Engagement in migrant organizations for immigrant integration: A mixed-method study with Peruvians in Chile.

Daniela Marzana,Maura Pozzi,Elena Marta,Sara Martinez Damia,Maria Loreto Martínez

doi:10.1007/s12134-021-00928-9

Abstract

Immigrant communities in Chile face barriers to their integration, in the form of discrimination and social exclusion. Psychology of liberation claims that, when minority groups experience oppressing conditions, community engagement can be a path toward integration. Nevertheless, community participation has been mainly studied in North America and Europe. Through a concurrent nested mixed-method design, this study explores the relation between community engagement and perception of integration of Peruvian immigrants in Santiago de Chile. One hundred and ten Peruvians (age range 19 to 52 years), engaged in migrant organizations (MOs), completed a self-report questionnaire that aims to identify the predictors of integration based on psychosocial perspective (education), acculturation (national identity and ethnic identity), and liberation psychology literature (perceived institutional sensitivity, knowledge of the Chilean culture and laws). Additionally, 18 Peruvian leaders (ages 31 to 56 years) were interviewed in order to explore intergroup relations and organizational strategies that their MOs use to enhance integration. An interesting and novel finding points to the role of a Latin-American identity that appears to have potential negative consequences in maintaining the status quo for the social exclusion that Peruvians currently face.

Highlights

During the last decades, the number of migrants arriving in Chile has increased (Lafortune & Tessada, 2016), bringing Chile to have the largest migrant population in South America (IOM, 2018)
The socio-territorial characteristics of the capital city still expresses fractures in the coexistence between citizens because of the unequal occupation of the space which most often leads to separation (Margarit & Galaz, 2018). Considering this particular feature of Santiago de Chile, the present study focused on the experiences of Peruvians who engage in migrant organizations (MOs) in the Metropolitan area of the city with the aim to explore their perceived integration
The first one describes how intergroup relationships were currently opening in the city of Santiago de Chile; the second theme portrayed the multiple strategies that MOs use to foster positive processes of integration for their compatriots

Summary

Introduction

The number of migrants arriving in Chile has increased (Lafortune & Tessada, 2016), bringing Chile to have the largest migrant population in South America (IOM, 2018). Oldest migration law which dated back in 1975 This law was denounced as anachronistic and inefficient in facing the new modalities of international mobility and corresponding respect of human rights (Sandoval, 2016), plus perpetuating the vulnerability of immigrants in access to essential social services and acquiring regular immigration status (Da Silva, 2018; Galaz et al, 2017). Even if the new law frames migration in a broad language of human-rights protection, it sets up limits and restrictions on accessing these protections, maintaining the same national security focus of the 1975 DL1094. This is why our research that was carried out prior to these legislative changes can still be valuable

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion