The City as Context : Culture and Scale in New Immigrant Destinations

Abstract

In this paper, we bring questions of space, locality, and culture squarely into discussions of immigrant incorporation. The growing body of work on new immigrant destinations and contexts of reception often fails to consider how particular locales are embedded in larger geopolitical fields in ways that make them more or less receptive. Moreover, it privileges the economic characteristics of localities without paying sufficient attention to variations in cultural resources. In this study of two small, post-industrial cities, we argue that important variations in how they create and deploy their ‘cultural armature’, including differences in urban self-presentation, the prevailing ethos toward immigrants, and how culture has been harnessed in service of urban renewal, history, and the political economy, explain much of the variation in our two contexts of reception. Both cities speak the language of multiculturalism and tolerance, but Portland, ME offers newcomers welcoming spaces while those arriving in Danbury, CT encounter a hotbed of ‘anti-immigrant’ discourse and activity.