The Ties that Bind: Transnational Migrant Networks at the Canadian-U.S. Borderland

Abstract

Introduction Transnationalism ... is not simply a theoretical perspective, hut a nexus of social and material relationships which blur the centrality of borders (Hyndman and Walton-Roberts, 2000, 24) Perhaps no moment in history has been as critical for research on cross-border issues related to immigration. With more than 25 million displaced people in the world today, studies of the migration pathways, settlement patterns, national and ethnic identities, and transnational relationships of migrant flows have become salient topics for scholars in a variety of disciplines. This article examines these interrelated themes as expressed through a regional case study of two closely related groups of immigrants and refugees in the Pacific Northwest. (1) The border separating Canada and the United States is a porous site rich in transnational connectivity and relationships. The borderland is also a potentially valuable site for studying the ways these regular interconnections relate to the shifting terrain of ethnic, religious, and national identities of recent migrants from Russia and the former Soviet Union. Since the late 1980s there has been dramatic change in the homeland of Russians and Ukrainians who relocated to North America during and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Perhaps nowhere in the U.S. has the large-scale arrival of these two groups had a more dramatic impact than in the Pacific Northwest (see Figure 1). According to the 2000 census, Washington and Oregon ranked as the top two states in the country for arrivals of post-Soviet migrants born in Russian and Ukraine, with Portland, Seattle, and Washington's Puget Sound area having the largest and most concentrated populations in the region. (2) Unlike earlier migration flows into British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon from Russia and the Soviet Union that were dominated by Jewish, Orthodox, Old Believer, and Doukhobor groups, the majority of today's arrivals are largely believers in fundamentalist Protestant religions. Thus, these ethno-religious newcomers are defined as much by their religious beliefs as by their place of origin. Their experiences have also been affected by differences in the politics of place in the United States and Canada. In the U.S., for example, the government continues to classify incoming Protestant and Jewish migrants from Russia and Ukraine as refugees defined by the Geneva Convention as: (3) any person, who ... owing to their well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable to, or unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country, or who, not having a nationality and being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unwilling or unable, owing to such fear, to return to it. American immigration policies continue to define post-Soviet Russian and Ukrainian migrants as refugees due to a holdover from the Cold War per an agreement between U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987. Other Russian and Ukrainian migrants who have relocated to Canada were likewise classified as refugees, but only during the years during and immediately after the demise of the Soviet Union. Now most gain entrance to B.C. and other parts of Canada under the skilled worker category of immigrants. Some also enter Canada with entrepreneurial or business class status. (4) These post-Soviet non-refugee arrivals to B.C. primarily have settled in the Vancouver area, and are usually more educated and economically secure than those who enter the United States as refugees. In addition, close relatives of those who already live in B.C., Washington, and Oregon also may gain admission under the family reunification policies of both governments further expanding the total population of both groups in both Canada and the U. …