Beyond immigrant ethnic politics?:Organizational innovation, collaboration and competition in the Los Angeles immigrant rights movement (1980-2015)

Abstract

This dissertation explores factors and conditions that shaped the character, success and fragmentation of the immigrant rights movement in Los Angeles, California, during the period 1980- 2015. The study focuses on a unique group of LA ‘immigrant worker’ organizations that, through the promotion of class-based solidarities, the development of multi-ethnic alliances and the articulation of an intersectional understanding of immigrants’ subaltern position in US society, not only deviated from conventional patterns of immigrant ethnic politics but also gained significant political prominence. Relying on the analysis of organizational archival material and qualitative interviews with key informants, the chapters of this dissertation identify common organizational innovation, organizational strategic action and inter-organizational resource competition as key factors affecting organizational characteristics as well as dynamics of collaboration and conflict under changing external conditions. More in general, this thesis argues that we can better understand immigrant organizations if we view them as both agents and products of 1) the environment in which they operate and 2) the relations to which they are part. Organizations depend for their survival and success on a wide range of social actors, and this dependence affects internal dimensions such as identity- and goal-definition, as well as claim-making and structures. Yet, unlike many other groups, immigrant organizations are not only embedded in the local context, but also in a transnational space that contributes to shaping their social, political and cultural character. This dual relational aspect helps us understand how organizations can either offset or rather compound the obstacles presented by local hostile political and discursive opportunities