ABSTRACT
Driven by anxiety over declining global hegemony, economic and social polarization, and growing population diversity that threatens the country’s image as “white,” dominant groups in the US are waging an intense battle to maintain their positions of material and political power. Moreover, they seek to protect a socially constructed national identity built upon some particular . . . categories of people and places in part defined in contradistinction to others. In this situation, racialization of those immigrants whose darker skin color feeds into entrenched racial ideologies, stereotypes, and discursive practices serves to demarcate the boundaries of national culture and belonging to place, and to exclude those who do not “fit.” Conflicts over animal practices, rooted in deep-seated cultural beliefs and social norms, fuel ongoing efforts to racialize and devalue certain groups of immigrants. . . .
