Transnational Migration Guest Lecture by Patricia Landolt

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Transnational MigrationGuest Lecture by
Patricia Landolt
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Goals of Lecture, November 14

• Provide an overview of transnational migration
• Identify types of transnational practices
• Consider the implications of transnational
  migration for policy and study of immigration

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1.

• Provide an overview of transnational migration

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Transnationalism Definition

• Transnationalism occurs when migrants
  simultaneously maintain social identities and
  social ties in their countries of origin and
  destination
• Transnational practices are everyday cross-border
  exchanges of ideas, practices and resources
  between migrants and non-migrants
• Includes economic, social, cultural and political
  arenas of social action

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TransnationalismEnabling Factors

• Changes in technology and communications
• Changes in labour market opportunities in places
  of origin
• Structural dislocation
• Changes in labour market opportunities in
  immigrant receiving countries
• Permanent temporariness
• Partial Citizenship
• Less than full legal status

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2

• Identify types of transnational practices

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Examples of Transnational Economic Practices

• Remittances
• Informal couriers
• Barrels, Balikbayans and other types of care
  packages
• Transnational entrepreneurs, e.g. Canada,
  Business Investor Immigration Stream

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Examples of Transnational Family Practices

• Ruptured families Long distance care giving
• Families import grandparent temporarily to help
  raise immigrant children
• Immigrant kids are shipped off to Home country
  to learn language, learn good behaviour,
  respect

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Examples of Transnational Socio-Cultural
Practices

• Hometown, parish-based, and alumni associations
• Chain migration ? residential clusters in
  settlement locations
• provide funding for water systems, schools,
  scholarships, and other community services and
  facilities in place of origin (town, highschool,
  church, etc.)
• Religious leaders tour temples, churches,
  mosques, etc. in places of immigrant settlement
• Home country celebrities (music) tour places of
  immigrant settlement

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Examples of Transnational Political Practices

• Vote in home country elections (e.g. Brazil,
  Canada)
• Fund raise for political parties or opposition
  movements of home country
• Run as a candidate in home country elections
  (e.g. Dominican Republic, Colombia)
• Have a special status in home country (e.g.
  Phillipines, India NRI)

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3.

• Consider the implications of transnational
  migration for policy and study of immigration

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Transnationalism Specific Consequences

• Economic Practices Changes in strategies of
  migrant livelihood and social mobility
• Family Practices New understanding of who
  constitutes the family, new strategies for
  caregiving and social reproduction
• Socio-Cultural Change in the arena within which
  people constitute and maintain ethnic/racial/relig
  ious/national identity
• Political new arenas of citizenship across
  borders, new forms of political participation

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Immigration Research in light of Transnationalism

• What is the arena within which we study the
  immigrant experience
• Migration as a sharp break with home country
• VERSUS
• Migration as continued ties to people,
  institutions in home country
• Change in the way we understand population
  movement
• From uni-directional to bi-directional and
  multi-directional
• Change in the way we understand immigrant
  settlement
• Perennial returns
• Back and forth movement

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• BREAK

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The Institutional Landscapes of Salvadoran
Refugee Migration Transnational and Local Views
from Los Angeles and Toronto (Landolt, 2006)

• Premise Membership in political communities,
  political participation across nation-state
  borders
• RQ How do we explain differences in the types of
  transnational political practices developed by
  Salvadorans in Toronto Los Angeles
• Key Concept(s)
• Modes of Incorporation
• Context of Exit and Reception

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Contexts of Exit from El Salvador

• Regional labour migration system, 1880s
• Political violence of civil war ? FORCED
  migration, 30 displaced
• Highly politicized and contentious refugee
  exodus, 1980s
• National and international interests seek to
  define situation
• Refugee as subversive, freedom fighter, passive
  victim of the conflict etc.

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Contexts of Entry, 1970s-80s

• Canada
• El Salvadorrefugees
• Government assisted entry special programs
  (Political Prisoners)
• No extensive chain migration, narrow family
  reunification
• Government settlement assistance through
  churches Mutual aid as complement to govt.
  assistance

• USA
• El Salvador no problems
• Entrance is unauthorized, undocumented (issue of
  border security)
• Kin and village-based chain migration
• No formal settlement assistance
• Precarious kin-based mutual aid plays central
  role in settlement process (finding work,
  housing, places to shop, interpreting the system)

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Collective Identity ?Collective Action

• Canada
• Identification with El Salvador (national)
• Discourse of refugeeship / political exile
• COLLECTIVE ACTION OUTCOME
• PEOPLE TO PEOPLE / GRASSROOTS DEVELOPMENT AID
• - National University of ES
• - Liberated zones

• USA Los Angeles / DC
• Paisanaje / kinship village loyalties
  perpetuated hometown institutions in USA as a
  result of informal chain migration
• COLLECTIVE ACTION OUTCOME
• HOMETOWN ASSOCIATIONS

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Multi-Level Notion of Context of Exit Reception

• National level differences
• City-level Differences
• Migrant social networks narratives of belonging

• Modes of entry
• Status upon entry
• Built environment, residential settlement
  patterns
• Racial, ethnic urban profile
• Immigration traditions
• Labour markets

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The Transnational Dimensions of Identity
Formation Adult Children of Immigrants in Miami
(Haller Landolt, 2005)

• Background to reading
• Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study
• Miami, San Diego
• Alejandro Portes, Ruben Rumbaut (PIs)

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Figure 1 The Immigrant Population of the United
States, 2000
PERCENT
Post-1960 Immigration Source U.S. Bureau of
the Census, 1999 and 2002
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Figure 2The Racial Identities of Children of
Immigrants, 1996
PERCENT
Asian
Hispanic Latino
Parents National Origin, i.e., Mexican
White
Black
Multiracial
Other
Source CILS
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Figure 3Educational Aspirations and Expectations
of Children of Immigrants, Selected
Nationalities, 1996
Source CILS
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Figure 4Immigrant Parents Concern with Negative
Influences on their Children, 1996
Different
Concerned
Concerned
Not Concerned
Not Concerned
Similar
Source CILS
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The Transnational Dimensions of Identity
Formation Adult Children of Immigrants in Miami
(Haller Landolt, 2005)

• Premise social relations without propinquity
  identity formation across border obsolete
  conventional understandings of identity formation
  and its processes
• RQ What kinds of attachments do children of
  immigrants maintain with their parents homeland?
  What impact might these transnational attachments
  have for identity formation (resources)?
• Key Concept(s) Segmented Assimilation