UC Merced

Through 60 in-depth interviews with deportees, this article examines the role of social, human, and psychological capital of Dominican deportees and their (re)integration into the labor market after deportation. Scholars emphasize that in many Latin American countries deportees face difficulties reintegrating into society and the labor market due to stigmatization as they are viewed as criminals. This raises the question: What role do deportees’ social, human and psychological capital play in their job placement? This study reveals that deportees’ forms of capital are limited due their life experiences marked by early immigration, segregation in the USA and later deportation, therefore, deportees’ forms of capital and job outcomes (labor reintegration) must be negotiated relative to a complex entanglement of global, capitalist, and neoliberal dynamics. As a result, in the Dominican Republic, deportees are not able to recover their status and identity which leads to fissures in their reintegration process forcing them to consider the possibility of emigration