Introduction

“These people should learn English or we’ll send them back to where they came from,” Mayor Barton exclaimed to enthusiastic applause during his election victory speech. During a fiercely contested campaign, Mayor Barton relied on stoking racism and xenophobia in Dovetown to rally his base. The suburban town, which until recently had been predominantly white, was attracting growing numbers of Somali and Central American immigrants looking for work in its growing service industries. Although many people in Dovetown welcomed the diversity, others were not so welcoming.