Changes

Alexis M. Silver’s <i>Shifting Boundaries: Immigrant Youth Negotiating National, State and Small-Town Politics</i> published by Stanford University Press, highlights the impact of inconsistent and developing immigration policies on the lives of youth in a small, rural town in North Carolina. <i>Combining ethnography and social demography, Silver centers experience in this population study, by focusing on changing definitions of “legality” from 2000 into the early 2010s, similar to Leisy J. Abrego’s concept of (il)legality in Sacrificing Families (2014), Shifting Boundaries</i> adds to the growing work on liminal legality, expanding its legal definition through an ethnographic analysis of extended support networks, family , and community.

Silver re-frames liminal legality to include the experience of incorporation using the narratives of 1.5 and 2nd generation Latino immigrant youth and their families. Silver places immigration policies within the history of the South that demonstrates the influence of race on experiences of incorporation. Juxtaposing legal and socio-demographic statistics with ethnographic practices, Silver “highlights the important and interactive influences of federal, state and local policies in shaping a very complex context of reception for immigrant youth” that impact the experience of incorporation and belonging (. <ref>p. 11). </ref>

Silver’s case study of a small town, given the pseudonym Allen Creek, demonstrates the local, state and federal tensions in the local enforcement of immigration policies in both education and community institutions. Beginning with a literature review of sociological incorporation theories, Silver identifies a lack of critical attention to rural living context. By complicating the environment in for which the policies are reinforced, at the state and federal level, Silver highlights he poses tectonic incorporation as an analytical model to account for “local contexts embedded within multilayered environments” while facilitating an analysis of “how these constantly changing contexts destabilize unauthorized immigrant youthmove and shift,affecting immigrants’ feelings of membership and belonging.” making the rural landscape a critical site of analysis (<ref>p. 29). Shifting Boundaries provides policy analysis and follows with personal experiences to demonstrate the process of tectonic incorporation, each chapter containing a complimentary ethnography.13</ref>

Chapter 1 provides a context for contemporary changes By complicating the environment in immigration which the policies. Silver points to Plyler v. Doeare reinforced, as a crucial shift in at the relationship between state and federal and state enforcement of immigrationlevel, Silver highlights “how these constantly changing contexts destabilize unauthorized immigrant youth, calling ” making the decision rural landscape a “legislative stalemate” that directly led to institutions creating their policies at a local level (critical site of analysis. <ref>p. 33)29</ref> <i>Shifting Boundaries</i> provides policy analysis and ethnographic accounts of personal experiences to highlight the varied results of social integration amongst immigrant youths.

Chapter 2 demonstrates how Itzel’s narrative “indirectly illustrates tectonic incorporation and directly demonstrates its spillover effectsThe first chapter, “Shifting Contexts of Reception,” provides a context for contemporary changes in immigration policies. Silver points to Plyler v. Doe, as she endures familial separation via a crucial shift in the deportation relationship between federal and state enforcement of her father and brother immigration, calling the decision a “legislative stalemate” that directly led to institutions creating their policies at a local level (p. 5533).

Chapter 3The following chapter, an analysis “Local Policies and Small-Town Politics,” provides local context of school policies that functioned federal immigration enforcement in direct opposition to state policies, is followed with the trials and tribulation research site. SIlver identifies the impact of high school graduates struggling to continue their education as an example North Carolina’s enforcement of 287(g) on individual experience.Using the limitations experiences of collaborator Itzel, Silver argues that Itzel’s narrative “indirectly illustrates tectonic incorporation and benefits directly demonstrates its spillover effects,” as she endures familial separation via the deportation of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals her father and brother (DACAp. 55) recipients.

The third chapter, “Pathways to Membership” contains, an analysis of school policies that functioned in direct opposition to state policies, such as sports, and educational programs, LAC and AIM. Chapter 5 four, “Graduation, Isolation, and Backlash after DACA,” identifies the limitations and benefits of recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) by highlighting the struggles of high school graduates attempting to continue their education. The fifth chapter juxtaposes individual with Temporary Protected Status and DACA recipients to illuminate their comparable conditions, adding “immigrants with liminal legality confront many of the same uncertainty and barriers to upward mobility as their undocumented peers” (p. 114). “Inclusion through Activism” provides an analysis of the role of activism and activist organizations for youth with unauthorized citizenship through Gabriela, Mariano and Eduardo, concluding that the movement demonstrates a “pluralistic model of incorporation” (p. 139).  Silver ends the text with policy recommendations in the Conclusion chapter. Silver hopes to extend the Plyler v. Does decision to facilitate state and federal policy coordination towards a legal pathway to citizenship and residency. Organized in this manner, the book effectively demonstrates the benefits of incorporating ethnographic practices of interview and observation to demographic studies.