Department of Sociology
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720
Telephone: 510-642-4287
Fax:510-642-0659
bloemr@berkeley.edu
Irene Bloemraad (Ph.D. Harvard; M.A. McGill) studies the nexus between immigration and the political system. Her recently published book, Becoming a Citizen, compares immigrants’ acquisition of citizenship and political participation in the United States and Canada. Bloemraad argues that government settlement and multiculturalism policies influence newcomers’ practice and understanding of citizenship, and such policies have lead to better outcomes in political incorporation in Canada over the last thirty years than in the United States. In the context of current debates around immigration in the United States, her work suggests that any effective immigration policy must examine not just border control, but also integration and settlement policies.
Professor Bloemraad currently has two new projects that continue her interest in immigration, political participation and civic involvement. The Immigrant Civic Engagement Project, which she co-directs with Professor Karthick Ramakrishnan (UC-Riverside), examines the role of immigrant community organizations in local affairs, and it investigates newcomers’ voice in newspaper reporting. This research, funded in part by a grant from the Russell Sage Foundation, extends Professor Bloemraad’s previous work by considering Vietnamese, Portuguese, Mexican and Indian migrants living in Silicon Valley, immigrants in 10 other U.S communities and immigrants in Vancouver, Canada. One question of particular interest is whether non-profit community organizations provide alternative, accessible avenues to leadership and advocacy for women.
A second project, also funded by the Russell Sage Foundation, looks at the political socialization of mixed status Mexican-American families in Oakland and Richmond, California. This project, done with a team of student researchers at the Institute for the Study of Social Change, is examining the way that U.S. citizen children might influence their immigrant parents’ civic and political engagement.
Professor Bloemraad has published widely in sociology and top immigration journals and she regularly presents her work to policy makers, academics and the general public. Recent publications includes an examination of naturalization among immigrant in early 20th century America, (“Citizenship Lessons from the Past: The Contours of Immigrant Naturalization in the Early Twentieth Century,” in Social Science Quarterly, 2006), a comparison of contemporary political incorporation in the United States and Canada (“Becoming a Citizen in the United States and Canada: Structured Mobilization and Immigrant Political Incorporation,” in Social Forces, 2006), a study of the effect of government funding on immigrant community organizations (“The Limits of de Tocqueville: How Government Facilitates Organizational Capacity in Newcomer Communities,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 2005), and an analysis of dual citizenship and transnationalism (“Who Claims Dual Citizenship? The Limits of Postnationalism, the Possibilities of Transnationalism, and the Persistence of Traditionalism,” International Migration Review, 2004). She also has an interest in nationalism and social movements, and she has written on the place of ethnic and racial minorities within independence movements (“Outsiders and Insiders: Collective Identity and Collective Action in the Quebec Independence Movement, 1995,” Research in Political Sociology, 2001).
Irene Bloemraad’s interest in immigration stems from personal experience: she was born in Europe, moved to Canada as a young girl, and then migrated to the United States as a graduate student. Given that more than one in ten residents of the United States is foreign-born, and that one in four Californians were born outside the United States, Professor Bloemraad hopes to expand the profile of immigration studies at Berkeley. She has developed immigration seminars at the graduate and undergraduate levels and runs an informal immigration workshop for those researching immigrant-related topics. Those interested in the informal immigration workshop should contact Professor Bloemraad directly.
