The notion of human action has undoubtedly been one of the major centres of investigation and debate within the sociological arena, especially in the latter part of the 20th century. Among the ‘unification of theories and theorists’ whom are known to have presented their accounts and explanations on human agency, lies Pierre Bourdieu and his theory The Habitus theorem: cognitive structures through which people deal with the social world. In this theorem, Bourdieu’s to explain the culmination of our status or position in the social structure that an individual is part of as well as knowledge, mannerism, schemes of perception and the capabilities that normally come along with it. In light of this explanation by Bourdieu’sabout the habitus, this paper will seek to review the article, Experiencing everyday discrimination: A comparison across five immigrant populations, by Caroline Brettell, that explores and compares both the objective and subjective experiences of everyday discrimination which is usually articulated by immigrants across varied national populations.
This article has managed to use both the qualitative and quantitative data that reveals the fact that discrimination is usually perceived, encountered and also experienced differently by immigrants whom hail from different national backgrounds. It largely focuses on post-1965 immigrant’s complex ways of analysing and confronting the issue of prejudice with regard to their experience in the United States. For instance, the article narrates the story of Eva a 55-year old Salvadoran woman who entered the US without papers but ended up securing a green card, claims that a class teacher who was supposed to assist her in learning English appeared to hate her without a reason, she however feels that the teacher did not hate or discriminated against her due to her race nor his ethnicity but it was only because she was a slow learner and could not grasp all that she was being taught in class. However, Manuel a Mexican immigrant to the US claims that he was being prejudiced due to her Hispanic race (Brettell 364). He further claims that by the virtue that he was Mexican, he was automatically labelled an alien until he started telling people that he was from Spain. The two examples clearly expound on Bourdieu’s explanation about the varied approaches and cognitive structures through which people deal with situations within their society.
This article has managed to clearly compare various experiences and attitudes towards the everyday forms of discrimination that first-generation immigrant encounter in their stay in US. Arguably, this form of discrimination against personhood was effectively articulated by the Mexican research participant. However, all the participants acknowledge that discrimination especially due to race is mostly a product of history and therefore an immigrant ought to adapt to its pervasiveness (Brettell 364).
Works Cited
Brettell, Caroline B. "Experiencing everyday discrimination: A comparison across five
immigrant populations." Race and Social Problems 3.4 (2011): 266-279.
Fry, Brian N. Nativism and Immigration: Regulating the American Dream. New York: LFB
Scholarly Pub, 2007. Internet resource.
Lizardo, Omar. "The cognitive origins of Bourdieu's habitus." Journal for the Theory of
Social Behaviour 34.4 (2004): 375-401.
