The article explores contemporary immigrant politics in Boston, Massachusetts to understand the political coalitions behind the immigrant rights rallies held in the spring of 2006. Many scholars and activists have been anticipating the formation of a Black-brown coalition between African Americans and new immigrants. Were the 2006 rallies a manifestation of such an alliance in formation? While important coalitional work is being done in Boston by the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization and the Massachusetts Immigration and Refugee Alliance, the Black-brown coalition (...) is not the order of the day. Instead, our interviews and field work revealed the emergence of new linkages being forged between immigrant rights and gay rights advocates. Although by no means routinized into an enduring coalition, we suggest that this is the forefront of political change in which the politics of opposition is being re-imagined. (shrink)

Everyday language anticipates capital mobility. Capital flows and liquid assets are invoked at every turn. But language deceives. There is nothing inherently mobile about capital: it is made mobile...