Crafting Selves in Multiple Worlds

The in-migration of refugees and immigrants, both
legal and illegal, has reemerged as a potent
socio-political issue in the United States. This has
created a moral panic about foreigners who are
said, in an old but still effective rhetoric, to be
feeding rising crime rates, filling the public
schools with non-English speakers, going on welfare, and in other ways staining and darkening
everyday life in small towns and cities. This is a
longtime concern discussed in a substantial social
science literature on refugees and immigrants. This
literature was reviewed and used to frame an
interpretive study to learn what it is like to be a
foreign young woman in a Midwestern metropolitan
area. A hermeneutic phenomenological study was done
on the everyday lived-experiences of four
foreign-born young women to describe and understand
their experiences of being foreign(ers) and their
meanings. Being foreign as lived and told by each
woman is shown in their lives in their bodies; in
how they live and experience time, space, and
relationships; in how they are in their human
fullness. Foreignness is shown to be spatial
socially, culturally, economically, politically, and
personally.

Autorentext

PhD in Work, Community, and Family Education, University of
Minnesota, USA. Her youth development studies use interpretive
modes of inquiry, focusing on how young people craft their worlds
and understand the meanings of their worlds. Assistant Extension
Professor, Urban Youth Development, University of Minnesota
Extension.

Klappentext

The in-migration of refugees and immigrants, both
legal and illegal, has reemerged as a potent
socio-political issue in the United States. This has
created a moral panic about "foreigners" who are
said, in an old but still effective rhetoric, to be
feeding rising crime rates, filling the public
schools with non-English speakers, going on
"welfare," and in other ways staining and darkening
everyday life in small towns and cities. This is a
longtime concern discussed in a substantial social
science literature on refugees and immigrants. This
literature was reviewed and used to frame an
interpretive study to learn what it is like to be a
foreign young woman in a Midwestern metropolitan
area. A hermeneutic phenomenological study was done
on the everyday lived-experiences of four
foreign-born young women to describe and understand
their experiences of being "foreign(ers)" and their
meanings. Being "foreign" as lived and told by each
woman is shown in their lives - in their bodies; in
how they live and experience time, space, and
relationships; in how they are in their human
fullness. "Foreignness" is shown to be spatial -
socially, culturally, economically, politically, and
personally.