Twentieth International Conference on Diversity in Organizations, Communities & Nations

Abstract

Utah is a unique case to enhance our understanding of immigrant and refugee integration processes in conservative America. Utah is a new immigrant destination, with significant growth over the past thirty years. Today, one of every twelve Utah residents is an immigrant, and another one of every twelve Utah residents is a US-born citizen with at least one immigrant parent. Many refugees have also resettled in Utah and compose a substantial percentage (2%) of the state population. Despite its status as a dependably politically conservative state, Utah legislators have passed a number of “immigrant friendly” policies designed to support immigrant integration and refugee resettlement. But while Utah public policy has generally encouraged a favorable environment for immigrant and refugee integration, public sentiment among Utah’s super-majority white, US-citizen population often does not align with those immigrant- and refugee-friendly policies. This mismatch between policy and public sentiment has created an ideal context for examining and disentangling the roles of social processes versus legal-political processes in shaping integration outcomes. In our analysis of questionnaires and open-ended interviews with over 150 immigrants and refugees living in Utah, we find evidence that both social and legal-political processes shape their integration experiences and sense of belonging. “Friendly” policies help facilitate immigrants’ and refugees’ economic incorporation; social, cultural, and linguistic barriers impede social integration and diminish immigrants’ and refugees’ sense of belonging. We find that, while a supportive political context can improve immigrants’ and refugees’ integration, immigrants and refugees rarely achieve full incorporation without broader community buy-in.