The children of immigrants who arrived in the United States in the 1980s now make up one of the fastest growing components of American society. They face unique and interesting pressures as they incorporate aspects of their parents' heritage into their contemporary American lives. The purpose of this dissertation is to offer an in-depth look at the 1.5 and second generation by examining how the immigrant descendants negotiate assimilative pressures, transnational practices, and ethnic identification. Using ethnographic research methods, such as participant observation and in-depth interviews, I researched the children of immigrants, ages 18-30, living in northwest Arkansas, who have at least one immigrant parent from Latin America. This research is important because non-traditional receiving towns, especially more rural localities, are often overlooked by scholarly studies of migration in favor of larger metropolitan centers (e.g., Los Angeles, Chicago). Studying immigrant descendants in smaller towns that are becoming increasingly populated by Hispanic/Latinos will create a better understanding of how a new generation of immigrants is assimilating into American society and culture. To increase awareness on the Hispanic/Latino 1.5 and second generation living in small town America and to offer potential solutions to facilitate an upwardly mobile future for this population, my dissertation explores a number of research questions. First, how is this population assimilating to the U.S.? Second, are members of the 1.5 and second generation transnational? How active is this transnational lifestyle? Will transnationalism persist as they grow older? Third, how does this population identify themselves ethnically? I also pay particular attention to the relationships among assimilation, transnationalism, and ethnic identity. My dissertation documents the lived experiences of the 1.5 and second generation in northwest Arkansas. The children of immigrants are one of the fastest growing groups nationwide. To understand their world and the lives they lead is to understand the new fabric of American society. I anticipate that the results from this research can be used to facilitate easier transitions to the U.S. among current and prospective immigrant generations, ensuring a brighter outlook for the future of the newest members of U.S. society.

This dissertation examines incidents of conflict and violence amid communities of the Maya Tzotzil Chamula in Chiapas, Mexico. Despite ostensible homogeneity, or more social and cultural resemblances than differences, conflicts arise between many Chamula because of how they acquire desire according to others who mediate what is desirable. These conflicts relate well to Rene Girard's hypothesis that mimetic desire influences identity yet generates conflict as imitation fosters rivalry. Qualitative methods of participant observation, interviews, and document research depict how desire, identity, and conflict interrelate. Ethnographic cases show how conflict emerges "interdividually" as rivals compete to obtain objects imputed desirable. The study begins with how young Tzotzils today appropriate the desires of others, becoming lawyer, spiritual guide, rock and roll singer, or anthropologist. Complex examples exhibit groups struggling for power and privilege within or between members of communities as they vie over "objects of desire" such as status, land, water, or representations of power and pecuniary interests. For some Chamula, mimetic rivalry works to deny resemblances with others despite being alike as neighbor, relative, farmer, carpenter, or member of the same political or religious affiliation. The study also highlights mimetic interactions that have shaped Maya struggles in the past, such as the uprisings of 1712, 1867, and 1911. Interpretive analysis explores how identity formation (structures), imitative desire (motivated interaction), and practice (habitual agency) together galvanize material and psychosocial variables for conflict. Imitative desire is worth observing because of its long-term implications for human adaptation and social change. As a contribution to social conflict theory, this dissertation offers a critical perspective to current research on mimetic desire as a significant force in human relations.

On May 12, 2009, hundreds of Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) raided Agriprocessors, a meat packing plant in the sleepy town of Postville, Iowa, and arrested 389 workers. These workers, primarily Spanish speaking immigrants from Guatemala and Mexico, were charged with felony aggravated identity theft. This criminalization of immigration is a critical point in immigration policy in the United States, representing a ritual performance of the exclusion of immigrants from American society. In stark juxtaposition to the raid itself, the community of Postville was working to welcome the very immigrants that were targeted by ICE. In attempts at inclusion, Postville had created an adult soccer league that provided a sense of community and identity for immigrants. Using the classic anthropological method of ethnography, this research draws on extensive time immersed in the community of Postville to conduct a qualitative case study of the day-to-day meanings of immigration in the United States. This dissertation examines the adult soccer league and the ICE raid as examples of cultural performances of inclusion and exclusion by using anthropological concepts of nation, sport, and performance. Performance is used to mark national identity in both instances--a shifting, hybrid `transnational' identity in the case of the immigrants playing in the soccer league--and a clearly delineated `American' identity in the case of the ICE raid. Moreover, national identity is tied to other aspects of identity, such as gender. As the performances create national `imagined communities,' they also gender their participants and nations themselves. Ultimately this reveals the way that immigration itself is gendered, and the way in which American immigration policy is designed to promote an American national identity. These efforts are not only to the detriment of immigrants in the United States as laborers but also to the communities with jobs that draw these workers. The case study of Postville provides a lens to examine the meanings of immigration policy from the ground up and in the lives of those it impacts most--immigrants and the communities in which they reside.