Racing to Refuge: Ethnicity, Gendered Violence, and Somali Youth in San Diego

This dissertation is a study of youth programs as structures of refuge for Somalis in San Diego, CA. Somali youth stand at the nexus of the notions of, on the one hand, "refugees" as traumatized and deserving of humanitarian aid, and on the other hand as "Somalis" feared to be violent or threats in the war on terror. What appear to be contradictory constructions are complementary aspects of violent racial subject-making that position in every significant capacity "first" world (coded as white heteropatriarchal) above "third" world and other (coded as "of color" and "foreign"). Media and popular culture reinforce these constructs while programs in the nonprofit sector market themselves and orient their programming toward discourses on rescue that reproduce the status quo. Meanwhile, resettled Somalis in urban areas like City Heights, San Diego face everyday environments shaped by legacies of race and class discrimination. Beyond the simplistic construct of benevolent helpers and their incapacitated wards lies a more complex field of struggle where neighborhood residents, resettlement officials, and newcomers contest the meanings of race, ethnicity, class, and gender. Striving for a social justice-informed ecological view of refugees, this study explores the complexities of youth program structures of refuge in the areas of law enforcement, sexual health and masculinity, and public education. This study contributes to public policy and education literature on a sizeable and significant minority group concentrated in an urban US inner city.