also
influence their particular context of reception. A prime example of potential differences is presence
(seeming or actual) of an easily identifiable (racial or otherwise) “other,” around which anti-immigrant
sentiment and fear might coalesce rather a range of small, less intimidating or penetrating groups.
As described earlier, immigrants from a wide range of countries, including Cambodia, Vietnam,
Eastern Europe, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, Rwanda and Somalia, have come to Portland – there has
never been one large “other.” Moreover, since 1965, the largest groups of immigrants to Portland have
been refugees, leading at least some native-born residents and leaders to see them as the “deserving
poor” rather than cultural “invaders” who overuse services and resources. This orientation came across
in discussions with service providers who spoke about cultural differences that created “problems,”
which they tried to address in ways they described as “helpful” or “instructive,” rather than being critical
or judgmental. They did not see immigrants as inherently flawed or problematic, but rather as needing
guidance and education. Some clients simply “did not know any better,” for which they should not be
blamed. For instance, when immigrants were unfamiliar with what could or could not be flushed down
the toilet or where small children could safely play on their own in Portland, service agencies developed
programs to teach them these skills. They taught them how to live in an “American” apartment, how to
shop for groceries they had never seen before and how to prepare vegetables they had never eaten.
Service providers’ attitudes and values caused them to respond in ways that increased social capital
generation, because they saw their role as educating immigrants and providing them with the
connections and skills to function successfully on their own.
24
From the mid-1700s, Danbury has also been demographically diverse; early on as home to many
“new” religious groups in a staunch Congregationalist state, and later, to large numbers of immigrants.
Danbury also fought to maintain this pluralism peacefully. In 1801, it was the Danbury Baptists that
wrote to Thomas Jefferson about their marginalization under state law, prompting the oft-cited remark
about the need for building a “wall between Church and State.” During a state-wide climate of Nativism
during the 1850s, the Know-Nothing Party couldn’t gain a foothold in the city. Nor could the Ku Klux
Klan more than a century later, when race riots at Danbury High School threatened the community’s
broad-minded stance concerning minorities. But things changes after 1965 –just prior to national
legislative changes that would allow the influx of “new” immigrants, Danbury, unlike Portland, was
already in recovery from its mid-1900s economic downturn. From 1950-1980, the city doubled in size
(30,337-60,470), with people coming to work in the new high-tech industries that opened in the region.
In the early 1980s, a survey revealed that 30 percent of residents had lived in the city for less than five
years (Devlin 1984, p. 102).
However, this new in-migration was largely U.S. born and “white,” even taking into account the
steady influx of Portuguese immigrants. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the number of “white”
residents in the city changed little over this period, remaining at 90 percent or more. Today, it stands
“officially” at 73 percent, dipping perhaps as low as 65% if the undocumented immigrant population is
included. Thus, the city faces a strong challenge to its viable multiculturalism from racist and “antiimmigrant” forces who depict the large numbers of foreign-born as “non-white,” threatening “other,” or
as Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist puts it, a “Trojan Horse” that inevitably will release the forces bent
on destroying the very fabric of not only the city, but also the entire world (Gilchrist and Corsi 2006).
Olympia’s population has grown steadily since its founding. Chinese migrants arrived soon after
the first European settlers to work in the lumber camps, harvest shellfish, and do manual labor, but by
the late nineteenth century, they were forbidden to immigrate (Hunt and Kaylor 1917). Today, few
notable remnants remain of the small Chinatown that persisted through the 1940s or of the Japanese
25
community, whose fortunes overlapped with the Chinese until its members were forced into internment
camps during World War II (Stevenson 1985). In the early 1970s, the first wave of Vietnamese refugees
arrived, facilitated by Olympia’s status as a refugee resettlement site, followed by another in the late
1970s-early 1980s. The same agencies that settled so many refugees successfully later established
Olympia as a sanctuary city for Central Americans during the 1980s.
By the end of the 1980s, economic decline in the region led refugee resettlement to become less
appealing and the welcome mat was withdrawn. A resurgence in the late 1990s and the ripple effect of
Seattle’s economic boom, attracted a new wave of economically motivated migrants to Olympia, driving
significant Hispanic growth between 1990 and 2000, from Guatemala and Honduras, along with
Mexicans moving from eastern Washington where they had been employed as migrant agricultural
workers. Another group of Hispanic migrants moved in from surrounding counties where they had been
employed in the declining dairy industry. Thus, several different waves, representing a mix of economic
and political refugees and immigrants, encountered each other. Because these diverse newcomers
exhibited different needs that generated different responses, it is difficult to classify the city’s response
monolithically. Civil and religious organizations helped settle the first wave of Southeast Asian
refugees and then helped establish the city’s sanctuary status in the 1980s for Central American
refugees. Between these two periods and afterwards, however, the contexts of reception for economic
migrants have been less organized. Furthermore, because these newcomers arrive from different parts of
the world, and bring diverse natural affinities and commonalities with them, they have not created
coherent collectivities. Instead, debates abound within the Vietnamese community about displaying
homeland Vietnamese flags (at the time there was both a North and South Vietnam) or whether to
promote transnational ties with the Vietnamese government. Religious communities also divide the
Southeast Asian community. Similarly, among Hispanic community members, Central American
refugees with legal status have different needs than more recent undocumented immigrants from Mexico
and Guatemala. And, as these communities have not garnered ethnic solidarity or identity, neither have
26
there been specific opportunities created by city leaders or through civil society for immigrants to
collectively raise their voices or display their cultural heritage. An annual citywide, summer festival
includes a handful of booths serving Vietnamese and Mexican fare, among hundreds, with no
celebration of local cultural heritages. Throughout our field work, when project personnel described the
study to non-immigrants, Olympian residents were often surprised by their own city’s diversity, “I had
no idea we had many Vietnamese or Mexican immigrants.”
Municipal Responses
Finally, how each city has officially responded to immigrants has influenced their reception.
Portland has made an ongoing effort to increase and improve the services it offers immigrants. As early
as the 1970s, the city developed many programs – a Multicultural and Multilingual Department in the
school system, a Minority Health Division, and an Office of Immigrant and Refugees Service, as well as
staff positions such as the Multicultural Affairs Officer in the City Manager’s office and an Immigrant
and Refugee Liaison in the Police Department. These staffs have proactively applied for funding to
maintain and expand their services. Over the past two decades, the number of nonprofits and other
groups serving the immigrant and refugee communities has increased. Various organizations now offer
ESL, translators and interpreters and special events where people can learn about the many services
offered in Portland.
A number of Danbury’s municipal departments provide services to immigrants, including ESL
programs in the public schools, the Adult Education Program, and a state-of-the-art language center at
the Public Library, as well as healthcare provision through the Visiting Nurses Association and the
School-Based Healthcare Services, but there is no office for immigrants or refugees as such, nor is there
a multicultural program as in Portland. In fact, there is a growing concern about City departments
“cracking down” on immigrants, such as the Unified Neighborhood Inspection Team (the UNIT), which
27
identifies housing violations such as overcrowding or too many cars at a particular residence. And those
inclined toward an “anti-immigrant sentiment” make regular calls to report “illegals’” infractions.
Moreover, the Danbury Common Council recently voted to enter into a partnership with the
Department of Homeland Securities Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) program under
section 287(g) of the federal immigration code. The ICE ACCESS program would train police
department members to enforce certain aspects of immigration law. Danbury’s police chief Al Baker
asserts "the focus of our participation would be on crimes committed by illegal immigrants." But the
legal director of the state chapter of the ACLU worries about the “vagueness” of this position stating,
“It's entirely possible they will have the authority to ask anybody what they're immigration status
is…There have been cases in other parts of the country where ICE has stopped people simply because
they are foreigners." Concerns about racial profiling, and about creating fear and panic among
immigrants, are on the increase, both on the ground and in media discourse, with protests, op-eds, and
on-line forums exploding into controversy.
Olympia’s programmatic response to immigrants reflects the ebb and flow of its own fortunes
and a lack of centralization. A recent city council initiative to become a sanctuary city for undocumented
immigrants was soundly defeated. Nevertheless, individual municipal units from police departments to
libraries and schools have introduced programs to connect with the diverse communities in their
jurisdictions, whether documented or undocumented immigrants. Libraries offer services in multiple
languages, reading materials from a variety of sources, and special information programs. Schools have
also responded through changes in curriculum. As mentioned, institutions of higher learning have also
assumed clear leadership. One organization provides a wide variety of services to Spanish speakers,
including cultural sensitivity training for municipal and state social service providers. However, these
efforts are not coordinated citywide. To the extent that the city celebrates diversity, it does so through
historic markers, such as the recent installation of a Chinatown historical marker and a Japanese garden.
28
CONCLUSIONS
This paper describes how five factors influence the contexts of reception that are differentially
conducive to immigrant incorporation in three small cities. The particular history, geography, political
economy, demographics and governmental structure within each place produce a distinct set of
resources that facilitate or inhibit immigrant incorporation in ways that cannot be reduced to a single
causal mechanism. Recognizing the multiple factors that shape immigrant incorporation in small cities
and how they are spatially situated is an important, under-explored part of the debates surrounding the
contexts of reception for immigrant incorporation.
Rather than single causes, attention to the socio-spatial dimensions of small cities led us to
identify distinctive features and dynamics that shaped immigrants’ reception. While we cannot say for
sure how economic migrants rather than refugees would have been received in Portland or how the city
of Danbury would have responded if refugees rather than large numbers of undocumented immigrants
began to call the city home, this article clearly shows that other factors would have also played a part.
These factors are also present in Olympia, even as it has received both refugees as well as documented
and undocumented immigrants. Thus, our systematic comparison of each city over time and along five
conceptual domains suggests that other factors matter, independent of immigrant status. The history of
each city and its interactions with immigrants and others, the geographic location of the city and how the
city itself is laid out, and where the city is economically and how it conceptualizes its economic revival
play important roles in shaping the context of reception. In the end, it is the interactions between
immigrants themselves and the places where they settle that spatially shape how they are received and
the ways in which they come to call small cities home.
Immigrants who are primarily refugees have been generally integrated into the social fabric in
Portland as a result of their gradual arrival in the city, that they come from a wide range of countries of
origin, the city’s history and geographic location as a port, and the city’s efforts to revitalize itself as a
diverse, progressive, cultural center. In Danbury, immigrant incorporation has been more problematic,
29
largely as a result of significant numbers of undocumented Latino immigrants and geographic divisions
between the public spaces traversed by immigrants and native-born people in the city. Olympia falls
between Portland and Danbury in its reception, largely overlooking immigrants because of the
geographic layout of the city that makes it difficult to create strong, cohesive communities, the
municipal political economy in relation to other cities and to the state, and the different ways in which
prior waves of economically and politically motivated migrants have been received.
Our systematically organized description helps explain the vastly different contexts of reception
across the United States and the continuing political paralysis about badly-needed reform of current
immigration laws. If Portland, Danbury, and Olympia offer three cases of significant variance in
immigrant reception and incorporation, then the many cities and towns greeting new immigrants are also
creating and forging their own mixed responses. Understanding and elaborating these responses will not
only help explain immigrant incorporation more generally, but also explain how U.S.-born Americans
continue to be troubled and torn by how to respond to large numbers of immigrants arriving into the
country.
By comparing cities that vary in their responses to immigrants our study also opens the
theoretical and methodological door to exploring how socio-spatially elaborated contexts of reception
might shape immigrant social capital – another key concept deployed to explain immigrant
incorporation. To date, the ideas of contexts of reception and social capital have been separately utilized
to explain immigrant incorporation, as if unrelated to one another. Whereas the concepts associated
with the contexts of reception have primarily focused on policies and programs, the concept of social
capital has been used to illuminate aspects of immigrants’ experiences, particularly their use of social
relations and networks to generate cohesive collectivities (see among others, Brettell 2005; Cheong et al.
2006; Ebaugh 2004; Hardwick 2003; McLellan and White 2005). While this is not a new idea Durkheim (1915) long ago pointed to the benefits of group association and solidarity - contemporary
formulations have quickly caught on among scholars and the broader public who focus on the positive
30
consequences of sociability and the non-economic resources it affords policymakers (Portes 1998).
Articulated by Bourdieu (1984a; 1984b) and others (Coleman 1988; Loury 1977), theorizing about
social capital has exploded in recent years.
Discussions about social and other forms of capital in the immigrant context have paid little
attention to its spatial production. Instead, they have analyzed how forms of capital operate differently
through different kinds of individual relations and social networks. Our study, which points to the
importance of socio-spatial variability in explaining contexts of reception might also contribute to
theorizing about the socio-spatial components of social capital production, hitherto under-theorized.
Thus, our three-city study lays the groundwork for exploring how immigrants and the organizations
working with them might variously navigate the cityscape to either create opportunities or avoid the
pitfalls of incorporation. Thus, while we have found that histories of immigration, the imperatives of
political economy, and the geography of places condition and shape contexts of receptions, we also
suspect that these same forces also forge or inhibit the production of immigrant social capital. In
preliminary analyses, not reported here, organizations working with migrants and immigrants
themselves articulate idiosyncratic, contextual challenges associated with mobilizing social capital
resources on behalf of immigrants. Our future research will explore the possibility of explaining these
differences using a framework similar to the one outlined in this paper.
Thus, we suggest that future research might productively bring into conversation the immigrant
social capital literature, the immigrant contexts of reception literature and the body of work that
encompasses the production of social spaces, the scale or positioning of cities within hierarchies of
power, and the centrality of space in the migration experience. This scholarship would build upon the
initial formulations of Henri Lefebvre (1991) who conceived of space as a social product, a complex
construction based on values and the social production of meanings, which affects spatial practices and
perceptions (see Brenner 1999; 2004; Rex 1996; Smith 1993; Swyngedouw 1997, among others). In
other words, place-specific contexts matter – spaces become actual places when particular global flows
31
converge – be they material or ideational. The nature of migrant embeddedness, as well as modes of
incorporation, therefore, depends on previous cultures and histories probably shaping both the contexts
of reception, as we have shown here, and the formation and deployment of social capital. Migrants’
place-making ability, and how they go about it, is shaped by prior cultural intersections in any given
place and how they are articulated over time (Glick Schiller and Levitt 2006; Patterson 2006).
32
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ENDNOTES
Also, see the other articles in the special issue of Innovation (1996, Vol. 9) titled “Multiculturalism
and Political Integration in European Cities.”
2
When the natural increase resulting from births is included in this data, Maine’s’ population increased
by 26,488 during this same period.
3
See for example, “Danbury Mayor Acts on A Serious Problem,” Associated Press, Apr 17, 2005 and
Robert Miller, “Danbury Task Force to concentrate on planning,” The NewsTimes, Feb 03, 2007. In
addition, we rely on personal communication with Danbury’s mayor, Mark Boughton and community
leaders.
4
Swift, Mike. “A Worldly Place: Flood of immigrants bring international flavor, age-old problems to
Danbury (Census 2000 Workshop).” Hartford Courant, 13 January 2002. According to the Mayor,
there are currently 47 languages spoken in the Danbury public school system.
5
Danbury was voted #1 “City to Live In” in 1988 by Money Magazine, falling to #8 in 2003 on a list
of 331 U.S. metropolitan areas rated as “America's Best Places to Live” by MSN House & Home.
Until last year, Danbury also had the lowest overall crime rate and lowest property crime rate in the
nation (for small cites). See (Sperling and Sander 2004) and small-city crime ratings at
http://www.bestplaces.net/docs/studies/crime1.aspx
6
Figures are for 2007, from the Connecticut Economic Resource Center, Inc.
(http://products.cerc.com/pdf/tp/danbury.pdf)
7
Over the past two years, there have been a number highly publicized “sweeps,” by Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE). The most recent was the arrest of day laborers who entered a van
expecting to be taken to a job site, and were instead taken into federal custody. The immigrants’ rights
community has responded vigorously, dubbing the seized Ecuadorian men as the “Danbury 11.”
8
French, Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese.
9
See the OED’s website at http://www.ci.danbury.ct.us/content/41/1151/default.aspx. This initiative
was implemented just months after Danbury made national headlines when he requested that state
troopers be deputized as federal immigration officers to deal with the city’s growing illegal population.
1
37