Presenter(s): Raimy Khalife-Hamdan—International Relations, Romance Languages
Faculty Mentor(s): Tobin Hansen
Session 1: Global Views—We vs. Them
The shocking September 11th terrorist attacks prompted an immediate and drastic response from the US government . More than 1,200 Middle Eastern, Arab, or Muslim noncitizen adults were immediately detained and deported within two months . What were the social effects on their US citizen children? And what do these impacts reveal about the unevenness of US citizenship? Drawing from anthropological research on Latinx family separation in the US, this research examines the harmful impacts on children’s physiological, developmental, and psychological health associated with family disruption and speculates about the fallout of family separation immediately following 9/11 . These US citizen children, now adults, were active agents within their transforming family structures while also being subject to the racialization and criminalization inherent in the violent mechanisms of immigration enforcement . Since citizen children of mixed status families are implicated and indirectly punished for their families’ precarious legal statuses, citizenship is not a determinative assurance of protection, but one mediator of experience along with other social factors and identities . Most importantly, the harmful impacts of family separation on both citizen and non-citizen children alike suggest the need for the US government to adopt more humane immigration enforcement practices and valorize family units as well as all children’s health, development, and wellbeing .