Sociological Perspectives-2015-Stewart-0731121414557700

Sociological Perspectives
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Article
Jobs, Flags, and Laws: How
Interests, Culture, and Values
Explain Recruitment into the Utah
Minuteman Project
Julie Stewart1, Michele Enciso Bendall2, and Charlie V. Morgan3
Abstract
Immigration is currently a combustible social issue in the United States, contributing to national
political polarization. The Minuteman Project is one prominent group shaping contemporary
immigration politics. This study explores the Utah chapter of this movement and explains
why people join. In social movement terms, we highlight which grievances—material, cultural,
or value-oriented—predict movement recruitment. This research incorporates a range of
qualitative data: in-depth interviews, primary documents, and observation. Our fundamental
finding is that contrary to a dominant belief, material interests are not driving anti-immigrant
activism. Instead, we find that this activism grows out of the intersection of value-oriented
and cultural grievances. Integrating four bodies of sociological theory, we find that values and
culture—more than material interests—motivate people to become members of this important
social movement.
Keywords
immigration, social movements, grievances, recruitment, culture, values, interests, Minuteman
Project
Introduction
Immigration is one of the most combustible social issues in the United States today.As evidenced
in grocery store conversations, local talk radio discussions, and national public opinion polls,
most people feel strongly about immigration (Hopkins 2010). Whereas some people favor open
borders and integrative immigration policies, others wish to seal off the United States and expel
anyone living here without legal authorization. These disagreements over immigration policy
have reached such proportions that one scholar describes them as “a widespread crisis of societal
membership” (Kasinitz 2012:585).
While many people continue to welcome immigrants, the United States has witnessed a growth
of anti-immigrant attitudes, described alternatively as anti-immigrant prejudice, nativism, xeno-
phobia, or racism (Chavez 2008; Higham 2004; Tichenor 2002). Some scholars attribute these
1Westminster College, Salt Lake City, UT, USA
2Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA
3Ohio University, Athens, OH, USA
Corresponding Author:
Julie Stewart, Department of Sociology, Westminster College, 1840 South 1300 East, Salt Lake City, UT 84105, USA.
Email: jstewart@westminstercollege.edu
557700SPXXXX10.1177/0731121414557700Sociological PerspectivesStewart et al.
research-article2014
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2 Sociological Perspectives
attitudes to the contention that people are materially worse off because of migration flows.
Common complaints include job competition, declining wages, rising levels of government-
provided social expenditures, and increases in crimes attributed to immigrants. Fundamentally, if
people feel that their chances of getting jobs, buying what they want, and staying safe are decreased
with the growth of the immigrant population, we can expect anti-immigrant attitudes.
Other scholarship reinforces value-based explanations of anti-immigrant attitudes. Most sim-
ply, values are principles that people deem desirable (Weber [1947] 1975). Examples of values
are religious principles, following the rule of law, or working hard, not necessarily because of an
eventual reward but because it is inherently “good.” When native-born citizens—or naturalized
immigrants—perceive that others are not upholding their values, anti-immigrant prejudice soon
follows.
Finally, a third line of research highlights cultural explanations of anti-immigrant sentiment.
Although there are almost as many definitions of culture as scholars who study it, our definition
of culture focuses on relational practices and social interpretations. Accordingly, we see culture
as the combination of one’s repertoire of practices (Lamont 1997; Swidler 1986) and the social
meanings around those practices (Geertz 1973). Concrete examples of culture are language, life-
style choices, and patterns of consumption (Fischer and Mattson 2009; Sabia 2010; Zukin and
Maguire 2004). When immigrants display practices at odds with those of the native-born popula-
tion, we would expect anti-immigrant attitudes to increase.
Adding to the scholarship on anti-immigrant attitudes, our study focuses on a group of people
who not only hold anti-immigrant attitudes but also act on them, often in extreme ways: the
Minuteman Project. Founded in 2005 to help guard the U.S. border and mobilize millions of
Americans to defend American values and protest the violation of the rule of law, the Minuteman
Project has played a prominent role in shaping contemporary immigration politics. This study
explores one state chapter of this organization: the Utah Minuteman Project (UMP). In particular,
we explain why people join this movement. In social movement terms, we identify which griev-
ances—material, value-oriented, or cultural—best explain the transformation of regular people
into committed activists. In colloquial terms, we get to the heart of what motivates people to
become activists around anti-illegal immigration. Are they more motivated by their wallet, their
heart, or their head?
Accordingly, this article explores the following research question:
Research Question 1: Which type of grievances best explains this extreme activism: mate-
rial, value-based, or cultural?
To answer this question, we assess a range of qualitative data sources: 27 in-depth interviews,
primary documents, and observation of group events over two years. Following a long line of
social movement research, we focus on a single case study, delving deeply into the beliefs, feel-
ings, and moral judgments of members. Rather than asking what distinguishes activists from
non-activists, our objective is to achieve an interpretive understanding—or what Max Weber
([1922] 1968) called verstehen—of individual activists. We want to understand their worldviews
and how they explain their activism.
Analysis of our in-depth interviews indicates that contrary to a widely held belief, material
interests are not driving anti-immigrant activism; material grievances explain under 33 percent of
the motivation behind UMP participation. Instead, we find that anti-immigrant activism grows
out of the intersection of value-oriented and cultural grievances. Together, complaints revolving
around values and culture account for slightly more than 67 percent of activists’ grievances.
Integrating four distinct bodies of sociological theory, we find that values and culture—more
than material interests—motivate people to become members of this important U.S. social
movement.

Stewart et al. 3
Our article is divided into six parts. First, we provide background on the UMP and explain
its sociological importance. We also illustrate why Utah is an exceptional place for this
study. The next section turns to social movement theory and explores dominant theories of
activist recruitment and the concept of grievances. The “Social Movement Theories of
Recruitment and the Centrality of Grievances” section embeds our understanding of griev-
ances within classical theory, beginning with an overview of Weber’s theory of social action.
It then extends the research on interests, values, and culture to more contemporary findings
around immigration and activism. Our “Data and Method” section describes how we identi-
fied UMP activists for our study, conducted our fieldwork, and analyzed the data. The
“Findings” section reports our main findings on the prominent role that value orientations
and cultural practices play in catapulting people into activism. The final section highlights
our article’s main theoretical contribution—that principles and practices, much more so than
the pocketbook, drive anti-immigrant activism. We conclude with suggestions for future
research.
The Minuteman Project: An Exploration of Its National and
Local Influence
Although many may be familiar with the revolutionary Minutemen, they may not know of its resur-
rection. Retired accountant Chris Simcox and later Congressional candidate Jim Gilchrist launched
the Minuteman Project in 2005 to raise awareness around the perceived security threat connected
to unauthorized immigration across the U.S.–Mexico border (Cabrera and Glavac 2010). Before the
Minuteman Project became official, Simcox had earlier formed a citizen militia group to patrol the
U.S. southern border (Wagner 2006). Although Simcox’s effort garnered attention—from both the
media and immigrant-rights groups—it did not attract many volunteers. Simcox joined forces with
Gilchrist in 2004 and they began an intensive recruiting campaign (Argetsinger 2005). According
to Gilchrist, the group wanted to not only guard the desert but also focus national attention on the
problem of illegal immigration, mobilize millions of Americans, and demonstrate how our politi-
cians were tolerating the violation of the U.S. rule of law (Gilchrist 2008).
As Gilchrist explained in an interview, after less than six months of frantic organizing, approx-
imately 1,250 volunteers responded to Minuteman Project’s rallying cry and went to theArizona–
Mexico border to “do the job the government failed to do.” Although it was chaotic at first, he
expressed satisfaction that so many U.S. citizens “did exactly what I wanted to do: bring national
awareness.”1
These volunteers, “armed with only binoculars, cell phones and lawn chairs,” guarded a
23-mile stretch of the U.S.–Mexico border for 30 days. Several Utahns participated in that origi-
nal 2005 border “occupation,” a classic example of extreme activism. They described a range of
experiences, from the mundane to the terrifying.
Reflecting on the activity that sparked their long-term commitment to the UMP, both George
McCormick and Anne Clarke highlighted that what motivated them to go to the border was to
send a message to border crossers and to personally document the violation of laws. For these
two activists, their border experience involved lawn chairs, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and occa-
sionally blowing their car horns to signal to would-be border crossers that “We’re here! Better go
somewhere else!” At night, they would participate in vigils to “watch the border to see the num-
bers coming across.”
In the next segments, Victor Garcia and Jack Evans recounted their memories of much more
dangerous border experiences. In their views, this experience changed their attitudes about what
was at stake in their activism:
One night we saw about 25 guys dressed up in black military uniforms with backpacks on. And they
just came marching right down this road . . . We’re hiding in the bushes and it’s dirty and nasty. And

I’m wondering, why am I doing this? And then they come walking by, guns and everything . . . Then
they get off the road and we’re on the phone calling the border patrol.
When we were down at the border, I was walking along the other side of the fence and this other
Minuteman came driving up and said, “You get back unless you’re carrying! There’s $20,000 on your
head. You get back from there unless you have a gun.”
After that first border experience, Utah activists joined with other local organizations and
formed the UMP. Its active membership numbers in the dozens, while hundreds of people have
participated in an UMP event or attended a meeting.
Originally, the UMP prioritized strengthening border patrol and keeping the U.S.–Mexico
border “safe.” Later, the UMP made news for sending people to the border (Sanchez 2005), pro-
testing local bank policies of permitting people with only Mexican-issued IDs to open bank
accounts (Burckhalter 2005), and counter-protesting rallies for immigrant rights (Bergreen 2006).
Our fieldwork revealed that UMP leaders later changed their strategic focus. They now work
with local media to raise public awareness of the “threat of immigration.” They also regularly
participate in public debates. The UMP leadership encourages its members to create close relation-
ships with local and state politicians. They urge members to attend town hall meetings, partisan
caucuses, or run for public office. In addition, some UMP members work directly with elected
officials to craft legislation to curtail the flow of undocumented people and to force those already
here to leave.
Figure 1 illustrates that these activists—and their elected representatives—have successfully
pursued this legislative aim.2
Between 1999—when Utah’s first immigrant bill was passed—and the 2011 legislative ses-
sion, Utah legislators discussed 103 bills related to immigration. This included the full spectrum
of legislation, from integration to restriction. Examples of integrative legislation include House
Bill 36, which permits undocumented residents to acquire a driving permit. Similarly, House Bill
144 helps children of undocumented residents attend local colleges and universities. UMP
Members have consistently opposed these laws publicly (Davidson 2011; Montero 2010), even
as they have privately worked to try to “kill these bills.”
Our textual analysis of our interviews indicates that in approximately 63 percent of the inter-
views, UMP members discussed their involvement in the creation, passage, or blockage of immi-
grant-related bills. For example, David Lopez explained that he devotes much of his energy to
“working with [the] legislature, getting some good bills passed, [and] getting legislators there to
understand and see what the problem is, so that they can make good decisions.” Similarly, Kevin
Morrison described his immigration activism as revolving around talking with legislators track-
ing immigration bills and talking with the public. In a nutshell, “It’s really education at the legis-
lature and at the individual citizen level,” he explains.
Based on our field notes from attending UMP monthly meetings, a significant UMP legislative
success was the 2008 passage of Senate Bill 81. Senate Bill 81 restricts the mobility and job oppor-
tunities for undocumented immigrants and enlists law enforcement officers to carry out immigration
law. The law enforcement portion of this bill was strengthened in 2011, when the Utah legislature
passed House Bill 497. Often referred to as Utah’s Arizona-light bill, House Bill 497 requires law
enforcement personnel to investigate a person’s status after an arrest for a felony or misdemeanor. In
UMP meetings, members constantly highlighted this bill as one of the group’s victories.
This trend in immigrant policy—and the central role that activists play in creating legisla-
tion—is not Utah-specific. Between 2005 and 2011, state governments have displayed an unprec-
edented level of activity around immigration. As Table 1 illustrates, proposed state-level
immigration laws increased from 300 to 1,607 bills annually, representing more than a fivefold
increase (National Conference of State Legislatures 2011).

Stewart et al. 5
Furthermore, there has been a spike in anti-immigrant legislation. In addition to Utah’s Senate
Bill 81, Arizona made big headlines with its 2010 passage of Senate Bill 1070, while Alabama
stole the spotlight in 2011 with House Bill 56. Although these state-level immigrant laws differ
in their degree of severity, they represent variations on an anti-immigrant theme.
A constellation of factors explains this trend. Nationally, Daniel J. Tichenor (2002) argues that
special interest groups critically shape immigration policy. At the state level, this dynamic may
be more pronounced. Carolyn Wong (2006) attributes variation in policy outcomes to the compo-
sition and strength of pro-immigrant versus anti-immigrant groups within a state. In many states,
anti-immigrant groups such as the UMP have become powerful policy forces.
Changes in the intensity, geography, and demography around U.S. in-migration are also
important. First, throughout the 1990s, there was a surge in immigration flows, with immigrants
accounting for one-third of the U.S. population growth (Martin and Midgley 2006). While past
migrants mostly settled in states with long immigration traditions, newer migrants have dispersed
to regions with little recent experience of foreign in-migration. This includes areas in the South,
the Midwest, and the Inter-mountain region (Massey 2008). Finally, there is a change in who
migrates, with undocumented migrants now outnumbering authorized migrants. Between 1992
and 1997, the level of annual unauthorized immigration was just over three-quarters of legal
immigration, but by 2004, it was 7 percent greater (Passel and Suro 2005).
Utah reflects these national trends. Throughout the 1990s, Utah had the sixth highest increase
in the rate of foreign-born residents in the nation (Kochhar 2006). And, up to 50 percent of these
migrants were undocumented (Passel and Suro 2005). This helps explain the tremendous growth
in Utah’s Latino population. According to U.S. census data, between 1990 and 2010, the Latino
population in Utah increased from 84,597 to 358,340 people. Nationally, this population segment
Figure 1. Immigration-related legislation in Utah, 1999–2011.
Table 1. State-Level Immigrant Bills Proposed in the United States, 2005–2011.
Year Total immigrant bills proposed
2005 300
2006 570
2007 1,562
2008 1,305
2009 1,500
2010 1,400
2011 1,607

grew from approximately 9 million people in 1990 to almost 16 million by 2010. The increase in
undocumented immigrants follows a similar trend, with 15,000 undocumented people living in
Utah in 1990; by 2010, that number had grown to 110,000 people. Nationally, during that same
period, the undocumented population grew from approximately 3.3 million to 11.2 million
(Stewart and Quinn 2012).
This is the backdrop against which the Minuteman Project mobilized. Since its 2005 border
action, the Minuteman Project (2012) has formed chapters in 21 states across the country, foment-
ing intense reaction.
Described as racist and xenophobic, the Southern Poverty Law Center has listed the Minuteman
Project as a “nativist and extremist” group for several years (Beirich 2010). Conversely, national
public opinion surveys indicate that the majority of respondents support border efforts such as
those orchestrated by the Minuteman Project (Kohut et al. 2006). Some public figures claim that
the Minuteman Project speaks “for a new silent majority in the United States on immigration,”
even as competing evidence rejects this claim (Cabrera and Glavac 2010:674). Such is the polar-
ization around immigration politics.
Thus, we have highlighted three reasons to study the UMP. First, it is inherently interesting as
an extremist social movement organization. Second, it has uniquely shaped public policy. Finally,
activists groups like the UMP often reflect and reinforce public opinion. Because of the UMP’s
influence, it is crucial to understand which grievances drive UMP recruitment.
Social Movement Theories of Recruitment and the Centrality of
Grievances
Social movement theory identifies multiple pathways to activist participation. One is the “bloc
recruitment” theory. In essence, bloc recruitment suggests that who we know shapes what we do.
For example, if we are members of a church congregation, the Parent Teacher Association, or a
recreational group, when our group becomes involved in a cause, it becomes more likely that we
will, too. These groups become vehicles for activism. The U.S. civil rights movement featured
this recruitment style. As Doug McAdam (1982) and Aldon D. Morris (1984) document, promi-
nent Black churches, historic Black colleges, and unions actively recruited members. Bloc
recruitment was also critical to the national campaign of Christian fundamentalist congregations
opposing the Equal Rights Amendment (Mansbridge 1986) and late-twentieth century U.S. femi-
nist activism (Staggenborg 1998).
But network-oriented explanations of activist recruitment do not explain every movement.
Absent social connections, some people will look for a movement, or start it themselves, essen-
tially “self-recruiting.” The “moral shock” concept explains this type of self-recruitment. Moral
shock is usually triggered by a dramatic event or access to deeply troubling information. When
an event or new information raises such a sense of outrage that people seek political action, we
have a case of moral shock (Jasper 1997). In her analysis of the U.S. pro-life movement, Luker
(1984) identifies moral shock as the origin of many activist trajectories. James M. Jasper and
Jane D. Poulsen (1995) and James M. Jasper (1997) illustrate how moral shock contributed to
both the animal rights and anti-nuclear movements.
These studies join a rich tradition of seeking to understand—from their own perspectives—
why activists join causes as diverse as the Christian Patriots in Idaho (Aho 1995), nineteenth-
century utopian communes in upstate New York (Kanter 1972), the Provisional Irish Republican
Army (Bosi and Della Porta 2012), and the contemporary movement of undocumented students
in California (Enriquez 2014). This study uses a similar method of interpreting activists’ own
accounts of why they joined a movement, thus contributing to the goal of achieving verstehen of
extreme activism.

Stewart et al. 7
Moral shock revolves around grievances, which have long “occupied a prominent position” in
explaining protest (Klandermans, van der Toorn, and van Stekelenburg 2008:993). Grievances
connote deprivation, discontent, frustration, or perceived injustice (Gurr 1970). They often
encompass a sense of indignation about how authorities are treating a social or political problem
(Klandermans 1997). Grievances can identify our sources of anger and sometimes our sources of
envy. In short, grievances are what make us grumpy. However, the grievances that arise from
people’s lived experiences are more likely to catalyze action. Following Frances Fox Piven and
Richard Cloward (1979:21), we argue that “it is the daily experience of people that shapes their
grievances, establishes the measure of their demands, and points out the targets of their anger.”
A Return to the Classics: Max Weber’s Theory of Social Action and Beyond
To explore how grievances motivate action, we utilize Max Weber’s ([1947] 1975) theory of
social action. Weber argues that social action must be directed toward other people, intentional
and imbued with meaning. We found that the grievances our interviewees described parallel three
of Weber’s types of action: instrumental, value-oriented, and traditional. However, we caution
that as Weberian ideal types, they provide us a theoretical threshold against which to judge real-
life social action and motivation; in reality, the distinctions between these three types of motiva-
tions may be less clear than in theory.
Investigating Interest-based Motivations
Weber suggests that instrumental action is when actors try to calculate the means, ends, and
effects of an action. Typically, instrumental rationality guides most actions seeking material ben-
efits; a corollary is that people seek efficient means to pursue their desired ends. Material motiva-
tions—or interest-based incentives—qualify as instrumental rational action.
Other classical sources also attribute human behavior to material or economic “interests.”
Adam Smith argues that “it is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker that
we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their self-interest” (Smith [1776] 1937:423). Thus,
material advantages or disadvantages are at the heart of interest-based explanations of behavior.
Turning to questions of immigrant reception, competitive threat theory describes how anti-
immigrant attitudes and actions flow from interest-based calculations. Whether the “out-group”
is a minority based on race, ethnicity, nationality, or religion, the logic is that the “in-group” fears
social or economic competition and tries to protect its self-interests (Schneider 2008). As Moshe
Semyonov, Rebeca Rijman, and Anastasia Gorodzeisky (2006) explain, anti-minority sentiment
likely results from socioeconomic competition or the threat of competition for jobs, housing,
social services, and economic benefits. Robert M. Kunovich’s (2002, 2004) research on Europe
supports this, highlighting how economically disadvantaged groups have higher prejudice scores
and that anti-foreigner sentiment increases during the economic doldrums and decreases along
with economic prosperity. In the United States, Katherine Fennelly and Christopher Federico’s
(2008) research on rural attitudes toward migration policy concludes that the perception that
immigrants are an economic burden is the most important single predictor of support for restric-
tive immigration policies.
Given this support for interest-based explanations of public attitudes around immigration, our
first hypothesis is as follows:
Hypothesis 1: Material grievances will strongly predict UMP recruitment.

Exploring Value-oriented Motivations
In contrast, value-oriented actions derive from an ethical, religious, or principle-based belief.
Weber argues that independent of the prospects for success, value-driven actions exist because
they reflect something the actor inherently deems worthy. These values can operate in the reli-
gious, political, social, or economic realm. For example, some people obey laws or value hard
work, outside of any particular utility. As Weber describes in the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit
of Capitalism, eighteenth-century Americans worked hard and saved money not necessarily
because they wanted to get rich, but because they believed it was “virtuous” (Weber [1920]
2002).
Parsons re-works these ideas in his “voluntaristic theory of action.” For Talcott Parsons
(1951), one’s “value orientation” guides behavior, providing us with a way to evaluate action—
our own and others. Ann Swidler (1986:274) re-interprets Parsons to highlight that values are
also “essences around which societies are constituted.” The “core value theory” argues that val-
ues serve another fundamental function: They symbolize a group, define membership boundar-
ies, and—importantly—identify the “out-group” (Gogonas 2012; Smolicz and Secombe 1985).
There is strong evidence that values drive both attitudes and activism around immigration
(Burns and Gimpel 2000; Citrin et al. 1997; Schneider 2008). Leo R. Chavez (2008) explains that
central to many attitudes toward Latinos—the United States’s primary immigrant group—is the
idea that “Latinos are unwilling or incapable of integrating, of becoming part of the national
community. Rather, they are part of an invading force from south of the border” (Chavez 2008:2).
Thus, some fear that Latinos lack two core values: American identification and love of country.
In perhaps their only point of agreement, both Tichenor (2002) and Samuel P. Huntington (2004)
highlight how values shape anti-immigrant attitudes. Tichenor critically explores the forces
behind nativism, deconstructing some of the myths that fuel anti-immigrant prejudice, even as
Huntington (2004:30) seeks to sound the alarm in “The Hispanic Challenge.” Huntington’s own
words best describe his perspective. Hispanics “reject the Anglo-Protestant values that built the
American dream: The United States ignores this challenge at its peril” (Huntington 2004:30).
Given the persuasive research on values driving anti-immigrant attitudes and activism, our
second hypothesis is as follows:
Hypothesis 2: Value-based grievances will strongly predict UMP recruitment.
Interrogating Cultural Motivations
Finally, traditional action—linked to habit, inheritance, or learning—is Weber’s third type of
social action. Traditional action maps on to culture in several ways. First, Ziaddun Sardar (2004)
argues that the origins of culture are found in tradition. These traditions are linked to genealogy,
heritage, or shared histories. Second, these cultural traditions have meaning. Returning to
Weber—and Clifford Geertz’s (1973) analysis of his theory—we learn that culture represents the
“webs of significance that people have spun” (Geertz 1973:5) and that culture consists of the
“socially established structures of meaning” in which people act (Geertz 1973:12–13). Culture
shapes our practices and the meanings we attach to them.
Reflecting newer work within cultural sociology, Swidler disagrees with the Parsonian notion
that separate values lead to separate cultures. Instead, she supports more contemporary claims
that most people value the same things: being good workers, effective parents, and helpful neigh-
bors (Lamont 1997). It is simply that people utilize different practices to pursue those ends. Thus,
while there is an ontological distinction between values and culture, they inter-penetrate and
form each other. As Portes (2012:565) suggests, “Values and certain basic skills such as language
are the fundamental elements of culture.” Similarly, Silke L. Schneider (2008) and Nikos

Stewart et al. 9
Gogonas (2012) highlight the inextricable link between values and culture. Against this under-
standing of culture and how it connects to values, we focus on “repertoires of action.” Following
Swidler, culture consists of the “strategies of action” that comprise one’s tool kit of symbols,
stories, rituals, and practices. The most common cultural practices include language, lifestyle
choices, and patterns of consumption (Fischer and Mattson 2009; Zukin and Maguire 2004).
A growing literature describes how cultural differences drive native-born attitudes and anti-
immigrant activism (Fischer and Mattson 2009). America’s cultural fragmentation has contrib-
uted to activist efforts to pass English-only legislation, pursue policies to outlaw day laborers, or
promote restrictive rental laws (Sabia 2010). Some studies describe how the native-born create a
wall between them and new immigrants, refusing to allow their participation in civic events
(Suzanne 2012). Or, they create a museum devoted to—but separate from—an area’s dominant
ethnicity to highlight how “exotic” this ethnic group is (Trabalzi and Sandoval 2010). Finally,
numerous theorists document how anti-immigrant violence comes from the perception of differ-
ent cultural practices (Higham 2004; Sabia 2010; Tichenor 2002).
Given the prominence of cultural explanations of anti-immigrant actions, our third hypothesis
is as follows:
Hypothesis 3: Cultural grievances will strongly predict UMP recruitment.
These three hypotheses connect generations of social theory to social movement theory. We
now describe the data collection and analytical methods used to test these hypotheses.
Data and Method
This qualitative study incorporates a range of data sources: in-depth interviews, primary docu-
ments, and observation. We conducted 18 interview sessions: 12 individual interviews, 5 paired
interviews, and 1 group session with 5 respondents, for a total of 27 in-depth interviews. Our
primary documents included the UMP’s mission statement, minutes from meetings, and media
coverage of UMP events. In addition, our research team observed group meetings and events
between 2008 and 2010. Following prominent scholarship that utilizes case study analysis, this
research design allows for a deep interpretation of the meanings and motivation behind activism;
furthermore, it is critical to theory building and hypothesis testing (Flyvbjerg 2006; Ghaziani
2011; Ragin and Becker 1992).
The interview data are at the heart of our research. We began by contacting a gatekeeper:
someone with deep engagement with the UMP. We then attended monthly meetings and intro-
duced ourselves to as many members as possible, collecting contact information from everyone
willing to participate. This “blanket recruitment method” (Esterberg 2002) increased our sample
to include 20 men and 7 women. This reflects the UMP’s gender distribution, which contains a
disproportionate percentage of men. To reflect the range of this groups’ other demographic and
experiential factors, our interviewees varied according to education, race, age, occupation, and
immigration history. We over-sampled the UMP leadership, given its primary role in shaping
UMP activities.
We conducted the interviews in respondents’ homes or workplaces, restaurants, libraries, or
public places of the respondents’ choosing. We taped and later transcribed each interview.
We began our interviews with several broad questions about UMP members’current lives and
personal histories. We then explored the origins of and their current involvement with the UMP.
We analyzed these interviews using NVivo (a qualitative software program) that allows research-
ers to incorporate several novel analytical techniques.
Our first level of coding involved a combination of “textual analysis,” in which we coded each
interview according to key theoretical themes (Auerbach and Silverstein 2003) and

“conventional content analysis,” in which coding categories are derived directly from the text
(Hsieh and Shannon 2005). We then created a broad picture of the UMP members, their histories,
and how they became activists.
After the first round of coding, we ran a series of frequency reports and found that 88 percent
of our respondents attributed their UMP involvement to “moral shock,” the social movement
term that describes self-recruitment. Because these respondents described something so trou-
bling that they decided to search for or form a group to solve this problem, we conducted a sec-
ond coding round to better understand what types of “shocks” led to UMP involvement. Through
an iterative coding process, we re-analyzed and re-coded each interview to identify the specific
grievances that led respondents to the UMP. Throughout the coding process, if we discovered
coding discrepancies, we deliberated until we achieved consensus.
Utilizing contemporary and classical theory, we created a three-part, mutually exclusive typology
of social action: material, value-based, and cultural grievances. These became our three master codes.
To better understand these grievances, we deduced four mutually exclusive sub-codes for each master
code. We arranged these sub-codes under each master code in order of most important to least impor-
tant based on the frequency of the codes (quantity) as well as the content of the codes (quality). Our
final coding schema—a combination of theoretically grounded and content-specific coding—reflects
both deductive and inductive theory building. We illustrate our coding categories in Figure 2.
Findings
Values and culture explain approximately two-thirds of the grievances, whereas material interests
explain only one-third. Contrary to scholarship that attributes anti-immigrant behavior to economic
complaints, our in-depth study reveals that anti-immigrant activists are more concerned with what
they perceive to be violations of U.S. culture and values, as Figure 3 illustrates. We emphasize that
these quotations reflect activists’ attitudes, beliefs, experiences, and values, based on their own
perceptions. Robust social science research disputes the validity of some of these claims—ranging
from border enforcement, to crime, to the economic impact of migration—but the goal of this arti-
cle is to understand activists’ interpretations of the social world, not to adjudicate their validity. To
explore these issues, please see Wayne A. Cornelius and Jessa M. Lewis (2007), Marjorie S. Zatz
and Hilary Smith (2012), and Julie Stewart and Ken Jameson (2013) for a start.
Material Grievances
Material grievances linked to migration essentially come down to the fact that people believe
they—or people with whom they identify—are worse off due to influxes of foreign immigrants.
Respondents connected increases in crime, job competition, declining wages, and rising levels of
government-provided social expenditures to immigrants. The first interview excerpts highlight
concerns around justice and crime.
Justice,enforcement,and crime. Justice, enforcement, and crime was the dominant sub-code linked
to material grievances. Ninety-four percent of respondents mention this topic and a majority
specifically identify violent crime, drug trafficking, and human smuggling. Many attribute this to
their sense that illegal immigrants come from crime-ridden countries that have no rule of law;
they fear that this culture could negatively influence social order in the United States.
The U.S.–Mexico border is crucially important to UMP activists. Every respondent identifies
inadequate border enforcement and it was frequently a heated topic of discussion at meetings and
events. The experience of patrolling the U.S.–Mexico border became an important story for all
members, even those who did not personally travel to the border. Border security concerns
include drug trafficking, human smuggling, and even terrorists crossing into the United States.

Stewart et al. 11
Master Code Sub-code
# of
References
% of
Category
Description
Material
Grievances
Justice, Enforcement &
Crime
72 30.8%
Anything related to crimes
undocumented immigrants
(UIs) commit if they translate
into a material loss for the
respondent
Entitlements 61 26.1%
Material rights, benefits,
services or public expenditures
respondents think UIs should
not be receiving
Job Competition 52 22.2%
UIs taking jobs away from
Americans, driving down
wages, or driving out American
businesses
Financial Responsibility 72 15.4%
Material contributions that
respondents think UIs should
be making, but are not
General Material
Grievances
13 5.6%
Any other general material-
related grievances not specific
to a particular sub-code
Value-based
Grievances
Rule of Law 114 47.1%
The principal of obeying the
law for the benefit of a civilized
and orderly society; respect
for the constitution
Equality & Fairness 42 17.4%
Any mention of the importance
of these two principles and
how UIs violate them
Christianity & Compassion 36 14.9%
Any mention of how UIs or
undocumented immigration is
immoral or un-Christian
Work Ethic 21 8.7%
Attitudes toward work and
accumulation, sometimes
captured as the Protestant
work ethic: self-sufficiency,
working hard, saving money
General Value-based
Grievances
29 12.0%
Any other general value-based
grievances not specific to a
particular sub-code
Cultural
Grievances
Patriotism 104 41.8%
Engaging in practices that
connect with U.S. symbols;
any mention of UIs
disrespecting these symbols
Language 75 30.1%
Complaints about UIs refusing
to learn English, pressing 1 for
English, signs in Spanish, etc.
American Lifestyle 26 10.4%
Any mention of practices that
are not in accordance with the
"way Americans do things”
Religious Traditions 13 5.2%
Any mention that UIs violate –
in practice – a key action
connected with Christianity or
Judaism
General Cultural
Grievances
31 12.5%
Any other general cultural
grievances not specific to a
particular sub-code
Figure 2. UMP master code and sub-code description.
Note. UMP = Utah Minuteman Project.
George McKay recounts his memory of a middle-of-the-night conversation with the border patrol
regarding people who cross the border:
Maybe 50 percent are just poor people trying to do the best thing they can for their family. Then you
have 25 percent that are gang members, drug runners, slave coyotes . . . the bad, bad element. And
then an even scarier part is what they call OTMs: “Other than Mexicans.” Those are people from
Afghanistan, Iran . . . Because they look Mexican, they can filter into our country. With that border
open, they could bring in a suitcase bomb and set it right here outside this door.

UMP members perceive the border as our largest national security threat. They are frustrated
that U.S. military troops are sent to foreign countries, but that the government does not protect
our own border. Terry Seymour, co-chairman of the UMP, argues that guarding the border should
take precedence over military presence in Syria and Iran:
Why are we guarding Syria and Iran when our own southern border is a terrorist zone? Drugs,
murders, rapes, human smuggling—all kinds of stuff are going on our southern border and yet Mr.
Bush doesn’t do a single thing—not a thing!
Many UMP members focus on the influx of immigrants from Mexico, a country they associate
with unchecked criminality. They fear that illegal immigrants will transmit crime and lawlessness
into the United States, threatening social order. Joe Martinez explains that Arizona’s Senate Bill
1070 was motivated by precisely this type of fear:
They’re [undocumented immigrants from Mexico] coming from a lawless land that’s run by a drug
cartel . . . Those people are bringing their lawless ways over the border into our country. That’s why
Arizona adopted this . . . We can’t worry about going into 7-Eleven and having to come out and look
around our car to make sure nobody’s going to carjack us.
Entitlements. Roughly 26 percent of the material grievance references identify economic entitle-
ments. Many UMP members believe that either because illegal immigrants misrepresent their
income or household size, or work in the informal economy, they qualify for food stamps, wel-
fare, or housing assistance that American citizens working in the formal economy would not.
They think that undocumented immigrants receive social services and benefits that American
taxpayers are paying for, simply because they have American-born children. Furthermore, they
feel it is egregiously unfair that their family and friends who are struggling financially do not
qualify for help, while illegal immigrants working in the informal economy do, as Eric McGregor
explains:
If you’re illegal in this country, there’s no poverty line. You go work for cash. You have American-
born children. You go down to the welfare office, you have two or three kids, they give you $500,
$600 a month in food stamps. They’re going to work, making as much as me, cash. Who’s living high
off the hog? The illegals . . . And I see these kids [making] $1,800 a month, cannot get assistance for
anything. None. Is that fair?
Figure 3. Quantitative composition of UMP major grievances.
Note. UMP = Utah Minuteman Project.

Stewart et al. 13
While Eric expresses a common UMP belief that there is a different standard for undocu-
mented immigrants, Kevin Morrison highlights that these “free” benefits actually cost
taxpayers:
The services that they [undocumented immigrants] basically utilize for free, that takes money out of
your and my pocket . . . There’s the medical services, the educational services, the WIC services. I
mean, I’m appalled now as I go to the store and I stand in line and see person after person with the
WIC cards, taking basket after basket of groceries out of the store. I have family members that are in
dire straits that can’t do that; they still have to pay.
Job competition. Another significant material grievance among UMP members is the perception
that undocumented immigrants are stealing American jobs, accounting for 22 percent of all refer-
ences in this category. They contend thatAmericans—many citing their own family and friends—
are willing to do the jobs that undocumented immigrants do, but at a living wage. Unlike
undocumented immigrant workers who send their money back to their families in Mexico, Amer-
ican citizens must support a family here.
George McKay laments that jobs previously staffed by students or the elderly are “given to
someone else that will work for less.” He believes that because illegal immigrant workers are
willing to accept lower wages than American workers, wages have been suppressed:
There’s a lot of people out of work right now . . . People my age can’t [get a job] anymore because
they’ve been given to somebody else that will work for less than I will. And it isn’t that they’re doing
the jobs that people won’t do. They’re doing the jobs for half the amount of money that the people
would do that job for if they were here, because we still have to make enough to make a living to
support our families. They don’t.
Financial responsibility. Related to entitlements is financial responsibility, representing 11 percent
of material grievance references. Beyond paying taxes, the UMP believes that a good citizen
should invest his time, labor, and money into the economy. Many members assert that undocu-
mented immigrants do not come to raise a family and invest in the United States. Instead, they
come to take whatever they can. Terry Seymour and David Lopez, the two UMP co-chairmen,
illustrate this sentiment:
T: They are here for the money only and they send it back to their families.
D: They are just here for a quick cash get away. If they can’t make it, they’ll just go some-
where else. We’re invested in the community. This is where we have our families. This
is where we choose to live . . . We’re the ones building the schools and offices and ware-
houses and jails.
Value-based Grievances
Value-based grievances revolve around the perception that immigrants violate central, societal
principles. For many UMP members, sharing a similar set of values is fundamental to social
cohesion.According to the UMP, when citizens perceive that immigrants do not upholdAmerican
values, social chaos is imminent. The following interview excerpts demonstrate the range and
depth of UMP value-based grievances.
Rule of law. The rule of law is the most salient issue for the UMP, accounting for 47 percent of all
value-based grievances and totaling 114 references. Respondents link the rule of law to the U.S.
Constitution, which should be obeyed. They believe that undocumented immigrants represent the
quintessential case of defying the rule of law.

The UMP thinks that undocumented immigrants have violated the rule of law the moment
they enter the United States without authorization. Because undocumented immigrants require a
social security number to work in the formal economy and using another person’s number is a
felony, many think that undocumented immigrants are criminals. To them, illegal immigration is
not a one-time offense; it is an ongoing chain of criminality that involves undocumented immi-
grants and their employers, as Kevin Morrison explains:
[Q: What does rule of law mean?] It means honoring, obeying, and sustaining the law as it’s written.
And abiding by it. And that’s one of the problems, you’ve got individuals that are here that can’t
abide by it because they’re not here legally. But you have people here also that are legal that are not
abiding by the law by hiring these people, by looking the other way. Identity theft is one of our
biggest problems here.
Some UMP members argue that following the rule of law is the only way to maintain the
sovereignty of the United States. As Anne Clarke explains in the first excerpt, breaking the rule
of law leads to anarchy. In the second excerpt, Roger Lee proclaims that the rule of law is worth
fighting for:
We support the rule of law. That’s my big focus. We need to continue to have a good support for the
rule of law in this country, or it’s going to just break down. It is breaking down the sovereignty of our
country . . . Well, if you feel like you don’t need to obey the law, then what are you going to do?
You’re gonna just break the law all the time, and it ends up in anarchy.
[Q: Why is the law so important to you? What does it represent for you?] It is rules that we need to
play by. It is what defines this country as a country. My citizenship here is worth fighting for and if
we choose to ignore the law then what am I really fighting for? What’s the point? Just say to hell with
it. Where would we be? We’d be in a state of anarchy. Is that what we want?
Equality and fairness. The second most significant value-based grievance is the equality and fair-
ness principle, comprising 17 percent of this code. UMP members believe that illegal immigrants
receive favorable treatment, giving them an unfair advantage over legal immigrants and Ameri-
can citizens.
For example, David Lopez asserts that illegal immigrants hurt legal immigrants because they
are cutting in line and not waiting their turn to come. This makes it more difficult for those
attempting to emigrate to the United States legally:
The legal immigrants are the ones actually being left totally out on this whole argument here . . .
Immigrants from all over the world who want to come here, be it Australia, China, Japan, Vietnam,
Uzbekistan, Europe, Africa, are just totally left out . . . They are waiting years and years to get here.
There are literally some of them dying in waiting.
UMP members also think that illegal immigrants receive benefits at the expense of American
citizen taxpayers, violating principles of equality and fairness. Terry Seymour highlights Enlish
as Second Language programs:
[Here’s] another one that burns my ass! Spanish being used in the schools to educate their children,
the children of illegal aliens. My child sitting over in the corner, while the focus of the entire class
and the teacher and how many other aides there are being focused on these children that don’t speak
English. So, my tax money is being spent on these teachers . . . instead of my kid being taught. So
you tell me what’s equal about that?

Stewart et al. 15
Christianity and compassion. Violations of Christianity and compassion account for approximately
15 percent of value-based grievances. Because illegal immigration involves breaking the law,
some members view it as inherently un-Christian. Others refer to the immorality of human smug-
gling, drug trafficking, and border violence. Members such as Victor Garcia describe the behav-
ior of undocumented immigrants as essentially un-Christian and immoral. In this excerpt, Victor
Garcia recounts a troubling border memory that he sharply contrasts with typical American
behavior:
The one thing that broke my heart, and the worst time that I went down there, was the 3rd time. I saw
a mother throw her baby on the desert floor to get away from the border patrol . . . She got away,
because the border patrol was chasing them and they stopped to give aid to the baby, picked him up
and called an ambulance and have them come check him out. Like anything you would do as
Americans. So you know, there’s a lot more to this than just that hard working guy that wants a job
and a better life.
Work ethic. The work ethic sub-code constitutes nearly 9 percent of value-based grievances. This
principle exhorts one to work hard and be self-reliant. It means taking pride in what you can
contribute to your country. President John F. Kennedy perfectly captured this principle when he
said, “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” As
Julio Romero describes below, many UMP members believe that illegal immigrants do not want
to work hard and contribute to the country; on the contrary, they come expecting free education,
housing, food, and health care:
The day that I was sworn in as a U.S. citizen, I remember very, very clearly the words of the judge.
He said “Today the U.S. is a better culture because we have in it one of you as a citizen. I welcome
you and I say to all of you, make your contribution.” Those words have stayed in my mind ever since.
There is no day that goes by that I’m not thinking how I can make a contribution to this country . . .
But these people [undocumented immigrants] will never make a contribution. By the contrary, they
look for every single thing they can take advantage of the system.
Cultural Grievances
Acknowledging that culture and values presuppose and reinforce each other, it was difficult to
disentangle value-based and cultural grievances. However, our definition of culture focuses on
one’s “repertoire of practices” and the “social structures of meaning” of those practices.
Accordingly, we focused on practices such as language, lifestyle choices, and patterns of con-
sumption. The interviews excerpted below show the passionate responses to perceived violations
of central U.S. cultural practices.
Patriotism. Comprising 42 percent of all cultural grievances, patriotism is the most substantial
cultural sub-code. Patriotism involves showing loyalty, love, and respect for the United States
and all its symbols: the American flag, the constitution, the national anthem, and so forth. Frank
Lambert feels that the American identity is fundamental and objects to pairing it with other eth-
nic, racial, or national identities:
I get angry when I hear . . . “Well today is Mexican day, tomorrow is going to be Polynesian day, and
the next day is going to be Black day.” I don’t like hyphenated Americans. We’re Americans, we don’t
need the hyphen! I’m not a German-American because my grandfather came from Stuttgart, no! I’m
an American! . . . one more thing I’d like to add about my grandfather. He was so excited to become
an American, that it was no longer important to remain a German. That is what is missing today. We
don’t have people coming here with the excitement of assimilation and becoming an American.

The UMP believes that Americans must shed all former identities. The American identity is
singular and does not incorporate multiculturalism. In the view of the UMP, undocumented
immigrants do not want to become Americans; on the contrary, they want to preserve and pro-
mote their cultures. Ruth Drechsler describes her belief that undocumented immigrants, who are
predominantly from Mexico, intend to take back the southwest because they believe that the
United States stole it. As she explains,
They don’t want to come here to be Americans. They want to come here to take back and make this
Mexican soil!
Another common theme is loyalty. Loyalty to the United States goes beyond identifying
as an American. One must take pride in being American, defend the United States, and reject
dual loyalties. For many UMP members—as for Susan McGregor—there is no middle
ground:
It’s like being a family. You’re either loyal to your family or you’re not. And being a United States
citizen to me . . . is having that pride and standing up for America. But if you have this whole dual
citizenship, nobody knows which side you’re on.
This final excerpt significantly demonstrates what patriotism means to the UMP. Terry
Seymour, the UMP co-chairman, explains the “moral shock” that catapulted him to activism. For
context, he is married to a Vietnamese woman, though he is raising his son to be “fullyAmerican.”
This story has been retold in UMP meetings and multiple media interviews:
So, the particular point in time that just caused me to freak out was when I attended an assembly,
when . . . my son was in 2nd grade I think . . . The point came at the very last song where they had
the children wave the flag from the countries from which they had come. Well, every single child
in that room, almost without exception, was an American citizen—according to the 14th
amendment at least—but 60 percent were waving Mexican flags. And my son was given the
North Vietnamese communist flag to wave. And that infuriated me to no end . . . My son isn’t a
hyphenated American. He’s not a Vietnamese American, he’s an American. And by God, that’s
how he’s going to grow up.
Many members express similar emotions when they see a foreign flag being raised with the
American flag. Several relate stories about seeing foreign flags taking the place of the U.S. flag,
or how theAmerican flag was treated disrespectfully. These violations of respect for theAmerican
flag led many people to join the UMP.
Language. Another important element of culture is language, accounting for approximately 30
percent of all cultural grievances. In fact, every respondent asserts that English should be the only
official language. Many complain of the costs of accommodating those who do not speak Eng-
lish, including providing interpreters in courts and hospitals, printing government publications in
foreign languages, schools hiring bilingual teachers and running ESL programs, and so forth. In
our interview with national Minuteman Project founder Jim Gilchrist, he explains that a common
language is essential for social unity:
For us to be a cohesive society, a non-balkanized society, a society that doesn’t visibly discriminate
or even covertly discriminate based on race, color, and creed and all that stuff, you’ve got to have a
common bond where we can communicate with each other. Because we are an economic power, we
need a common bond to conduct commerce, and that common bond is the English language . . .
because that’s what everybody understands.

Stewart et al. 17
Many UMP members believe that speaking a foreign language is quintessentially un-Ameri-
can. When asked to define American, every single respondent mentions speaking English. All
respondents express strong emotions when talking about losing the English language, as Terry
Seymour describes in the first segment. Other members—such as Tom Clarke—view speaking a
foreign language as an attack on the linguistic supremacy of English, an assault on American
culture, and a threat to U.S. sovereignty:
I go out to Super Saver out in West Valley, Redwood Road and 3500 South and I am incensed and
outraged when all I frickin’ hear is Spanish—it outrages me. And I speak a foreign language!
If we lose our language, we’ve lost everything. And we’re losing it now. You go over to Sears
Roebuck in Fashion Place Mall or out to the Intermountain Health Care and you know what they
have up there? Signs in Spanish. When you pick up a phone and the operator says, “Spanish or
English?” I resent that deeply. . . . I’ve lost my language. We have lost it to the Spanish-speaking
people. We’ve literally lost.
American lifestyle. About 10 percent of the remaining cultural grievances encompass complaints
that undocumented immigrants engage in behaviors that contradict the way “Americans do
things.” In Mary Wright’s interview, she describes some of these activities, including selling food
from your car, parking your car on the lawn, letting your dog run loose, not respecting private
property, and other behaviors detailed in the excerpt below:
They’re [undocumented immigrants] rude. They cut right in front of you. I was in Wendy’s one time
and there comes this lady, she gets right in front of me! I go, “Excuse me, I was here first” and she
just looked at me. And my sister had that happen to her too, in Target. I guess because in Mexico they
don’t teach you no lessons, you know? . . . my sister, Sheri, she hates to see an illegal. She says . . .
“God, there they are in the DI [a secondhand store] and they’re stinking loud and their kids are
running around. They don’t even take care of their kids.”
Other UMP members recount similar behaviors, highlighting how they violate established
social norms. Although probably everyone has once been rude in public or failed to properly
watch their children, the critical point is that UMP members attribute this behavior to nationality
and citizenship status.
Discussion and Conclusion
While these interview excerpts represent a sample of the quotations at the heart of this study, our
data analysis demonstrates the centrality of cultural and value-based grievances behind UMP
activism. Although economic concerns are present, they did not dominate our conversations with
activists. Following Weber’s tradition of seeking verstehen, we found that for these activists,
concerns around principles and practices—rather than the pocketbook—explain their recruit-
ment into the UMP.
Supporting multiple scholars (Chavez 2008; Higham 2004; Sabia 2010; Tichenor 2002), our
study substantiates the claim that complaints around values and culture—much more than mate-
rial interests—explain the rise of anti-immigrant activism in America. People fear difference and
change; the demographic trends sweeping across America—and concomitant changes in prac-
tices and principles—may leave people feeling that they have no choice but to defend their way
of life, whether by going to the U.S. border or joining a local movement. It may restore agency
when people feel like they have none.

Because moral shock and self-recruitment were dominant themes in the origins of UMP activ-
ism, we focused on which grievances most powerfully explained recruitment. But social move-
ment theory identifies four factors that typically coalesce for groups with grievances to transform
into a social movement: an appropriate political opportunity structure (Meyer 2004), sufficient
organizational resources (McCarthy and Zald 1977), effective framing (Benford and Snow 2000),
and a powerful collective identity (Polletta and Jasper 2001; Snow and McAdam 2000).
There is growing interest in collective identity, as scholars have identified it as central to all
stages of a movement trajectory, from emergence to eventual decline. Collective identity refers
to both a process and a product. On the most basic level, it is the process by which individuals
come to see themselves in others; the product is a common understanding of “we,” or seeing the
“we” in “me” (Cohen 1985; Melucci 1989; Touraine 1985). This common understanding becomes
the basis for social action. Studies of collective identity have explored its role in grievance con-
struction, framing, tactical choices, resource acquisition, strategic interactions, emotions, and
movement outcomes (Brumley 2013; Hunt and Benford 2004; Polletta and Jasper 2001; Snow
and McAdam 2000).
Our in-depth data explain an important factor in the emergence of one social movement in
Utah. These data may not explain anti-illegal immigration activism everywhere, but future
research could explore our principal theoretical findings to see if they apply to activism in other
states, and to other nativist organizations. Furthermore, future studies could interrogate the griev-
ance-collective identity nexus to see how grievances contribute to a group’s internal identity
work (construction, convergence, transformation) and its external work (interactions with allies,
adversaries, and targets). This research could expand beyond immigration issues to better explain
extreme activism around prejudices linked to racial/ethnic diversity, religion, and sexuality.
Appendix
Interview Guide for Semi-structured, In-depth Interviews
Please note: Each interview was unique and after asking a few, general questions, the respondent
directed the conversation. As such, the questions below will give the reader a sense of the range
of questions covered in our interviews, as dictated by the interests and responses of the
interviewee.2
Ice breakers
Can you tell me a little about yourself?
Where are you from?
What kind of work do you do?
Does your family live here?
How long have you lived here?
Have you lived in places other than Utah?
Utah Minuteman Project (UMP)–specific questions
When did you first get involved in immigration issues?
What sparked your interest in immigration?
Have you ever participated in one of the trips to the border?
How did that experience at the border affect you?
What motivated you to become involved with the Utah Minutemen?
Can you describe some of your experiences with the Utah Minutemen?
When you reflect on some of the activities that members do, which do you think are most
important? Why?

Stewart et al. 19
What most upsets you when you think about illegal immigration?
To you, what does it mean to be an American?
Why do you think it is important to speak English?
When you think about the problem of illegal immigration, what do you think are some good
solutions?
Thinking about our history of immigration in the United States, what is different about our
immigrant past and how things are now?
When you think about living in the United States right now, what are you most worried about?
Why?
Acknowledgment
We would like to thank the leaders and members of the Utah Minuteman Project (UMP) for generously
giving us their time for in-depth interviews and for permitting us to attend UMP-sponsored meetings and
events.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or
publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Notes
1. Interview with Jim Gilchrist conducted by Michele O’Neill and Matthew Bendall, June 7, 2010, Irvine,
California. As we discuss in greater detail in our “Data and Method” section, to protect the confidenti-
ality of our respondents, we provided pseudonyms to all people interviewed for this study, other than
Jim Gilchrist, who is a public figure.
2. The authors constructed a database of all immigrant-related legislation discussed in Utah between
1999 and 2011. By accessing the public records of all bills proposed in the Utah Legislature (avail-
able at http://le.utah.gov/), we conducted an investigation using such search terms as immigrant and
immigration. This resulted in the identification of 103 immigrant-related bills. More information on
the individual bills is on file and available from the authors.
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Author Biographies
Julie Stewart is an assistant professor of sociology at Westminster College. She received her PhD in sociol-
ogy from New York University. She has published her research on migration, community development, and
social movements in Sociological Forum, the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, and Mobilization.
Michele Enciso Bendall received her MS in sociology from Brigham Young University. Her research
interests include immigration, race and ethnicity, and gender. She currently works for a start-up company
and continues to research and write about migration politics.
Charlie V. Morgan is an assistant professor in the sociology department at Ohio University. He received
his PhD in sociology from the University of California, Irvine. His research interests include immigration,
race and ethnicity, intermarriage, and minority groups in Japan. He is currently conducting a qualitative
research project on immigration in Japan.

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