Loving Immigrants in America
An Experiential Philosophy of Personal Interaction
By (author) Daniel Campos
Publication date:
30 August 2017Length of book:
282 pagesPublisher
Lexington BooksISBN-13: 9781498547840
At once narrative and reflective, Loving Immigrants in America: An Experiential Philosophy of Personal Interaction is a philosophical account of Daniel Camposʼs experience as a Latin American immigrant to the United States of America. A series of interrelated personal essays together convey this experience of walking or sauntering, going on road trips, reading American literature in the southern United States, playing association football (soccer or fútbol), churchgoing, and Latin dancing in the U.S. This book’s central motif is the caring saunterer, who is understood to be a person who makes him or herself at home anywhere, even as a Latino immigrant in the U.S. The narrative essays convey one immigrant’s experience seeking an affective, social, and intellectual home in a new land. The intertwined philosophical reflections lead to the recommendation of an ethic of love—resilient love—for the day-to-day interactions and long-term relations between immigrants and hosts in this country.
The author’s aim is to establish an open and earnest philosophical dialogue with critical readers interested in the problems surrounding immigration in the U.S. today. He writes as an American philosopher—in the continental sense of North, Central, and South America—whose reflections provide an accessible and provocative angle for the development of insight into the experiences of immigrants in the United States. Thus he brings philosophical reflection drawn from experience, in the broad American tradition, to bear on current issues—on the problems of people and not of philosophers, as John Dewey might put it.
The author’s aim is to establish an open and earnest philosophical dialogue with critical readers interested in the problems surrounding immigration in the U.S. today. He writes as an American philosopher—in the continental sense of North, Central, and South America—whose reflections provide an accessible and provocative angle for the development of insight into the experiences of immigrants in the United States. Thus he brings philosophical reflection drawn from experience, in the broad American tradition, to bear on current issues—on the problems of people and not of philosophers, as John Dewey might put it.
Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps . . . I hope. Loving Immigrants in America presents the possibilities of stories, not the necessary results of argument. This represents a beautiful opening of the discipline of philosophy, returning us to Plato’s Socrates, and his much wider faith in logoi, which also included narratives, myths, allegories, music, and poetry. Like the American philosophers, literary figures, and musicians that serve as his inspiration, Campos unstiffens our theories about what constitutes philosophy, reminds us that we can do more than merely engage in internecine arguments, and challenges immigrants and non-immigrants alike to listen.