Rethinking Race in Research on Migration

Abstract This chapter examines the dialectic of racialization that is explained based on immigrants’ post-migration experience, highlighting the racialization and corresponding sense of agency in the pre-migration experience that is often overlooked. The chapter argues that this dialectic can be better understood in migration research by equally examining racialization and agency in the pre-migration experiences of immigrants. Specifically, the chapter proposes transnational literacy as a tool for nation-states to identify and address language as a proxy for systemic forms of racism against non-White immigrants. It argues that xenophobia and racism have been significantly made visible and escalated in and beyond the United States in recent years, and that, despite the agency afforded to immigrants by autonomy of migration perspectives, many immigrants are daily racialized while attempting to exercise their self-determination in response to the restrictions imposed by nation-states during border crossing.