For better, for worse: immigrant families navigating transnational lives and sociopolitical institutions

This dissertation examines how immigrants navigate lives across borders and the opportunities and barriers they face in engaging socially and politically in their new home societies. In Chapter 2, I examine family migration, not just as the outcome of a private decision made within the family, but as a process shaped by existing inequalities, in particular, patriarchy, neoliberal global capitalism, and white supremacy. Reviewing recent research on family migration and gender inequality in three areas – work and organizations, care work and unpaid labor, and state policies – I identify research methods that best capture how existing inequalities shape family migration. Chapter 3 examines how immigrant families experience and navigate immigration and visa policies, focusing specifically on the dependent visa, which allows family members of international students and skilled workers to enter the US but restricts them from paid work and higher education. Drawing on in-depth interviews with immigrants, I examine the economic, social, and psychological impact of these visa policies on immigrant families. I argue that the dependent visa reflects policy ideals about family, skill, and temporariness that conflict with one another in ways that expose immigrant families to precarity, threats of immigration enforcement and deportation, and uncertain futures for their children, “documented dreamers”. In Chapter 4, I examine how romantic relationships between immigrants and non-immigrants shape political participation using data from the Current Population Survey. Overall, this dissertation research highlights the significance of family and relationships, in research and policy, in connecting people and the state.