Deporting Fathers: Involuntary Transnational Families and Intent to Remigrate among Salvadoran Deportees

One‐fourth of deportees from the United States are parents of US‐citizen children. We do not know how separation from families affects remigration among deportees, who face high penalties given unlawful reentry. We examined how family separation affects intent to remigrate among Salvadoran deportees. The majority of deportees with children in the United States were also separated from their spouse, and the vast majority had US‐citizen children. Family separation was the single most important factor affecting intent to remigrate. We interpret these findings in light of immigration policy debates.     

Local Economic Opportunity and the Competing Risks of Internal and U.S. Migration in Zacatecas,Mexico1

This article uses a competing risks model to examine the effects of origin economic conditions on the probability of temporary U.S. and internal labor migration in the Mexican state of Zacatecas. We measure origin economic conditions with municipal‐level indices of employment and small‐scale investment opportunities that we constructed from population and economic census data. The results of our analysis demonstrate the important influence of local employment and investment opportunities on migration outcomes. Controlling for the prior municipal rate of U.S. return migration and other factors, positive opportunities for small‐scale investment are associated with a higher risk of temporary migration to the United States. This result is consistent with investment oriented migration predicted by the new economics of labor migration theory. We also find comparable social network effects for both internal and U.S. migration. Having social ties to active migrants of one type (U.S. or internal), encourages migration of the same type and discourages migration of the other type.     

Forced transnationalism: transnational coping strategies and gendered stigma among Jamaican deportees

Once forcibly returned to their countries of citizenship, how and why do deportees engage in transnational relationships? Through analyses of 37 interviews with Jamaican deportees, I approach the question of why deportees engage in transnational practices and reveal that deportees use transnational ties as coping strategies to deal with financial and emotional hardship. This reliance on transnational ties, however, has two consequences: (1) male deportees who rely on transnational strategies to survive face a gendered stigma because they must relinquish the provider role and become dependants; and (2) the transnational coping strategies serve as a reminder of the shame, isolation and alienation that deportees experience because of their deportation. This consideration of the consequences of transnational relationships sheds light on why some migrants are transnational and others are not.     

Painful Passages: Traumatic Experiences and Post‐Traumatic Stress among U.S. Immigrant Latino Adolescents and their Primary Caregivers

Using data from a stratified random sample of 281 foreign‐born adolescents and their parents in the United States, this study provides data on migration‐related trauma exposures and examines how the migration process influences the risk of experiencing trauma and developing posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). We find that 29 percent of foreign‐born adolescents and 34 percent of foreign‐born parents experienced trauma during the migration process. Among those that experienced trauma, 9 percent of adolescents and 21 percent of their parents were at risk for PTSD. Pre‐migration poverty combined with clandestine entry into the U.S. increased the risk of trauma and the subsequent development of PTSD symptoms. Post‐migration experiences of discrimination and neighborhood disorder further exacerbated this risk, while social support and familism mitigated it. Our results emphasize the importance of understanding how factors prior to, during, and after migration combine to influence the health of immigrants.     

After the transnational turn: Looking across borders to see the hard face of the nation-state

This paper leverages the repressive turn in U.S. migration policy to understand how a cross-border perspective can illuminate the experiences of two different, but contemporaneous second-generation populations: Those whose lives have unfurled in the United States, all the while growing up in internationalized families with ongoing homeland ties; and those whose childhoods began in the United States, but were disrupted as part of the ‘Great Expulsion’, and thus migrated to Mexico, albeit often with U.S. citizenship and almost always with cross-border ties to family members still living in the United States. As the paper demonstrates, looking across borders highlights the importance of the territorial frontier and the continuing power of the national to undermine the forces that produce cross-border connections.     

The Sonoran Desert’s Domestic Bracero Programme: Institutional Actors and the Creation of Labour Migration Streams

This paper traces the journeys of male migrants to Empalme, Sonora, Mexico to uncover the development of the often overlooked domestic bracero programme that operated in conjunction with its well‐known international equivalent. Drawing on interviews and observations with ex‐braceros who met at a park near the Mexico‐US border, I examine their experiences and participation in Mexico’s domestic bracero program, an unintended and unexplored consequence of its international counterpart. The study shows how regulation and control were constantly reinvented at every step of the selection process by state actors and their affiliates in Mexico. The paper reveals how the oversupply of labour and modernization of agriculture in Sonora resulted in the development of a migration industry where local municipal leaders, coyotes, the state, and Mexican agribusiness capitalized from men’s displacement. The migration industry during the bracero selection process controlled who gained access to the United States labour market by capturing migrant labour en route to the United States in the process fueling a thriving cotton industry in the otherwise stagnant Sonoran Desert economy. The study concludes by taking the lessons from the historic domestic bracero programme to show one instance in which internal and international labour markets were closely interwoven. In the end, I call for more research that examines the relationship between markets on both sides of the border that uncovers how networks are not only structured by personal ties but also by state and market relations.     

The Role of Community Assessments,Place, and the Great Recession in the Migration Intentions of Rural Americans

Many rural areas of the United States are experiencing population decline due to out‐migration. However, others—especially those places rich in natural amenities and recreational opportunities—are attracting new residents and losing less of their native population. In this article we investigate the predictors of rural Americans' migration intentions by examining how individual‐level community assessments, including community attachment and perceptions of community‐level problems, shape rural Americans' migration decision making while controlling for individual and place effects. Drawing on survey data from 17,000 residents in 11 different rural areas around the United States, we find that community attachment is a key predictor of rural migration, even during periods of economic recession, and regardless of individual and place characteristics or perceptions of community‐level problems. We also find that multiple dimensions of community attachment (e.g., practical, natural, family, community trust) have independent effects on the propensity of rural residents to migrate. Our research contributes to knowledge on migration trends among rural Americans by exploring the complicated reasoning behind why people stay in, or move to, certain rural communities and not others.     

Determinants of Savings, Remittances, and Spending Patterns among U.S. Migrants in Four Mexican Communities

In this paper we attempt to overcome several weaknesses of earlier field studies of the effect of international migration on sending communities. In general, these studies fail to employ representative samples of migrants, specify theoretical models of decision-making, or control for a variety of individual and household characteristics likely to affect how migrants dispose of their earnings, including sample selectivity. Representative samples of Mexican migrants from four sending communities are used to estimate a theoretical model that controls for a variety of individual, family, and trip characteristics; other stages of the analysis also control for sample selectivity. The findings suggest that migrant decision-making is strongly and consistently determined by social capital and community membership, with other variables playing ancillary roles in different decision processes. The propensities to save, remit, and invest productively generally rose as ties to the United States increased, and were generally higher in communities with well-developed local economies.     

Stepfamily Formation: Implications for Adolescent Ties to Mothers,Nonresident Fathers,and Stepfathers

This study examines how the entrance of a stepfather influences adolescent ties to mothers and nonresident fathers and how prior ties to each biological parent influence the development of stepfather‐stepchild ties. Data come from 1,753 adolescents in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health who lived with a single mother in Wave 1 who remained single, cohabited, or married by Wave 2, approximately 1 year later. Stepfamily formation had little consequence for adolescent‐nonresident father ties. Adolescent‐mother closeness, however, declined when cohabiting, but not married, stepfathers entered the household. Close ties to married stepfathers were more likely to develop when adolescents were closer to their mothers before stepfather entry. Prior ties to nonresident fathers were unrelated to stepfather‐stepchild ties.     

Military Brides and Refugees: Vietnamese American Wives and Shifting Links to the Military, 1980 – 2000

Since the immigration legislation of 1965, marriage to American citizens and resident aliens has been one of the primary paths for migration to the United States. Despite the rapid growth of the Asian American population over the course of the late twentieth century, Asian Americans had still reached only 3 per cent of all Americans by 2000, meaning that Asian marriage migration to the United States has been largely through marriage to non‐Asians. In this study, we look at exogamy among Vietnamese Americans using U. S. Census data (1980, 1990, and 2000) from 5 per cent PUMS sets made available through the IPUMS project. We ask: (1) What are the predictors of exogamy among Vietnamese Americans? (2) How do the rates of exogamy of Vietnamese American women compare to those of Vietnamese American men? (3) How have the predictors of exogamy and the apparent characteristics of the exogamously married changed over the decades of refugee movement from Vietnam to North America? We review data from the years 1980, 1990, and 2000. In the assimilationist view of immigration associated with the classic work of Milton M. Gordon, exogamy is the final stage of immigrant incorporation into a host country. Migration through marriage, which has become a major source of immigration to the United States since the Immigration Act of 1965, reverses this assimilationist pattern, placing marriage before immigration and incorporation, or at the earliest stages of immigration and incorporation. Our findings are relevant to understanding the specific Vietnamese experience in the United States. They highlight the continuing but declining importance of the Vietnam War in creating close connections between Vietnamese and other people in the United States, even after the war had ended. The findings also suggest how these connections changed as a result of Vietnamese mass migration to America.     

Transnational ties and ethnic identities in the parental homeland: second-generation Indian Americans in India

ABSTRACT

This article explores the ‘return’ migration of high-skilled, second-generation Indian-Americans from the United States to India. Based on interviews with fifty-six respondents, it asks: What transnational ties do second-generation Indian Americans maintain with India prior to return? Upon return, what are their ‘reverse’ transnational linkages to the United States? How do these linkages shape their ethnic identities, if at all? Findings suggest that respondents’ transnational ties to India prior to return reinforce their identities as Indian Americans. Once in India, they maintain affective and civic ties to the United States, the country where they were born or raised. Further, American-inflected social ideas and norms shape returnees’ interactions with domestic workers in India. As they grapple with the disparities between Western and Indian norms on the treatment of domestic help, respondents privilege ‘American’ identities. These findings highlight the transnational ties and identity construction and negotiation of second-generation returnees.     

Occupational Channels for Mexican Migration: New Destination Formation in a Binational Context

In the 1990s, Mexican immigration dispersed spatially, leading to the emergence of many “new destinations,” in nonmetropolitan areas of the United States. Previous studies constrain the scope of the analysis to the United States, limiting our understanding of how new destinations are formed. We place new destination formation into a binational context and emphasize the role of supply‐side immigration dynamics. We argue that occupations in Mexico provide ready‐made paths, or “channels,” for economic incorporation into the United States and that these channels underlie the formation of many new destinations. Using a unique data set on Mexican migration, we estimate a multivariate model that tests for the presence of occupational channels linking analogous sectors of the U.S. and Mexican economies, focusing especially on the food‐processing sector. The results demonstrate that Mexican migration is strongly channeled along occupational lines. There are occupational channels linking each of the major economic sectors in Mexico and the United States, but the effect of channeling is particularly strong in the food‐processing sector. By empirically identifying the existence of occupational channels, this study uncovers a key explanation of new destination formation in many nonmetropolitan areas.     

The Significance of the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks for United States‐Bound Migration in the Western Hemisphere

The economic and political effects of the September 11 terrorist attacks weakened Latin American and Caribbean economies, reduced employment among Western Hemisphere immigrants living in the United States, and hindered new migrants' access to U.S. territory. Thus, the 9/11 events probably increased long‐term motivations for northward migration in the hemisphere, while discouraging and postponing international population movement in the short run. In addition, the terrorist assaults dealt a sharp setback to a promising dialogue on immigration policies between the United States and Mexico. Those discussions had appeared to herald constructive new policies towards migration into the U.S. from Mexico and possibly other nations in the hemisphere. A series of significant international migrant flows in South and Central America and in the Caribbean, not involving the United States, are unfortunately beyond the scope of this brief essay. I will first describe the consequences of the September 11 assaults for U.S.‐bound migration in the hemisphere, before turning to consider future social, economic and policy paths.     

Homeland Interests,Hostland Politics: Politicized Ethnic Identity among Middle Eastern Heritage Groups in the United States1

Why do ethnic diasporas in the United States differ in their readiness for political mobilization on behalf of homeland interests? This study develops a tiered model of politicized ethnic identity emphasizing both individual‐level traits and group/collective properties. Using Zogby “Culture Polls,” the theory is tested on three Middle Eastern heritage groups in the United States (Jews, Arab Christians, Arab Muslims). Empirical analysis confirms that individuals differ in their readiness for mobilization around Middle East issues based on the strength of ties to the ethnic community and, net of such differences, each group varies based on the contexts of exit and reception it faced at the time of immigration. The findings suggest that studies of diaspora influence on American foreign policy need to take account of the mass base rather than focus exclusively on elite behavior.     

Indigenous Immigrants from Latin America (IILA): Racial/Ethnic Identity in the U.S.

In recent decades, migration from all corners of the world has created one of the most racially/ethnically diverse immigrant populations in the history of the United States. While today migratory flows are predominantly from Asia, immigrants from Latin America continue to make up the largest immigrant group in the United States. The influx of this group reflects the heterogeneity of the Latin American region, including Latin American immigrants who identify as indigenous in their countries of origin. Through a brief overview of how indigeneity, race, and ethnicity have been historically framed in Latin America, I discuss how Indigenous Immigrants from Latin American (IILA) position their indigeneity within their racial/ethnic identity in the United States. I consider how migration shapes indigenous identity and propose the use of Social Identity Theory (SIT) to explore how IILA negotiate a racial/ethnic identity while maintaining their indigeneity in a U.S. context.     

Managing Migration,Managing Motherhood: The Moral Economy of Gendered Migration

For the past two decades, women have been migrating from Mexico to the United States on temporary work visas to pick meat from blue crabs in small coastal factories. Within a theoretical framework that argues for the relevance of a moral economic perspective to gendered migration, we examine the how participating in this migration influences migrants' families, including their abilities to produce higher‐quality lives. Specifically, we focus on the various factors that feed into the decision to migrate, the immediate consequences of those decisions for the relations among migrants, children, spouses and other family and community members, and the longer‐term consequences in terms of gender relations, the restructuring of parent–child relationships and the material benefits of work abroad. We find that women negotiate a variety of contradictions and paradoxes to participate in the programme, many of which directly influence their quest to reaffirm their abilities, as mothers, to produce quality human beings. These findings reflect more general global appeals for valuing human life by measures other than those of conventional political economy.     

Offspring Migration and Parents' Emotional and Psychological Well‐being in Mexico

In Mexico, offspring migration disrupts familial norms of coresidence and geographic proximity. This article examines how an adult child's migration, both domestically and to the United States, affects the emotional and psychological well‐being of parents who remain in the place of origin. Using nationally representative longitudinal data from the Mexican Family Life Survey (N = 4,718), the authors found limited evidence that parents whose offspring emigrated to the United States experience worse outcomes than parents of offspring who did not migrate. Although they found that offspring U.S. migration was not associated with changes in parents' overall depressive syndrome, a child's U.S. migration increased the likelihood of experiencing loneliness and led to a lower likelihood of recovery from parental sadness over time. Children's domestic migration did not affect parental well‐being. These findings add to a growing body of literature that should be considered when assessing the broader impact of migration on family members who remain behind.     

The Case of Cubans: Racial Inequality in U.S. Homeownership and Home Values

Prior research finds that human capital may explain racial housing inequality, whereas others note the historical role that race played in creating unequal housing conditions. This study uses the case of Cubans in the United States to examine whether human capital explains Black–White housing inequalities, or if they are a result of nativity/cohort differences—a proxy for the federal policies that supported Cubans’ economic and social incorporation. Using pooled data from the American Community Survey, I examine how human capital characteristics and nativity/migration cohorts shape odds of homeownership and predicted home values among Cubans. Extended analyses using decomposition methods find that although human capital characteristics are important, they play a smaller role in explaining Black–White differences in homeownership and home values. Indicative of the changing structure of racial stratification in the United States, results reveal substantial inequality among the oldest of Cuban immigrants and U.S.‐born Cubans, despite a trend toward declining inequality among recent arrivals. Supported by the literature of systemic racism, the case of Cubans shows how human capital explanations do not sufficiently explain racial housing inequalities and how the future of racial stratification is one of inter‐ and intra‐ethnic group inequality.     

Immigrant Trip Duration: The Case of Immigrants from Western Mexico1

This article uses data from the Mexican Migration Project to determine the factors that affect how long Mexican immigrants stay in the United States. Based on the estimates of a discrete‐time hazard model, the most important predictors of duration are the economic opportunities for immigrants in the United States, the household resources before migration, and the opportunities available at the immigrant's community of origin. The article also finds longer trip duration after the Immigration Reform and Control Act than in previous years and important differences between male and female migrants.