Racialized and Geopolitically Charged Contexts of Reception in New Immigrant Destinations

We conceptualize racialized and geopolitical contexts of reception as a comprehensive framework for understanding the incorporation of recent immigrants in new destinations. Racialization is the fluid assignment of racial meanings to physical characteristics, religion, cultural presentation, and language. Geopolitics encompasses national boundaries, border security, regulation of border crossers, and populist–nativist anxieties about identity. We use data derived from a documentary film depicting the 2001 contact between Somali immigrants and a host community in Maine. The reception of these immigrants was profoundly racialized due to their sudden arrival and stark differences in phenotypic, cultural, religious, and linguistic characteristics, all of which were racialized by the host community. The context was geopolitically charged by local memories of the US intervention in Somalia and by the aftermath of 9/11. This study underscores the importance of racialization and geopolitics as intertwined factors that significantly shape immigrant contexts of reception.