The Basic Emotions of Disadvantaged Immigrant Subjects: A Case Study

This sociological study analyzes the emotions of Dominican immigrants in Switzerland when they interact with the majority group. Respondents emphasized feeling disrespected, mistreated, minimized, ignored, unwelcomed, rejected, and misrepresented. They talked about pain, indignation, feeling like an outsider and a lot of pressure to conform to Swiss culture. They also underlined resiliency, courage, national pride, confidence and power over the assumed currency of their physical and sexual appeal. The study shows that power-status inequalities and racist structures produce negative emotions, but some immigrants can manage them through alternative appraisals and redirecting blame. National identity, cultural aspects, transnational knowledge, gender and sexual meanings matter in their appraisals. There is an emotional advantage for those who feel more culturally integrated. More research is needed to shed light on the emotionally of majority-minority interactions, particularly the strategies adopted by disadvantaged immigrants in managing intense emotions within specific life realms.

The sociological approach to human emotions highlights the relationship between emotions and social dynamics and outcomes. This approach establishes that social conditions generate distinct categories of emotions with specific meanings (cf. Thamm 2006). This chapter adopts the sociological approach to investigate the immigration-emotions link. It carries out this investigation, adopting the scholarly accepted insight that social conditions impact people's emotional lives (cf. Thamm 2006) and that "status hierarchies […] are fraught with feelings" (Ridgeway 2006: 347). Particularly, based on Kemper's social structural perspective (2006,1991,1984, henceforth power and status theory), this article identifies and analyzes the emotions associated with the everyday life experiences of disadvantaged immigrant subjects. The focus is on the emotional lives of immigrants in connection to one specific social sphere: the emotionality of interactions with the majority group.
The power and status perspective postulates that configurations of power and status produce different categories of emotions. This means that emotions are power and/or status related and that an individual can have power and status privilege or disadvantage in any given social interaction. These insights are the basis for the study question: which emotions are most salient in interactions involving disadvantaged immigrant subjects and members of the majority group, which is answered from the perspective of respondents' narratives. A key argument guiding this research is that the emotional lives of immigrants are better understood when studied within specific life realms and when understood as repertories, as emotional configurations. The grounding of emotions within the dynamics of social inequalities is also important. The social inequalities lens provides the most robust angle from which to investigate the dynamics of emotions among disadvantaged subjects, directing us to look into the emotional arousals linked to institutional and everyday racism and host society characteristics (e.g. host society's immigration and naturalization laws and systems, conditions of integration, etc.). The chapter engages some of these issues, drawing from the experiences of first-generation Dominican immigrants in Switzerland as a case study.

Emotions and Power and Status Theory
The power and status theory predicts that different types of emotions will emerge under different "social structural conditions or power / status and appraisal" (Turner / Stets 2006: 36). It portends that having or losing power and expecting or not expecting to gain power are linked to emotional arousals. In a similar manner, the theory points to how status expectations (or lack thereof) alongside losing, giving, or negating status to others also trigger emotional responses. Thus, issues of authority and legitimacy are embedded in the definition. In doing so, it explains how the social actor's considerations about who to blame for the loss, gain, or negation of status inform the kind of arousal that's triggered (cf. Turner / Stets 2006: 35). Therefore, how Dominican immigrants make sense of their interactions with the Swiss majority provides information of their appraisals, as well as the status expectations and emotional responses that are more prevalent among them. This study will provide insight into the status expectations and emotional responses that are more predominant among study participants.
On the one hand, our definition of power within power and status theory reflects the "distributive approach" rooted in Weber's views, which stresses the extent to which one individual or group can impose their will on the other in the context of a social relation (Weber in : Heiskala 2001: 243). Power is a zero-sum transaction within this definition (cf. Heiskala 2001). The distributive approach helps highlight situations in which Dominican immigrants may experience negative emotions as they interact within hierarchical social relations and encounter varying situations of disadvantage, be it in the form of threats to their physical integrity, dismissal, insults, denial of rights, direct/ indirect, objective or symbolic forms of deprivation. Having less power within such situations means being less capable of resisting, opposing, asserting themselves, and maintaining power within those hierarchical interactions (cf. Kemper 1991: 332-333).
On the other hand, our definition of status stresses the notion of status-accord or a form of relationship in which one actor complies willingly with the prestige and honor-bound wishes, desires, interests, and needs of another. This points to the ways in which status is accorded voluntarily within specific normative contexts; marked by acceptance, respect, congeniality, friendship, sociability, helpfulness, and inclusion. Like power, status has a structural component in that it is the context that dictate the type of benefit that an actor must accord to another. The context also informs the diverse ways in which one actor can of her own free will gratify, benefit, and reward another (cf. Kemper 1991: 332-333). It is our contention that negative emotions often arise for Dominican immigrants since they are more likely to experience denial of gratification and benefit in everyday interactions while having to accord status to more privileged social actors in everyday life.
The chapter operates under two common assumptions within power-status theory. One common assumption is that power and status are fundamental dimensions of social relations within any given interaction. A second common assumption is that positive emotions correlate with having and gaining power and status while negative emotions tend to go hand in hand with not having or losing power and status (cf. Kemper 2006: 87-113;Turner / Stets 2006: 38). The result is that we can expect emotions to be "distributed differently in segments of the population based on social stratification" (Turner / Stets 2006: 39). Based on these insights, this study assumes that power and status dynamics play a role in the emotional lives of first-generation Dominican immigrants and their appraisal of social relations and interactions in Switzerland as their host society.
One final theoretical point of relevance is that people experience emotions recurrently in response to institutionalized triggers. This means that by and by certain emotions become familiar to people, and then they move in and out particular emotional states that arise under the influence of recurrently experienced societal facts. Based on this understanding, this study treats emotions not only as recurrent individual states, but rather as emotional repertoires. The term emotional repertoires refers to the stock or range of emotions experienced and espoused by people or groups under the influence of specified social structures. The study assumes that certain emotions have become habitual to first-generation Dominican immigrants under a set of societal influences in Switzerland. Dominican immigrants interact within Swiss social structures. It could be said that racist social structures have served as context for the development of specific emotional repertoires in the lives of first-generation Dominican immigrants in Switzerland. (cf. Swidler 1986: 276-278).

Background: Dominicans in Switzerland
Spain, Italy, Switzerland, and the Netherlands host the largest number of Dominicans in the European continent (cf. Guarnizo / Chaudhary 2014: 10). Many of them migrated to Europe starting in the 1980s because of lack of opportunity to migrate to the United States. The search for economic opportunities was a key reason to move for many of them (cf. Petree / Vargas 2005: 6).
Switzerland has one of the most robust democratic and economic systems in the world. It is by many standards one of the most sophisticated societies. Dominicans have migrated to Switzerland in three identifiable waves: 1973-1991, 1992-1998, and 1999 to the present (cf. Petree / Vargas 2005: 6). The greater number entered between 1992 and 1998 (cf. Petree / Vargas 2005: 29). About 61.0% of the permanent Dominican population live in German-speaking cantons. Cabaret dancing, prostitution, and work as DJs offered the only labor migration opportunities for Dominican women and men in Switzerland. DJ jobs and positions as dance instructors and party MCs at bars are still common occupations for Dominican men, along with maintenance, custodial, and other service jobs. Many female ex-dancers / prostitutes have transitioned into service occupations such as housekeepers, sales representatives, and caregivers after securing permanent residency through marriage. Today, just as in the United States, "family reunification and the growth of the second generation" are the means of growth of the Dominican population in Switzerland (Petree / Vargas 2005: 8). Table 1 confirms the significant presence of Dominican women in the population. It also shows the higher prevalence of naturalization among Dominican women as compared to men. In fact, their rates are more than three times the rates of Dominican men. However, only 40% of the Dominican population has acquired Swiss citizenship. About 1,387 of them obtained it between 1990-2005 (cf. Petree / Vargas 2005: 29).
Dominicans, and immigrants in general, encounter a complex naturalization process in Switzerland. Depending on cantonal residency status, citizenship petitions can be approved in a diversity of ways, including citizenship commissions, town meetings, and delegate legislature or executives at the local level (cf. Hofhansel 2008: 184-186). Still, it is municipalities that -with autonomy-decide the fate of naturalization petitions in the country. There are sharp differences in naturalization rates per municipality and applicants from northern and western Europe naturalize at much higher rates than others (e.g. applicants from Turkey and the former Yugoslavia). In fact, national origin is the most significant characteristic shaping naturalization success even more than other applicant characteristics such as socioeconomic and integration status and language proficiency (cf. Hainmueller / Hangartner 2013: 2).
Dominicans like other foreigners with no blood, birth or marriage ties to Switzerland must live in the county for at least 12 years to be able to apply for citizenship. Foreigners between the ages 10-20 see each year of residence count double. A process of "facilitated naturalization" exists for foreigners married to Swiss citizens and for still non-naturalized foreigners who have at least a legitimately recognized Swiss parent. A process of renaturalization also exists to deal with specific cases. Citizenship is not guaranteed, however, as specific processes must be followed, and requirements must be fulfilled (SWI 2018a). In the end, 1 Permanent residents only. This number represents the permanent residents who have the Dominican Republic as country of birth and not as country of citizenship.
The Basic Emotions of Disadvantaged Immigrant Subjects: A Case Study "Swiss citizenship is only acquired by those applicants who, after obtaining the federal naturalization permit, have also been naturalized by their communities and cantons and "there is no legally protected right to being naturalized by a community and a canton" (Efionayi / Niederberger / Wanner 2005). Also important, Dominican immigrants interact with a unique system of reception in Switzerland. For instance, what once was a culture friendly to massive immigration started to turn more negative after World War II. This shift started to evolve in Switzerland after the inflation crisis of the 1960s. Ever since, immigration has increasingly been associated with economic problems, such as unemployment, decrease wages, overcrowding, housing and shortage of teachers among other things (cf. Mayer 1971: 94-95;Afonso 2007: 15-18).
There are specific race-based features of Swiss society that first-generation Dominican immigrants have to interact with. First, Swiss culture stresses white ethnicity as criteria for belonging. Many Swiss talk about Muslims and opposition to Islam in clearly racialized ways despite the lack of a shared vocabulary of race in the society as it exists in the United States (cf. FCR 2014). The existing stability of hierarchies and boundaries that favor native Swiss, the second-class status of noncitizens, the exclusion of non-whites, the persistency of colonial cosmologies and cultures, and the hegemony of white identity are defining features of the institutional fabric of the different cultures, classes, languages, religions, and regions that make up Switzerland (cf. Purtschert / Fischer-Tiné 2015: 8-14).
Clear lines of differentiation exist at all levels of Swiss society between the status of native Swiss and foreigners. Within the category "foreigner," there are distinctions between immigrants of European background, particularly EU nationals, and other immigrants (cf. FCR 2014: 4). Skin color and being Muslim are also important markers within the broader category "foreigner" (cf. FCR 2014: 4). These distinctions trigger inequalities within the socioeconomic, political, and cultural realms. For example, race and ethnicity shape employment outcomes across the economy. The labor market is primarily segregated by national origin, skilled level, and gender (cf. Riaño / Wastl-Walter 2006: 1705. Citizens from early European Union (EU) and European Free Trade Association (EFTA) countries are eligible to reside and work in Switzerland based on a number of factors, including skill level, country of origin, and likelihood to find employment once registered at a specific regional employment office. Obtaining residence and work permits is somewhat harder for citizens from recently admitted EU countries. Citizens from non-EU / EFTA countries face the most hurdles, quotas being one of them (cf. SEM 2020; SWI 2018b).
The context of racism in Switzerland also involves heightened nationalist and neoracist xenophobia and public concerns over 1) perceived "over-foreignization" (Überfremdung), 2) social programs for immigrants and budget cuts, 3) the negative "economic and non-economic" consequences of migration, 4) increasing tensions between the immigrant population and the native population, and 5) significant public support for "restrictive immigration policies" among the people (Meuleman / Davidov / Billiet 2008: 352;Skenderovic 2007: 158-160). The realities of racism against immigrants propelled the creation of the 1995 anti-Racism law. This law is very weak, however. It only applies to a limited set of situations and is restricted to overt instances of racism against specific nationalities, not in terms of immigrant / minority status and institutional racism. This enables arbitrariness and ambiguities in dealing with discrimination cases in the courts (cf. FCR 2014).
The 2014 Report of the Federal Commission Against Racism (FCR) to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) highlighted the need for addressing the tightening of naturalization requirements, curving hate speech, racism and xenophobia in Swiss politics and the media, and finding solutions for the stigmatization, prejudice and discrimination against non-citizens. It also has called for an end to racial, ethnic and religious intolerance, and racial profiling. The report has also criticized the incomprehensiveness of anti-discrimination efforts introduced in January 2014, which accordingly place disproportionate emphasis on immigrants' integration while ignoring barriers imposed by discrimination. The UN has noted that integration alone is not the solution because even highly integrated immigrants are victims of racism and discrimination. The report states: "There are no civil and administrative laws against racial discrimination [in Switzerland.] […] The principal victims of racial discrimination are currently: people with dark skin and of African origin, Muslims, people from southeastern Europe and Turkey, Roma / Sinti / Yenish people and asylum-seekers (often simply because of their status as such)" (FCR 2014: 4). The FCR report also calls attention to the "trivialization" of these issues in the society and to the tendency to give prominence to freedom of speech over protection against discrimination (cf. FCR 2014: 4).
First-generation Dominican immigrants experience stigma and otherization in Switzerland. They are a stigmatized and unexpected minority. The native majority often associate being Dominican with prostitution, sex, exotic dancing, crime, poverty, low socioeconomic status, and low moral character. Images of Dominican women as visa-seeking prostitutes and tricksters and men as drug leaders are particularly meaningful (cf. Liberato 2018) they are in a position of having to negotiate this context in their everyday life.

Data and Methods
The study adopts a qualitative research method based on individual and group interviews. A grounded theory approach guides the analysis of the data. The grounded theory approach facilitates the translation of research participants' subjectivities, points of views and experiences and the description of meanings, mechanisms, and dimensions associated with interviewees' experiences through the identification of codes and the sorting out of relationships between the identified codes. The interview process involved thirty-seven in depth semi-structured interviews and five focus groups carried out with first-generation Dominicans in Zurich, Geneva, Berne, Neuchâtel, and Lucerne during the summer of 2008. Respondents' average length of stay is 12.7 years. The study sample is majority female. About 56% reached at least intermediate and secondary school while less than 10% have a college degree. About 82% works in the service sector and just 3.2% holds a professional or managerial position. The analytical process started with the initial coding followed by focused and theoretical coding. The data presented here focused on the interview questions concerning research participants interactions with the Swiss majority: 1) What can you tell me about your interactions with Swiss people in your everyday life? 2) How do these interactions make you feel?
Four focus groups had five female participants and one group had five male participants. Interviewees' responses are to be regarded as reservoirs of experience and knowledge and not as pre-determined and intentionally designed truths. The theoretical concepts and typologies used are analytical tools adopted to better understand some aspects of respondents' emotional lives. The total number of research participants was sixty-two. The selection of participants was non-probabilistic. The author reached research participants through personal contacts and the snowball method. Places such as beauty salons, a clothing store, and picnics, social gatherings, and beauty shops were important points of recruitment and fieldwork. The age of the research participants reached through snowball method ranges from 39 to 49 years. Because of the snowball approach to study recruiting, the author is likely to have missed other important groups. The author conducted all the interviews in Spanish in a face-to-face manner and recorded them. A paid transcriber did the transcription work for the interviews. The author did the translations featured in this chapter. The individual interviews had an average time frame of one hour while the focus groups ran for about one hour and thirty minutes. Data on place of birth, age, education, occupation, length of residency in Switzerland, marital status, number of children, legal residence status were collected at the end of the interviews.

Findings
This article explores the question which emotions are most salient in interactions involving disadvantaged immigrant subjects and members of the majority group. As indicated by the power and status theory, different categories of emotions with specific meanings emerged in the interview data. Respondents emphasized negative emotions when talking about everyday relations and interactions with members of the majority group. The most common negative emotions that transpired in the data are feeling disrespected, mistreated, minimized, ignored, unwelcomed, rejected, belittled, and misrepresented. Several respondents talked about pain, indignation, non-belonging / feeling like an outsider. In addition, a number of respondents commented on the pressure they feel to prove they always follow the Swiss ways and do the right thing as condition for belonging and earning the right to stay in Switzerland. A lot of the negativity experienced by the respondents was related to their status as non-Swiss, particularly their Dominican ethnicity. The Swiss racial structure and the dynamics of racial / ethnic social inequalities in Switzerland position Dominicans at the bottom of the racial and cultural hierarchy, exposing them to more everyday life stressors and having often to lose rather to earn power in everyday interaction. Their appraisals reflect conditions of disadvantage as they clearly convey a sense of victimization and mistreatment.
Respondents also conveyed the prevalence of positive emotions in the sphere of relations with the Swiss majority. A few respondents emphasized feelings of resiliency and feeling brave despite the racist mistreatment and other shortcomings affecting their interactions with the Swiss majority. Other respondents talked about national pride and feelings of satisfaction for being a Dominican despite the social tax they must pay because of their Dominican ethnicity. A few conveyed a sense of confidence, self-affirmation and power over the assumed currency of their physical and sexual appeal. The meaning here is that their Dominicanness The Basic Emotions of Disadvantaged Immigrant Subjects: A Case Study can be a site of struggle due to racism, but they also draw pride from it and experience positive feelings because of the alternative meanings they have constructed about what it means to be a Dominican in Switzerland.
For other respondents, their confidence and assertiveness derive from their conviction that they can interact with the Swiss with cultural competence. These respondents portray their perceived higher level of assimilation vis-a-vis other Dominicans as a resource they can deploy and exchange in their interaction with the Swiss. Other respondents emphasized feelings of gratitude towards Switzerland despite the reported interactional and relational troubles. The transnational gaze played a part here because such responses established the material and cultural advantages of living in Switzerland vis-a-vis living in a poor country like the Dominican Republic. This means that transnational knowledges and frameworks can play a mediating factor in the saliency, intensity and the management of emotions.

Discussion
The case study of Dominicans in Switzerland illustrates the relevance of status hierarchies for the arousal of emotions within a specified life realm. The study confirms general assumptions within the sociology of emotions, such as the fact that people's time-specific notions of what they like / dislike, have / do not have / had lost, approve / disapprove, want / do not want and their judgements of social events impact their emotional lives (cf. Ortony / Clore / Collins 1988: 1-14). The study shows that there are aspects of Swiss society (e.g. the Swiss / foreigner dichotomy) that study respondents regret and find unfair, and that according to them permeate their everyday interactions with Swiss citizens in undesirable ways. These social facts produced an array of emotions among some respondents, including pain, indignation, and frustration.
The findings also confirm the emotional value of sanctions and expectations. They confirm that negative sanctions and negative interactions produce negative emotions and vice-versa (cf. Thamm 2006: 11-17;Turner / Stets 2006: 35-41). Several respondents reported feeling negative emotions as they seemed to expect respect, understanding, and acceptance from the Swiss but accordingly, they get little or none of these.
Importantly, the data reveal the deployment of a framework of widespread unfairness and discrimination by respondents in representing their relations and interactions with the Swiss. This is relevant since the literature has shown that the way people define situations and judge the duration and significance of social events and circumstances matters for their emotional responses. This is the case given the higher status of the Swiss in the society. To whom people direct their emotions to matters (self, other, third party) (cf. Thamm 2006: 11-17;Turner / Stets 2006: 35-41), and the Swiss represent an unavoidable and powerful presence in first-generation Dominican immigrants' lives. The fact that several respondents Feeling unwelcome and rejected, nonbelonging "The Swiss love to remind you that you are a foreigner. You are made to feel that you are in a specific place." "I feel like a fish out of water because the Swiss make you feel like a foreigner in every situation." Frustration; pain "We are treated differently. We are not seen as having potential.
You can see this in the way our children are placed in special programs for less developed kids. Our children will never be number one at school. I don't like to interact with teachers. This drives me totally crazy." Feeling stereotyped; minimized; misrepresented; belittled "They make you feel less than. We are prostitutes and drug dealers. If they know you are Dominican, that is what they are going to think of you and treat you negatively." Pressure to conform "You feel you are seized. You must proof to the Swiss that you are perfect. That you behave exactly the way they want. You will never be Swiss, but you must act in acceptable Swiss ways. If not, you are not worthy enough to be in Switzerland." The Basic Emotions of Disadvantaged Immigrant Subjects: A Case Study see mistreatment and pressure to act Swiss as a pervasive feature of their interactions with the majority group is thus meaningful. In this regard, although not mentioned earlier, some respondents particularly blamed older Swiss for the complexity of Dominican-Swiss interactions, depicting older Swiss citizens as the most intolerant in the society and the most challenging ones in everyday interaction. This speaks to the fact that intensity and salience are unequally distributed among emotion categories (cf. Thoits 1989: 321-322). On the other hand, respondents who reported feelings of integration and belonging passed blame to Dominicans who allegedly lack interest in Swiss culture and have an inadequate integration to Swiss society. This brings the dynamics of immigrant integration to the center, signaling the emotionality of this realm. The transnational sphere also emerged as important realm for the arousal and management of emotions among study respondents. In addition, gender, sexuality, and the body came to light as important categories. The data show they are implicated in the emotional repertoires of several respondents. A few respondents drew from these three social entities to deal with emotional responses. These respondents were able to focus their attention to positive things and derive pride from constructions of Dominicanness as attractive, sexual and valuable. They constructed Dominicanness as an asset, not as a burden like it was the case of other respondents. This points to the idea that while people generally navigate known emotional repertoires, they are conscious social actors who can make creative and intentional decisions to adapt to or change undesirable situations.

Conclusions
The interaction of specific configurations of power-status inequalities and racist structures produces different categories of negative emotions among first-generation immigrants. At the same time, they can experience positive emotions and manage them through the deployment of alternative appraisals and redirecting blame. National identity, cultural aspects, transnational knowledge, gender and sexual meanings act as important resources in their conceptualizations of positive appraisals. There is an emotional advantage for first-generation Dominican immigrants who feel to be more integrated to Swiss society in comparison to others. Thus, social disadvantage increases negative emotions and deepens first-generation immigrants' appraisals, especially among those with more symbolic and cultural resources. This suggests that the key is not only to describe the form and content of emotional repertoires within unequal social relations, but also to go deeper into the emotionality of majority-minority interactions, by understanding the strategies adopted by disadvantaged immigrants in managing intense emotions within specific life realms.
It is also important to gain insight on how unequal social relations help trigger emotion management strategies that reproduce inequality. For example, we mentioned earlier that a number of respondents commented on the pressure they feel to follow Swiss values and codes of behavior to avoid negative judgements and reactions, and as condition for acceptance as foreigners on Swiss soil. During The Basic Emotions of Disadvantaged Immigrant Subjects: A Case Study fieldwork, it was clear to us that some Dominicans distance themselves from those compatriots whom in their view exhibit behaviors that are criticized by the Swiss. We learned that among those to be avoided to minimize judgement and uphold one's status in front of the Swiss are Dominican women who allegedly dress in provocative and tight clothing, who speak and laugh loud, who socialize often, who have dubious employment and who create conflict at Dominican gatherings. The drawing of social boundaries among Dominican coethnics reinforces the status quo and the social order that positions Dominicans at the bottom of the social hierarchy. The emotionality of coethnics relations thus provides yet another window of exploration into the emotions and inequality linkage.