Conference Programme (PDF, 1019KB) - Trinity College Dublin

abstracts by stream and session
of success and because it alienates migrants. The Union is also developing a strategy to give concrete help to unauthorized migrants, in,
for example, legal matters, instead of reporting them to the police. A reason for this change is that the Union does not any longer perceive
unauthorized migrants as a serious threat to native workers’ wages and working condition. However, it is unlikely that the Construction
Workers Union will begin to organize unauthorized migrants in the near future. In this respect, there are still important differences
between many unions in Northern Europe and unions in Southern Europe and United States.
children, youth and immigration
SESSION 1e Identity and Immigrant Youh
Proud to be Hmong? The Construction of Ethnic Identity among Second Generation Hmong in the U.S.
Grit Grigoleit, Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH), Germany
In current research, comparatively little attention is paid to immigrant youth, particularly the second generation of immigrants. Attention
seems focused only on immigrant issues when news about riots or acts of deviance, for example, make headlines. These news headlines
spark debate concerning the integration of youth into their new society and with whom they identify. Additionally, these headlines seem
to propagate dominant images and portray immigrant youth as ‘lost’ in and persistently struggling with their host country’s culture.
The world in their house, the parent’s home culture, is often depicted as foreign and exotic. These contradictions thereby stand in sharp
contrast to what these youth experience ‘outside’ at school in mainstream society. Young people of immigrant minority backgrounds
are perceived to increasingly alienate themselves from their parents by rejecting anything that is connected to the “old ways” thereby
deepening social distance and isolation within the family. At the same time, however, they might not fully integrate into the mainstream
society. Due to social marginalization and the assumed loss of orientation, they adopt an oppositional stand as an expressive form of
resistance towards mainstream culture and sometimes their home culture. In this essentialist discourse that conceptualizes culture
as static, homogenous, closed and oppositional entities, immigrant youth are generally victimized since they are persistently struggling
with two cultures and subsequently with identity issues. Little attention is given to the constant exchange, interpenetration, and fusion of
cultural elements that inevitably takes place.
Based on empirical research completed on the second generation Hmong in the U.S., this paper seeks to shed light on both their
adaptation and their identity formation process. The Hmong are a diasporic group from mainland Southeast-Asia, who were admitted
as political refugees into the U.S. due to their involvement in the Vietnam War. In present day America, the social reality of the second
generation is shaped by their parent’s experiences and demands to maintain an authentic ethnicity as Hmong as well as the sociocultural
context of school, and messages from popular and consumer culture. However, as data indicates the vast majority of second generation
Hmong do not perceive themselves as being lost between two cultures. Instead, as an active agent, they negotiate their ethnic identity in
social interactions with others thereby picking and choosing between Hmong and U.S. sociocultural elements, for example, urban hiphop
culture. Out of these elements and practices, which are constantly re-evaluated and modified, a positively valued identity as Hmong-
American is constructed. Questions as to what conditions and – as Floya Anthias has already asked – what are those “features of culture
that can ‘travel best’?” and thus gain entrance into the process of interpenetration and fusion will stimulate further discussion.
Placing identities and coping with diversity: strategies of South Asian children and youth in Switzerland
Pascale Herzig, Universität Fribourg, Switzerland
Switzerland experiences very high rates of immigration, a fact that becomes visible not only in public debates but also in schools. The
paper aims to analyse focus group discussions and interviews with South Asian children and youths in Switzerland. The data has been
collected for the research project “Migration and religious pluralism in Switzerland: Perspectives and practices of children and youths
from South Asia and South Eastern Europe” which is part of the National Research Programme “Religion, State and Society”.
In this paper I will explore the following questions: What does the experience of migration mean for children and young people? How do
they cope with being visible ‘others’ in Swiss schools? What are their strategies to handle the different expectations of parents, peers and
teachers? How are they able to place their identities in order to feel more at home in Switzerland?
According to the interviewees South Asians in Switzerland are considered as “good foreigners” (in comparison to the “bad” ones) since
they share some ascribed commonalities with indigenous Swiss people: they are stereotyped as being honest and diligent.
The data illustrates the participants’ strategies to cope with diversity. In order to get a better understanding of the processes and
experiences as lived by the children and youths I propose to conceptualise the various categories of difference and their intersections.
Given the increasing significance of identity politics in the public domain, it could be the task of social science research to highlight the
multiple dimensions of belonging of children and youths. This perspective will help to prevent rush measures that consider only one
notion of difference such as religion, ethnicity or gender.
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