Four Conte Mporary M ov e r s

International Migration

When I got here I was glad to see all the people that came from
my place, and they started to make a good time for me. They
made a party, and they had wine and biscotti, and lots of meats
and macaroni. I was surprised that we had macaroni because I
thought that they only had this in the old country.
—liberato Dattolo, itali an iMM igrant who
arriveD in briDgeport, ConneC tiCut, in 19 14
My father came to America when I was very young, so I don’t
really know what he did. In America he worked in what they call
a “lardy,” a factory, in New Jersey. He lived in a boardinghouse.
The landlords were a husband and wife and they were of the same
nationality. And one day they said to him, “Martin, you need to
get your wife and children over here. We’ll lend you the money.
And when your wife comes, she can work to help us get boarders
in, and you can pay us back.” So that’s what he did.
—Cara weiCh, irish iMM igrant who arriveD
in the u.s. in 190 5

A few popular assumptions apply to international migration

and make understanding the outcomes of international mobility difficult.
First, there is the perception that international movement is something
new. Second is the assumption that most international movers are poor
and fleeing poverty by exercising mobility. Third is the belief that inter-
national migrants take jobs and opportunities away from the citizens of
receiving nations and in the process drive down wages. Fourth, there is a
perception that once migrants arrive in their destination, they will never
leave; and fifth, there is the assumption that international migration is best
 Contemporary Movers 69

countered by supporting development in the home communities of the

very migrants who are driven to cross the border because they are poor
and cannot find jobs.
While these assumptions are powerful and show up again and again in
the literature and debates and in the popular media, the realities of inter-
national migration are really quite a bit more complicated; while we could
probably find an example that proves each one of the above assumptions,
in reality there is much more support for the following statements. First,
international migration is not something new.1 In fact, the early decades of
the twentieth century saw more international movement, at least in terms
of the percentages of migrants moving to new destinations. Second, inter-
national migrants are not poor, except in relationship to those of us in the
West with resources. Migration is a costly endeavor, and the poor in most
countries cannot afford to cross international borders. Not only do they
lack the money to cover the expense of border crossings, they also lack the
social capital (or social ties) that typically support cross-border movement.
They may also lack human capital and the experiences necessary to plan
for, cope with, and succeed at migrating.
Third, migrants generally take jobs that no one in the receiving area
wants to fill; further, as they participate in a destination country’s econ-
omy, they create additional demands for goods and services that must be
met. Migrants can thus have a positive effect as they encourage economic
expansion to meet their needs, and, of course, their tax payments (whether
through sales taxes, retirement programs, or federal taxes) fill a receiving
nation’s accounts. Immigrants are almost always a low-cost addition to the
qualified workforce in their destination, and employers are usually very
happy to exploit them. Fourth, migrants typically do not want to stay in
destination countries, but the rules and regulations that define borders and
the increasing costs of crossing those borders make it more and more dif-
ficult for international movers to return home. The same rules that restrict
access often force migrants to settle. The costs of border crossing and fears
of arrest make circular or short-term migration almost impossible and so
people settle. Finally, while local economic development is a tool we hope
will keep people at home, until nations invest in real growth and the inte-
gration of migrant-sending regions into national economies, there is little
potential for change or development.
Our goal in this chapter is to define international migration, its moti-
vations, and its patterns, and to explain why it is so important not just to
movers, but to nonmovers and to the countries they are leaving as well as
70 Cultures of Migration

the countries they are destined for. Finally, we examine the impacts and
outcomes of international migration and its economic as well as social and
cultural effects.

the growth of
international Migration
International migration, or migration across national bor-
ders, has grown rapidly in the last decades, but it is not a new phenomenon.
Moving across national borders freely or by force is a process that dates
back generations. Colonial powers forcefully moved populations from one
region to another, often enslaving ethnic groups in the process. At the same
time, other migrants moved freely, in search of new opportunities. Still
other groups fled the economic, social, religious, or political insecurity of
one region for another.
We follow Massey et al. (1998) in dividing the history of modern inter-
national migration into four distinctive periods: the mercantile period of
the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries; the industrial expansion that fol-
lowed, from the start of the 19th century to the 1920s; the decline in inter-
national migration that followed upon the heels of the First World War
and the Great Depression; and post-industrial migration that took off in
the 1960s and continues to the present. Each phase brought with it specific
qualities and was also defined by winners and losers.
Mercantilism (spanning the mid-sixteenth through late eighteenth cen-
turies) was organized around the control of commodities and the wealth
those commodities represented. Sovereign states, particularly in Europe,
sought to expand their power and increase wealth through the control
of new commodities but also through the control of labor. Mercantile
regimes encouraged immigration rather than emigration as a way to attract
skilled labor; once these workers were settled, their further movement was
discouraged. When religious intolerance led to the persecution of skilled,
but non- Catholic labor, England, Holland, and the German states com-
peted for these workers, and went so far as to support the organization of
craft guilds to encourage business and control (Isaac 1947:17). While mer-
cantile states discouraged emigration, international movement did occur
for three groups of immigrants associated with colonial expansion: colo-
nialists, who traveled with government support to open new regions, find
new raw materials and resources, and organize new industries; free movers,
who settled in new regions in an effort to expand production or establish
 Contemporary Movers 71

local farm economies; and forced migrants, moved against their will to
serve colonial and business interests. Isaac points out (1947:17) that early
movers comprised a diverse group, including prisoners of war, criminals,
and indentured laborers as well as hundreds of thousands of slaves.
While there is an assumption that it was colonialism that drove mercan-
tilism through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, anthropologists
often argue that it was mercantilism—and its relatively cheap and large mi-
grant pool—itself that drove imperialism and colonial expansion. Sidney
Mintz (1985) describes this pattern in his analysis of the growth of sugar
production in the Caribbean and its move from a “monopoly of a privi-
leged minority” (1985:45) to a food for the masses. In its expansion, sugar
production engaged slave labor, promoted industrialization, and manipu-
lated well-organized supply-and- demand chains to create an integrated
commodity that supported the English Crown.2
The second group consisted of those “free” individuals who moved in
search of new opportunities. This category was divided between those
who left with little in their pockets and bargained that opportunities were
better in the colonies, and wealthy entrepreneurs who established plan-
tation systems in the Caribbean or, somewhat later, the southeastern sea-
board of North America (King and Connell 1999). The third group in-
cluded slaves—in particular the nearly 10 million Africans who were
forcibly taken from their homelands and resettled to work the plantations
established by entrepreneurs in the Caribbean, among other places.
Industrialism and the growth and expansion of capital-intensive pro-
duction models ushered in the second wave of modern migration. This
phase was rooted in the shifts in labor and work requirements that came
with the arrival of new technologies and the rise of capitalist modes of pro-
duction. International moves competed with rural–urban migrations (de-
scribed in the previous chapter) and found populations crossing borders,
more-or-less freely following paths to available jobs and opportunities. In
Europe and throughout the nineteenth century, migration moved popula-
tions from rural settings to cities and to centers of production throughout
the region, to the U.S., and to countries throughout Latin America. While
the pull of potential work was critical to attracting immigrants to new des-
tinations, just as important were co-ethnic pioneers who had established
themselves in new destination communities and countries. These pioneers
gave critical support to new immigrants who might not share language
or religion with their destination countries. These pioneers often acted as
intermediaries for new immigrants, aiding in the negotiation of work, resi-
dency, and so forth.
72 Cultures of Migration

Depression, war, and economic crises throughout the first decades of

the twentieth century put a halt to much cross-border movement. In fact,
in many places immigrants were forcibly repatriated. For example, laws
were shifted in the U.S. and nearly 300,000 individuals were returned to
Mexico. Migration rates remained low throughout the Second World War,
because the war limited a great deal of free movement. Yet there were pro-
grams to cover worker shortages as industries sought labor; for example,
the Bracero program brought foreign workers to the U.S. on short-term
contracts to fill in for men who had been drafted to serve in the war effort.
Nevertheless, in most countries internal production focused on simply
putting people to work, and foreigners were often seen as a challenge to
internal employees (Cohen 2006; Durand 2007; Massey et al. 1998).
With the end of the war and rapid changes in global economics and
politics, migration rates increased once again, primarily for two reasons.
First, there was an increase in domestic movement as countries recov-
ered and internal economic growth drove the rural-to-urban flows that
we focused on in the last chapter. Growth also drove international move-
ment, as workers began to travel to destinations where they could find jobs
and opportunities; unlike the past, however—when skilled laborers were
sought and their abilities earned a premium—now migrants were largely
unskilled and finding work in the growing service sector (Stark and Wang
2002; Taylor, Rozelle, and de Brauw 2003). Flows tended to track from
south to north, as represented most clearly by Latin Americans and Carib-
beans traveling to the U.S., and east to west, including movers from South-
east Asia to the Middle East and Europe (Massey et al. 1998).
We may well be in a new phase of migration; the current global eco-
nomic crises are changing the way capital and labor are organized. The
topography of migration and its regulation have significantly changed
since the events of 9/11 and the economic recession of 2008 (Fix et al.
2009; Jha, Sugiyarto, and Vargas-Silva 2010; Ratha and Mohapatra 2009).
International migration and immigrants are subjects of a complex secu-
rity debate and increased xenophobia. Tightened security at ports of entry
encourages illegal crossing and strains national resources, creating new re-
strictions and hassles while resolving very little. Perhaps our governments
are convinced that there are hidden terrorists among immigrants and trav-
elers. This visceral mistrust of the foreign has increased xenophobia across
the board.
While xenophobia rises and borders become more difficult to cross, in-
ternal/international disputes create insecurity at home (in Iraq, for ex-
 Contemporary Movers 73

ample) and lead to new pressures on insecure populations to potentially

migrate. In this new period of global crisis the questions surrounding mi-
gration become questions about movers themselves and not about states
and policies. Put another way, in this period of economic crisis the focus is
not on movement (in other words, migration) and what drives that move-
ment but on the mover (or migrant). Popular perceptions blame the mi-
grant for nearly every ill that faces the state. Rising crime rates? Rather
than undertaking a reconsideration of legal codes and anti- crime initia-
tives, blame the migrant, who carries the taint of criminality across bor-
ders. Healthcare costs are rising too fast? Rather than an making an honest
analysis of the costs and benefits of the current healthcare situation, blame
the migrant, who crosses the border to access our dearly won medical sys-
tem, at no cost to him- or herself. And what do we do about education?
Reform is too difficult: it is much easier to suggest that educational re-
sources are being drained away and cannot support the citizens who pay
for schools; it is much easier to blame the migrant, whose children clog our
schools and either cannot read or speak native languages, adding strains to
already overworked staff.
Of course, the reality of migration is far from this caricature. These
stereotypes are often based on fabricated data or twisted views promoted
by right-wing media after little debate based on reliable research. The
overwhelming majority of migrants entering countries like the U.S., En-
gland, Germany, and the like are hard-working, law-abiding individuals
who seek opportunities that they cannot find at home. They are migrating
to support families, earn a living, and continue a life as productive citizens,
not as criminals. In fact, there is no correlation between crime rates and
migration, and several studies show that the overall decline in crime in the
U.S. has occurred even as migration rates to urban centers increase (Chom-
sky 2007; Terrazas and Batalova 2009). Most migrants are healthy and have
little interest in accessing healthcare. In fact, many migrants go without
healthcare as it is expensive. Insurance is nonexistent for most movers and
many migrants fear that attempting to access healthcare may put them at
risk of being caught if they are in a destination country illegally. Often,
migrants are physically healthy and of working age. They don’t include
children or the elderly in their moves. Rather, they prefer to support the
elderly in their countries of origin and sending communities. And while
they might enter a country with the hopes of funding their children’s edu-
cation, they typically plan to pay for schooling in their sending communi-
ties. In other words, one of the goals that brought them across a border is
74 Cultures of Migration

to cover the fees for schools at home (Abu-Ei-Haj 2007; Gamburd 2008;
Kandel and Kao 2000).
Not surprisingly, the militarization of borders between countries to
combat rising migration rates has not had the outcome supporters of such
moves might have expected. Militarized borders and restrictive migration
policies were, in their organization, assumed to be effective tools in the re-
duction of the flow of individuals from sending to destination countries—
from Mexico to the U.S., from Northern Africa to Spain and Italy, and
from Asia and the Middle East to Europe. In many ways these programs
have only made migration a more costly and dangerous move. Criminal
syndicates are nowadays far more involved in smuggling individuals across
borders for profit (Cornelius, et al. 2008). For example, Mexicans who are
interested only in accessing opportunities in the U.S. and North Africans
looking only to travel to Europe find themselves involved in the move-
ment of drugs across borders by smugglers and criminal syndicates, which
demand their participation as part of arranging their transport across
borders.
The rising costs of crossing borders and restrictive employment stan-
dards also mean, first, that migrants must stay in destination countries for
far longer than they had originally anticipated as they struggle to cover
the fees involved in their crossing. Second, migrants remain in destina-
tion countries far longer than originally planned for fear of being caught
as they try to return to a sending community and country; and third, they
sometimes forsake a sending community and bring their families across
the border as one way to avoid making these lengthy sojourns without
family. Finally, these policies and practices have made destination coun-
tries, as well as many sending countries (some of which are weak states),
into breeding grounds for illegal gangs involved in lucrative trafficking and
smuggling businesses (Garland 2009).

patterns anD purpose

Many people assume that migration is a means by which the
poor are able to flee poverty at home. And while our brief history of the
growth of international migration suggests that most moves are driven by
economic demand and need, a person cannot migrate if he or she lacks re-
sources (Stark 1986, 1991; Stark and Taylor 1989). A response to the assump-
tion that migrants are poor must insist on an understanding of “poverty” as
a relative state. To us in the West, living in the U.S., England, or Germany,
 Contemporary Movers 75

for example, the people who cross the border—whether from Mexico,
Pakistan, or Turkey—might appear poor, but in fact they have more re-
sources than many of their fellows and they are using those resources to
reach new opportunities. The very poor cannot afford to migrate, or else
can only afford to move to an internal destination rather than crossing an
international border.
Contemporary migration then partly involves an economic decision,
but it concerns much more. It comprises a cultural decision, a social deci-
sion, and even a religious and ethnic decision. Migration must be driven
by more than the demand for labor and new forms of production. Never-
theless, economics and labor are assumed to be the keys to understanding
migration outcomes, whether the focus is plantation owners in the past, in-
dustrialists during the rise of capitalism in the nineteenth and early twen-
tieth centuries, or the service sector of recent history.
Of course the pull of jobs, better living standards, security, and future
economic success and the push of a lack of opportunity, economic in-
equalities, and environmental disasters—among other differences that
exist between sending and receiving countries—are critical to migration
decisions. The economic motivations that drive migration at a macro-level
(in other words, at the national/global level) and also play into decisions at
a personal level (or micro-level) are only part of the migration story. Let
us be clear: we do not want to ignore markets and economics in our dis-
cussion. In fact, understanding the economics of migration is critical to de-
fining mobility. However, a discussion that only notes the economic reali-
ties of migration misses the other important factors that drive migration
and the ways in which ecology, society, and cultural choices play into the
choices of mobility and immobility. The notion of a culture of migration
recognizes that mobility is rooted in cultural and social acts. Migration is
an economic decision, but not simply that. It is a political decision, but
politics is not enough to drive it. Of course, we cannot reduce migration to
a cultural explanation alone. We must consider many different forces and
factors that motivate movement. We must realize that these factors will
work together. And we have to understand that there will be times when
they are at cross-purposes. For example, we are in a moment when migra-
tion is changing. The relative ease that characterized international moves
in the 1980s and 1990s gave way after 9/11 to much more difficulty.
Two questions we must ask are: Why move? Who moves? Migration,
particularly international migration, is not a simple undertaking. It begins
with crossing national borders and can include moving thousands of miles.
International migrants typically do not share a great deal in common with
76 Cultures of Migration

the dominant community in the countries they enter and in which they
hope to settle and find opportunity. Migrants may speak a different lan-
guage, follow a different religion, and participate in a very different social
world with its own unique cultural codes. All of the differences that come
with crossing borders—from the personal to the cultural, the religious to
the economic—make migration hard. Think of a Mexican coming to the
United States, who speaks a different language (Spanish in Mexico, English
in the U.S.), practices a different religion (Catholicism in Mexico, often-
times Protestantism in the U.S.), follows a different social code and prac-
tices, and is part of an economy that is organized around low-wage work,
a weak national currency, and a high rate of graft. Kurdish Turks are in a
similar situation in Germany (as are Pakistanis in England), where as non-
German speakers they face linguistic hurdles. The Protestantism that is
central to German thought and culture characterizes Islam as a religion of
terrorists and a social code that is constructed around traditions that are
truly foreign to the native-born (see Cohen and Sirkeci 2005 on Mexi-
can and Kurdish parallels). A more extreme example comes from Japan,
where migrants, despite having to forgo citizenship, accept second- class
status and see little hope for integration, yet continue to enter the coun-
try (Douglass and Roberts 2000; Kashiwazaki 2005). Migrants continue to
cross borders and seek new opportunities.
International movers are typically wealthier individuals with resources
to help them cover the costs of movement. They are not moving to find
a handout (and we’d ask just what handouts might a person hope to find
in the U.S., for example)—they are moving to find opportunities. While
some move to flee insecurity at home, often these movers also have re-
sources to help them manage the costs of border crossing.
One of the best ways to think about international migration is to focus
on the movers and to understand the strengths they bring to their mi-
grations. Typically migrants make decisions as members of households.3
Migrants bring personal strengths and weaknesses to their moves, such
as health, education, training, age, and gender, but the households also
have an influence on outcomes. Household strengths and weaknesses range
from internal and external resources, intra-household labor, time and in-
come, and nonmonetary as well as economic contributors to welfare (Con-
way and Cohen 1998:30).
Internal and external resources include the labor power, health, ability,
and status of the migrant and other members of his or her household.
These strengths are defined in relation to both other households and over-
all national economic patterns. A household with strong resources, as de-
 Contemporary Movers 77

fined by a community, may be of a high-ranking local status, but that status

may not translate to economic power. On the other hand, the household
with workers employed in and out of the household may hold economic
power, but lack local status. In any case, the status of a household economi-
cally and its relative rank vis-à-vis other households in a community are a
resource that the successful international migrant will likely access to cross
a border. Internal resources, including labor, income, ability, background,
age, and training, also influence migration outcomes and can frame the de-
cisions a migrant will make. Is a move considered to cover the economic
shortfalls of a household, or is a move to support the education of its mem-
bers? These are very different decisions and are defined not only by the
wants and needs of a household’s members, but by the very strengths of the
household in relation to other households and national economic patterns
(Adams 2006).
Finally, both noneconomic and economic contributors to the household
can influence migration outcomes. Noneconomic contributors to a house-
hold are those individuals who work without pay, or who are involved in
nonwage work such as agricultural labor, housework (often described as
homemaking), education, child care, and the like. While economic con-
tributors are working for the household and earning wages or salaries out-
right for their efforts, it is important to remember that sometimes people
think of themselves as noneconomic contributors when in fact they are
earning wages. These people are generally involved in informal work and
their earnings vary from day to day. Women who prepare and sell foods
from their homes, for instance, often describe themselves as noneconomic
actors and often do not think of themselves as contributors to a house-
hold’s economic well-being. However, Cohen was able to work with some
women participating in the informal economy in Mexico and found that
they often earned substantial amounts of money; when their husbands
were away and working as migrants, the money these women earned was
often the only available cash in the household.
It isn’t surprising that a household that lacks economic contributors
usually needs to uncover other resources it can access to support the migra-
tion of individual members, while households with economic contributors
(whether they are employed in the formal sector or are working infor-
mally) have opportunities to support migrants in more complete and com-
plex ways. In other words, migrants from households that lack economic
contributors and are economically marginal often face a set of decisions
that do not challenge movers who are economically better off. For ex-
ample, the peasant who farms for his household but does not earn money
78 Cultures of Migration

to cover other expenses likely will send a child away to find work as a way
to earn the money that is lacking. The household with the most limited
economic options has the most numerous choices to make in response to
migration outcomes. For example, will remittances be spent on daily ex-
penses or be invested? Typically, the rural and impoverished household
cannot invest and must use remittances to cover daily costs of living. To
return to our earlier point, the household, not only the individual, frames
outcomes for the migrant and influences the decision he or she will make.
To return to the question of what motivates international migration:
Despite the discussion above, we would likely argue that the clearest
motivations for international migration are economic. But if economics
alone rule mobility and motivate migration, we might rightly ask why we
don’t find more people crossing the border. There is a joke among anti-
immigrant groups (among others) that the U.S. must fear the movement of
Mexicans across the border because the crossings won’t stop until Mexico
is empty (or perhaps filled with Central Americans) and every Mexican
national is living in the U.S. The reality of migration is that while there are
many Mexicans in the U.S., the overwhelming majority remain in their
home country. The economic reasons for migration must not be a singly
sufficient impetus, as sometimes people don’t choose to migrate. We need
also to understand the motivations and decisions of nonmovers, or stay-at-
homes (this is an issue we cover in the next chapter).
But when we say that economics do matter, what do we mean? It isn’t
simply that a migrant will earn more money if he or she crosses the border;
considerations regarding the decision to migrate are not just economic—
they are cultural, social, and political and they are related to and influenced
by a mover’s status, gender, ability, household, and community—not just
economic desires.4

labor anD international

Migration
Another concern voiced by critics of migration is that inter-
national movers take jobs and opportunities away from a nation’s legal resi-
dents and in the process drive down wages. The short response comes in
two parts, telling us first that migrants do not take jobs away from citizens.
Migrants generally fill and work the jobs native citizens will not take. This
is particularly true of low-wage, unskilled labor; as we’ve argued, and as
 Contemporary Movers 79

most evidence suggests, in contemporary times it is unskilled labor that

attracts most international movers.
While it may be true that wages for unskilled work are marginally im-
pacted by migration, we argue that migrants are not to blame. It is really
employers who are suppressing wages. Migrants are filling the jobs that
are available; they are not creating jobs or setting wages. Friedberg and
Hunt (1995:42) note: “Most empirical analysis of the United States and
other countries finds that a 10 percent increase in the fraction of immigra-
tions in the population reduces native wages by at most 1 percent.” And
of course, everyone believes they are working for less than they are worth
(from the richest industrialists to the poorest street sweeper); migrants,
like any other group, search for the best wages they can find.5 Immigrants
are not really concerned with suppressing wages, and the jobs they take
are the jobs that are offered, not necessarily the jobs they might have at
home (Heyman 2007). If this point seems disingenuous, just think about
the skilled, trained, and educated immigrant who finds work as a low-
wage, unskilled worker. One of the most important differences between
internal and international migration is the fact that workers often find the
jobs they are trained for if they stay within their country of origin and do
not risk crossing an international border. They may not be paid well by our
standards, but relative to what others make in their country of origin, a
trained worker will typically command a high wage there (Heyman 2007).
A second important point to remember is that immigrants bring money
into their destination country. Immigrants have to pay rent and utilities,
cover transportation, and put food on their tables just like everyone else.
Each of these activities takes resources, and on average an immigrant typi-
cally spends 60–80 percent of his income on costs associated with living
in the new country. Immigrants also pay taxes, including Social Security
taxes in the U.S. (Cohen, Jones, and Conway 2005; Koc and Onan 2004).
These are costs that often will not benefit the immigrant, and the Social
Security Administration has received millions of dollars from the work of
immigrants to the United States.
If migrants do not take jobs from us, why are they in places like the U.S.,
England, and Germany? Answers include the pull of the market system and
the promise of cheap goods, work opportunities, and freedom of expres-
sion, among other things. Pull factors combine with push factors within
a sending country to motivate cross-border movement. In countries like
Turkey, Pakistan, Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, and the Philippines op-
portunities are lacking, particularly for rural folks.
80 Cultures of Migration

Working with the push that comes from a native country is often a very
specific pull. Many migrants are recruited to fill specific jobs, and often-
times national laws are authored to support recruitment and success for
certain industries. This is most clear where skilled and highly skilled mi-
grants are recruited to fill specific jobs.6 Recruiting can be extremely spe-
cific and tied to a country or sometimes even a group or gender within
a country. A good example of this process is the recruitment of Filipino
nurses to fill the increasing shortage that faces healthcare providers in the
U.S.7 Filipino nurses are attracted to the U.S. because of job opportunities
and relatively high wages. They also find a large Filipino community in the
U.S., one that includes nearly 2 million Filipinos, with more than 1.2 mil-
lion living in the western states (Semyonov and Gorodzeisky 2008).
While skilled migrants often have opportunities that their unskilled
co-nationals lack both at home and abroad, there are several forces that
drive the unskilled across national borders. Key are neoliberal reforms that
have generally increased the cost of living in sending countries, particu-
larly for the rural poor, who were marginal even before reforms occurred
(Gledhill 1995).8 A lack of internal opportunities does motivate migration.
Finally, there are the social and cultural forces that “push” migrants away.
Migrating is a rite of passage, something that all young men and a grow-
ing number of young women can do. It is also a means to an end: a mi-
grant’s sending community and nation cannot always support families, and
as landholdings dwindle and agricultural production is challenged by the
demand for store-bought goods, localized production declines. Local pro-
duction can collapse entirely, and in such a situation migration is a way to
access the money necessary to live life in our ever more monetized world.
Finally, migration becomes a cultural artifact. Co- ethnic communities in
points of destination serve as attractors for migrants who are looking for
new opportunities and places to settle. Friends and family serve as impor-
tant social networks as migrants negotiate the border and settle. Without
family, friends, and co-ethnics, migration is an extremely difficult process
and the decision to attempt it is not an easy one.

Migration, resiDenCy,
anD transnationalisM
Opponents of migration reform often argue that opening or
easing border- crossing restrictions will allow immigrants to settle in des-
tination countries. They point to the many thousands of Kurds and Turks
 Contemporary Movers 81

settled in Germany, Pakistanis settled in England, and Mexicans, Domi-

nicans, and others settled in the U.S. as evidence supporting their point.
We do not deny the growth of these minority immigrant populations, yet
we would also caution against being too critical. First, global migrations
are not new—they were central to the peopling of the Americas and in-
cluded the movement of ethnic minority groups from European home-
lands throughout much of the historical development of the U.S. and Latin
America. At one level, contemporary movements parallel those of the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when millions of individuals
traveled from Ireland, Italy, and Germany to the U.S. to seek their for-
tune. The major difference is that contemporary movers are not joining the
ranks of industrial workers as they did in the past. Yet if we look beyond
the U.S. and Europe to Latin America, we find that immigrant groups fill
important niches as entrepreneurial movers who not only find work in the
service sector but engage themselves in nation building.
Japanese migration to Bolivia (among other destinations in Latin
America) is a good example of what we mean. Japanese traveled from their
homes in Okinawa to southeastern Bolivia under the sponsorship of the
U.S. and as part of a broadly constructed resettlement program (Master-
son and Funada-Classen 2004). The Okinawan community remained
quite small, although over 300,000 Japanese immigrated to Latin America
through the twentieth century. Nevertheless, this small group has been
economically successful. Although Okinawans manage farms and busi-
nesses and are integrated into the national economy, at the same time—
and unlike Japanese immigrants to Brazil and Peru—Okinawans are ex-
tremely segregated from Bolivian society and continue to maintain strong
ties to their hometowns. Perhaps more intriguing, Okinawans’ strong re-
lationships with Japan and Japanese cultural traditions exist in spite of the
strong discrimination Okinawans have faced in their sending homes and
island (Suzuki 2006). For Okinawans in Bolivia, distance works to bridge
the gulf that separates them from Japan, but also creates opportunities for
economic success that were not available in the past.
As our examples suggest, many of the migrant groups that are settling in
new countries maintain strong ties with their families, sending households,
and communities, yet they are also often committed to the countries they
have joined as new citizens in ways not linked to their legal status. The con-
cept of transnationalism explains how these new immigrants bridge the
gaps between their sending and destination communities. “Transnation-
alism” is used in many different and sometimes conflictive ways, yet at its
core it refers to the ways in which migrant groups are able to bridge the
82 Cultures of Migration

gaps between sending and destination areas and remain strongly rooted
in both (see Basch, Glick Schiller, and Blanc 1994; Hannerz 1996; Verto-
vec 2009). Transnational linkages form around cultural, economic, politi-
cal, and social institutions. They can be popular and constructed around
broadly shared beliefs, or they can be limited and organized around an
event or practices that are common to only a minority. Transnational ties
can be real or they can be imagined. In other words, they exist in the con-
struction of strong social ties between individuals, assisting those individu-
als in their moves; but they also exist in the shared beliefs and practices that
are assumed to define a group. Finally, transnationalism does not apply to
all immigrant groups. It is not a force that drives migration, nor is it a factor
in all decision making; however, where it does exist, it often aids migrants
as they cross borders (Conway 2000).
Migrants express transnationalism in many ways throughout the world.
The practiced use of a native language by a migrant in a new destination
community is a simultaneously simple and complex transnational expres-
sion. The act is simple in that it develops from the innate qualities of the
migrant; he or she knows the language he or she was brought up speaking
and will continue speaking. Yet it becomes a complex marker of identity,
of groupness, and it creates a community for migrants where one might
not otherwise exist. Mixtecos, for example, come to Los Angeles, Cali-
fornia, from their homes in the highlands of Oaxaca, Mexico, where their
native language exists alongside Spanish. Mixtecos invest in the language
they know and use it to define themselves as a unique group in the U.S.—
a group that may be marginal, but one that is present and can be found
through programming on Radio Bilingüe.9
More complicated, but no less important, are the cultural linkages that
sometimes aid immigrants as they travel from hometowns to destinations
in the U.S. and Europe (Paerregaard 2008; Santiago-Irizarry 2008; Scott
and Cartledge 2009; Triandafyllidou 2009). Transnational cultural markers
may be carried by migrants as they travel to new destinations. They can also
be created anew once migrants reach their destinations. Regardless of the
process through which a cultural marker is created, its transnational quality
is not something planned. Rather, the transnational quality of a cultural
marker develops through time as artifacts are transformed to fit the needs
of the migrant community.
Paerregaard (2008) uses the example of religious traditions that Peru-
vian migrants have carried to new destinations throughout the world.
Sometimes the traditions are founded upon practices that come with the
 Contemporary Movers 83

migrant from her home community. Co-migrants from a specific Peru-

vian community, for instance, continue to celebrate the patron saint of that
community as they establish themselves in their new destination. Some-
times they also adopt and adapt new religious traditions to meet the needs
of the moment. In the case of Peruvians, as with other groups, native sym-
bols become tools that “sacralize public space” in the destination commu-
nity and perhaps even the country and help the migrants make a moral
claim as members of a new society (Paerregaard 2008:150). The symbols are
not only religious. Food, for example, adds another dimension, one that
nearly everyone has experienced. Traditional foods are carried by migrants
to new destinations where they are shared to create a sense of belonging
and to recall a homeland that has been left. At the same time, traditional
recipes are transformed and adapted to include new ingredients and tastes.
Finally, food becomes the currency through which new connections are
made and a way to introduce traditions to a new home country.
While the cultural dimensions of transnationalism are critical to migra-
tion, a great deal of the research on the topic focuses only on economics.
At its most basic, transnational economics serve to tie sending and desti-
nation communities together through the pull of markets and the remit-
tances that follow. The strong social and cultural attachments that char-
acterize most migrants allow the efforts of the individual mover to reach
beyond his immediate needs to include his family and even community.
In other words, the migrant must succeed to secure not just her own well-
being, but that of her family, sending household, and community. Typi-
cally this is accomplished through remittances. Literally billions of dollars
are flowing around the globe as migrants send money home (Acosta et al.
2006; Cohen 2005). In places as diverse as Turkey, Brazil, El Salvador, and
the Philippines migrants are celebrated as national heroes whose efforts
and remittances are often the largest source of capital available to their
country. Yet remittances do not serve the same purposes for everyone; as
funds flow to sending countries and regions, households use the income in
different ways.
Working in southern Mexico, Cohen noted that all households, regard-
less of what their migrant member was doing, earmarked some remitted
funds to cover the costs of everyday life; in the state of Oaxaca nearly 80
percent of the households with migrants depended on remittances to cover
nearly all expenses. In other situations, remittances might go to investment
(Ratha 2007). Other things are remitted as well, and Smith (2006) notes
that migrants often organize in their destination communities to sup-
84 Cultures of Migration

port the growth of their hometowns. Typically, migrants organize HTAs

(hometown associations) to collect funds from co-migrants and their de-
scendents to cover big-ticket items. A favorite among Mexican migrants to
the U.S. is the purchase of an ambulance for a sending community. Usually,
migrants meet and organize and decide how much each member should
contribute. They may also plan a fund-raiser around an event. The outcome
may take some time, but the money is collected and an ambulance is pur-
chased and driven to the sending community. In the sending community,
the ambulance provides transportation to regional hospitals (health care
in rural Mexico is spotty at best, and hospitals are often located in urban
centers; rural folk have a hard time accessing care). While the effort is ap-
preciated, such remittances can cause problems; once in Mexico, ambu-
lances sent from the U.S. often are unmanned and slowly fail as trained
paramedics and drivers are hard to find and the salaries of such individuals
as well as the maintenance of the vehicles are often beyond the means of a
community.
Political activism creates a third kind of transnational space for migrants
and their communities. Political activism develops as migrants gain voices
through which they are able to critique their sending nations and its poli-
cies. Often migrants are critical of state leaders and their goals. Because
they are in a foreign country and generally free of internal forms of ha-
rassment and persecution, they are able to develop a critical voice. They are
able to organize and protest corruption, mistreatment, and broken prom-
ises from a secure position. They can also create room for change, and many
migrant groups have played instrumental roles as their sending states ac-
knowledge their importance and court their support. This often leads to
migrants and expatriates gaining the right to vote in sending nation elec-
tions. Political activists also use their status in foreign countries to uncover
and expose the excesses of the leaders in their sending countries. This can
mean exposing corruption or disclosing how the state meddles in local
affairs.
Refugees often become politically engaged in the affairs of their send-
ing countries in ways they could not as citizens. The opportunities to cri-
tique the leaders of their nations from the security of a destination country
allow them to gain a voice in the political affairs of their sending nation
and to foment change, or at least create the opportunity for change. Vari-
ous Middle Eastern examples illustrate this, such as Turkish Kurds’ politi-
cal mobilizations in Germany and other European countries and Iranians’
demonstrations in European capitals. The Kurdistan Workers Party (the
 Contemporary Movers 85

PKK) has been very strong in Europe and organized mass demonstrations
against the possible imposition of the death penalty on their leader Abdul-
lah Ocalan in 1999 and 2000.10 While the ability of migrant groups to effect
change in their origin countries is unproven, the very fact that migrants
gain a voice in debates is a sign of the important role such political activism
plays. In later chapters we will discuss this as one aspect of the remittance
debate concerning nonfinancial benefits to the sending society.
Finally, transnational social ties are critical to the migrant. Transnational
social ties are practical as well as symbolic. Most international migrants in
the contemporary world depend upon transnational social networks to
maneuver across national borders. The social ties to migrants already estab-
lished in their destination communities as well as to sending families are
critical to success. Migrants depend upon social ties to sending families to
support what can be expensive moves. Turning to a family for support can
mean a migrant does not need to ask a smuggler for assistance. He does not
have to go into debt (or perhaps can go into less debt) to cover the expenses
of a border crossing. Migrants also depend upon established migrants in
their destination who have already worked through border crossings. They
turn to these individuals for advice on routes as well as aid in settling, find-
ing a job, and finding friends. While such ties can at times be a hindrance
(migrants who depend too much on social ties tend to find less diverse
opportunities and are sometimes limited in their choices because of com-
munity pressures once they have settled), social networks offer supports
that often ease the insecurity that migrants encounter in their moves.
Transnational social networks also keep migrants connected to their
sending communities over time and space (Rios 2008). It is not unusual for
the children and grandchildren of migrants to maintain ties to distant and
seldom-visited sending communities. These connections are motivated
and maintained through transnational linkages. The linkages define iden-
tity and embed the migrant in a social universe that is organized around
sending household and family, community, and ethnic group. This is clear
in the actions of Mixtecos who migrate to the U.S. and the second and
third generation of children who are the descendents of those early mi-
grants. The children of Mixteco migrants keep their language alive and
they are tied to sending communities they have never visited. More im-
portantly, they continue to remit to those communities. A similar pattern
is followed by Somali refugees, who continue to support families in Soma-
lia as well as refugee camps in Kenya (Valentine, Sporton, and Nielsen
2009).
86 Cultures of Migration

ConClusions
International migration involves millions of people mov-
ing about the globe. And while many of these people are looking for new
opportunities and trying to escape the restrictions of their sending homes,
towns, and countries, an amazing number of migrants continue to rely
upon and support those nations long after they have departed. We have
captured some of this quality in our discussion of transnationalism and the
outcomes of international migration.
International migration is just another kind of mobility and, like in-
ternal mobility, it is motivated by a number of reasons and in response to
a range of possibilities and limits. It is also important to understand that
while international migration is critical for many people in our world who
rely upon remittances to support themselves, the movers are not to blame
for outcomes. In other words, blaming migrants for the problems that face
a receiving nation is not the answer; such an attitude avoids placing the
burden on the governments of nations whose decisions motivate migra-
tion. It also avoids placing blame on destination countries that turn a blind
eye to migration as they seek a low-wage and cheap labor force that will
not complain while publicly objecting to the very migrants they attract.
We are reminded of the scene in Casablanca when the police chief com-
plains, “I cannot believe there is gambling taking place in this establish-
ment,” just as he is given his winnings for the night.