Building alliances: Defending immigrant rights in rural Oregon

Political participation in the rural United States has often been narrowly defined within the confines of electoral politics. Increasingly, participants in rural US social movements have highlighted the shortcomings of democracy defined purely in terms of electoral politics in favour of a more participatory model of politics that focuses on the social and cultural rights of those who are often formally or informally excluded from the liberal definition of citizenship. This article highlights the process of claiming rights as cultural citizens in a political context where there are efforts through the formal political system—usually in the form of ballot referendums at the state or local level—to further limit the rights of specific constituencies such as gay, lesbian and transgendered individuals or immigrants. A second focus of this article is on the dynamics of solidarity and alliance building between different kinds of social movements acting in concert to push for cultural rights and then formal rights for each other's constituencies. The article specifically seeks to illustrate how two organizations that share quite different constituencies and agendas can effectively collaborate in regional and state-wide campaigns in the rural state of Oregon, while also honestly discussing their differences and difficulties in working together.