American Migrants Research Articles

Shifting Trends in Central American Migration:A Demographic Examination of Increasing Honduran-U.S. Immigration and Deportation

Shifting Trends in Central American Migration:A Demographic Examination of Increasing Honduran-U.S. Immigration and Deportation

Latin American Migration to the United States: A Multidisciplinary View

Latin American Migration to the United States: A Multidisciplinary View

Way Up North in Louisville: African American Migration in the Urban South, 1930-1970

Way Up North in Louisville: African American Migration in the Urban South, 1930-1970

Clinical, electrocardiographic and echocardiographic abnormalities in Latin American migrants with newly diagnosed Chagas disease 2005-2009, Barcelona, Spain

Following Latin American migration, Chagas disease has inevitably appeared in non-endemic countries in Europe and elsewhere. New policies are necessary to prevent transmission in those countries but the long, often undetected chronic period of the early stages of the disease also renders epidemiological studies important. The main objective of our study was to determine the presence of clinical, electrocardiogram (ECG) and echocardiographic abnormalities in a population of Latin American migrants infected with Trypanosoma cruzi at the moment of diagnosis. We performed a hospital-based observational study of 100 adult patients with newly diagnosed Chagas infection between January 2005 and December 2009. Thirty-seven patients were classified within the Brazilian Consensus on Chagas cardiomyopathy early cardiac stages (A or B1) and 49 presented pathological findings (stage B2) according to the Panamerican Health Organization Classification. Overall, 49 patients showed ECG and/or echocardiographic alterations. The presence of ECG and ecocardiographic alterations were significantly associated (p=0.038). The most frequent ECG and echocardiographic findings were right bundle branch block (12 cases) and impaired left ventricular wall relaxation (24 cases), respectively. In conclusion, ECG and echocardiographic alterations coherent with Chagas cardiomyopathy were found in a large proportion of newly diagnosed Latin American migrants infected with T. cruzi. In the mid-term, Chagas disease might become an important cause of chronic cadiomyopathy in our attendance area.

The Other Side of the Fence: American Migrants in Mexico - by Croucher, Sheila

The Other Side of the Fence: American Migrants in Mexico - by Croucher, Sheila

Irresistible forces: Latin American migration to the United States and its effects on the South

The politics, social issues, and cultural impacts of Latin American migration to the United States are often studied by historians and political scientists, but the regional focus is typically on the Southwest and California. This study examines the phenomenon of the impact of Latin American migration on the southeastern United States, a region that now has the nation's fastest growing immigrant population.Incorporating a political demography approach, this study seeks to provide a clear understanding of the complex dynamics of migration with particular emphasis on the unique demographic between the United States and Latin America. This fit arises from one region needing young workers while the other has more than its economy can absorb. Although a relatively simple concept, it is one that has largely been ignored in the political discussions of migration policy. This study argues that the social and political ramifications of and policy responses to Latin American immigration can best be understood when viewed in light of these circumstances.

Agenda Setting and Immigrant Politics

The authors identify and analyze patterns of community organizing among Latin Americans in Toronto for the period from the 1970s to the 2000s as part of a broader analysis of Latin American immigrant politics. They draw on the concept of social fields to map Latin American community politics and to capture a wide range of relevant organizations, events, and strategic moments that feed into the constitution of more visible and formal organizations. Five distinct waves of Latin American migration to Toronto produce three types of community organizations: ethno-national, intersectional panethnic, and mainstream panethnic groupings. This migration pattern also leads to a layering process as established organizations evolve and new migrant groups with specific priorities and ways of organizing emerge. The authors present a case study of the development and agenda-setting process of the Centre for Spanish Speaking People, a mainstream, multiservice, panethnic organization. Agenda setting is defined as the process of defining the vision and mission of an organization or cluster of organizations. The case study captures how a mainstream panethnic organization mediates between diverse in-group agendas of Latin American immigrants and out-group, specifically, state-generated, agendas, and how this agenda-setting process changes over time in tune with shifts in the political opportunity structure. The authors propose, however, that agenda setting is a dialogic social process that involves more than navigating the existing political opportunity structure. Agenda setting involves in-group and out-group dialogues embedded within a complex organizational field. It is an instance of political learning. The analysis of these dialogues over time for a specific group and organization captures immigrant politics in practice.

Way up north in Louisville: African American migration in the urban South, 1930-1970

Way up north in Louisville: African American migration in the urban South, 1930-1970

King cotton in modern America: a cultural, political, and economic history since 1945

King Cotton in Modern America places the once kingly crop in historical perspective, showing how was actually part of the larger culture of the United States despite many regarding its cultivation and sources as hopelessly backward. Leaders in the industry, acting through the National Cotton Council, organized the various and often conflicting segments to make the commodity a viable part of the greater American economy. The industry faced new challenges, particularly the rise of foreign competition in production and the increase of man-made fibers in the consumer market.Modernization and efficiency became key elements for cotton planters. The expansion of cotton- growing areas into the Far West after 1945 enabled American growers to compete in the world market. Internal dissension developed between the traditional cotton growing regions in the South and the new areas in the West, particularly over the USDA cotton allotment program. Mechanization had profound social and economic impacts. Through music and literature, and with special emphasis placed on the meaning of cotton to African Americans in the lore of Memphis's Beale Street, blues music, and African American migration off the land, author D. Clayton Brown carries cotton's story to the present.

Jóvenes inmigrantes latinoamericanos en la prensa española. Narrativas mediáticas de la alteridad: el caso de las violencias urbanas

En este trabajo, se analizan tanto las representaciones mediáticas de los jóvenes inmigrantes latinoamericanos en la prensa española, como el papel de los medios de comunicación en el contexto de las migraciones contemporáneas y, desde la economía política de la comunicación y el análisis crítico del discurso, las formas mediáticas de las narrativas de exclusión, no solamente en su forma retórica, sino en el acceso al debate social. Para tal efecto, el artículo se centra en cuatro interrogantes: ¿cómo se ha venido configurando el panorama demográfico de las migraciones de jóvenes latinoamericanos en España? ¿Quiénes son los actores recurrentes en las informaciones sobre inmigración en el discurso mediático? ¿Qué mecanismos de representación discursiva generan las noticias sobre violencias urbanas relacionadas con jóvenes de minorías étnicas? ¿En qué medida se inserta la figura de los jóvenes latinos en el discurso europeo de la exclusión?

Fly Away: The Great African American Cultural Migrants

Fly Away: The Great African American Cultural Migrants

Decoupling Migration Effects from Income Effects on Reproduction in Central American Migrant-Sending Households

Contemporary data for three Central American countries (Costa Rica, Guatemala, and Nicaragua) surveyed by the Latin American Migration Project were analyzed to determine if migration length and remittance transfers had an influence on fertility. The analysis was structured to separate societal influences on fertility attributable to migration from the income effects associated with remittance transfers. At the couple level, the odds that a birth would occur were negatively associated with an increase in U.S. remittance receipts and an increase in a wife’s migration duration. However, no correlation was found between length of male migration and couple fertility.

The “Diaspora Politics” of Colombian Migrants in the UK and Spain

AbstractWithin the broader theme of Latin American migration to Europe, this article looks at the less explored case of Colombian migrants in the United Kingdom and Spain. More specifically, it focuses on the transnational political activities of these migrants in connection with the armed conflict and search for peace in Colombia, a case of “diaspora politics” that has not received much attention. It is based on research into the wider transnational political linkages of Colombians in these two countries conducted during 2004–2007. This research involved nearly 100 semi‐structured interviews with Colombian men and women who had migrated for political, security, labour and other reasons, as well as interviews with experts, participant observation and analysis of online community forums and other materials. As such, this study went beyond the dominant focus on economic migration. This approach helped to shed light on an aspect of Colombian migrant transnational politics hardly taken into account before, that is, the individual and collective activities that deal with the violence, human rights situation, and search for peace in Colombia. The first part of the article offers a summary of the conceptual and methodological issues underpinning this research and a description of the most relevant characteristics of the two migrant communities studied. In the second part, the article analyses the evidence gathered on Colombian migrant transnational activism in relation to the armed conflict and search for peace in Colombia and the potential and limitations of this work. The aim of the article is two‐fold: to enrich the pool of knowledge on Latin American migration to Europe and to engage with recent literature on the role that diasporas and transnational communities play in relation to conflict in their home countries as part of diasporic or transnational civil society.

Rethinking Latin American Communicology in the Age of Nomad Culture: Transnational Consumption and Cultural Hybridizations

Using the theory of migratory networks and the legacy of the critical theory of the developmentalist models, this article puts forward a critical approach of the deficiencies of certain cultural consumption analyses in Latin America. It aims to develop an understanding of the production of high culture and distribution and reception processes in the transversal logic behind the constitution of migrating multitudes and their appropriation of the media content of global society. This work analyses the Latin American mass media and migrations with the aim of considering current intercultural and transcultural communication from the critical perspective of cultural consumption and reception in the Latin American field of communicology.

INCREASING POWER IN A BLACK COMMUNITY: A NETWORKED APPROACH

Although social network analysis can contribute insight about social relationships embedded in ethnographic data, such as oral history interviews, seemingly few anthropologists use social network analysis as a method for examining ethnographic data. Expanding upon a study of an African American migration from southern regions of the United States to Saginaw, MI, this article uses network analysis to examine a 1967 dual mobilization network structure that emerged as two combative African American networks fought to increase black power in the small community. This research demonstrates that social network analysis can provide qualitative researchers insights not easily or even readily gained through simple narrative analysis. [network analysis, anthropological methods, social movement].

The electoral cycle of international migration flows from Latin America

Political events tend to have an impact on human geographical mobility. Using the Mexican Migration Project (MMP) and the Latin American Migration Project (LAMP) datasets, this study looks at whether there is an association between electoral cycles and emigration and return migration flows in 6 Latin American countries: Mexico, Dominican Republic, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Peru and Guatemala. Results showed that there is a statistical association between election years and emigration and return migration flows, but that the electoral cycles of the Nicaraguan, Peruvian, and Mexican flows are the only ones with the expected pattern. The political business cycle modified the effects of the electoral years on return migration in all the studied countries, except in Nicaragua. Fewer changes were observed in first emigration flows, when the models controlled for economic performance indicators. The article showed that first emigration and return migration are associated with the timing of elections in several Latin American countries. However, the direction of this association is not uniform across the studied countries. Gilbert BRENES-CAMACHO, PhD Assistant Professor, School of Statistics; Researcher in Demography, Centro Centroamericano de Poblacion (CCP), Universidad de Costa Rica, San Pedro de Montes de Oca, San Jose 2060, Costa Rica. E-mail: gbrenes@ccp.ucr.ac.cr , gilbert.brenes@ucr.ac.cr .

Going "Mad" in Gold Country: Migrant Populations and the Problem of Containment in Pacific Mining Boom Regions

Based on archival research conducted in California, British Columbia, and eastern Australia, this essay examines the role of mobility in shaping the institutional experiences of individuals committed or arrested for insanity in the major Pacific mining boom regions of the nineteenth century. Through the transnational story of James "Scotty" Brown, a sailor who escaped from the California State Insane Asylum in time to join the 1858 American migration to the Fraser River goldfields in British Columbia, I demonstrate that instability and flux characterized not only the backgrounds of "mad" migrants, but also their frequent encounters with gold country asylums and jails. Specifically, I argue that these institutions often facilitated the mobility of the individuals that, in principle, they were constructed to "contain."

Migración y Cambios Sociales en Guatemala: Familia transnacional y mujer

International migration in Latin America has increased substantially since the second half of the twentieth century. There are various factors that influence this type of migration. Be it for economic, social or political motives, these transnational movements change the family at its core. The purpose of this essay is to highlight the social changes that affect the family looking more closely at the perspective of those who stay in the country. The consequences span from the disintegration or restructuration of the family to new participatory roles for women. This essay will study those effects in Guatemala as a result of its migratory history and its key location in the Central American migration processes.

International Migration and the Education of Children: Evidence from Lima, Peru

The issue of whether emigration has consequences for the education of children who remain behind in the country of origin occupies an increasingly prominent place in the agendas of both scholars and policy makers. The conventional wisdom is that the emigration of family members may benefit children by relaxing budget constraints through remittances that can be used to cover educational expenses. However, the empirical evidence on the overall effect of migration is inconclusive. This is due in part to a substantive emphasis on remittances in the literature, as well as the inability of some studies to deal satisfactorily with the endogeneity of household migration decisions in comparing outcomes across migrant and non-migrant households. Using Peruvian data from the Latin American Migration Project (LAMP), we apply an innovative instrumental variable technique to evaluate the overall effect of migration on educational attainment and schooling disruption among the children of immigrants. In contrast to conventional wisdom, our results suggest that a higher household risk of immigration has deleterious consequences for the education of children who remain behind.

Skin Inc: Identity Repair Poems, and: Amnesiac, and: The Black Automaton, and: Quantum Spit

Reviewed by: Skin Inc: Identity Repair Poems, and: Amnesiac, and: The Black Automaton, and: Quantum Spit Gregory Pardlo (bio) Ellis, Thomas Sayers. Skin Inc: Identity Repair Poems. Minneapolis, MN: Graywolf, 2010. Harris, Duriel E. Amnesiac. Riverdale, NY: Sheep Meadow Press, 2010. Kearney, Douglas. The Black Automaton. Albany, NY: Fence Books, 2009. Kearney, Douglas. Quantum Spit. Philadelphia: Corollary Press, 2010. Recently, I have been struck by the willingness to revisit, for example, the lynching of Emmet Till, and similarly iconic occasions in our historical memory of racial terror. If only because they are so conspicuous, I’ve grown sensitive to the incidence of poems that will trope on grotesque and stigmatic deformations inflicted on the racialized body sooner than engage the discourse of inequality that historicizes such violence. It might be reasonable to suspect poets’ intentions in these cases are more to shock the reader than to ply the reader’s sympathies—or that the poets are at such a historical remove that they are willing to risk treating such sensitive material inelegantly. I doubt first, however, any reader’s ability to be shocked by depictions of the body—whatever its condition—considering the speed, abundance and impersonality of information exchange we witness today. I also doubt, given the historical significance of Emmet Till’s brutal murder, that some of our finest poets would exploit that or any similar event for sensational effect. No, I believe there is a degree of re-contextualization our poets are pursuing that they feel can be achieved through a quality of seeing that exceeds contemplation. But what spurs this effort? A range of unique sociological conditions distinguishes our historical moment. Data from our last census show the number of Americans self-identifying as multiracial has grown exponentially, revealing definitions of race to be increasingly fluid. The reverse migration of African Americans from Northern urban centers to the Southern states tests the durability of conventional (“street”) etiquette and social wisdom. Growth of the black middle class, with its information resources and access to education, continues to marginalize poor and working class African Americans. Our technologies for literary production, while democratizing, are the same alienating technologies we use to engage in war and commerce. The accumulation of texts that are all the more disposable because they can be infinitely reproduced and warehoused in virtual clouds of collective memory estranges poet and reader across wastelands of binary code. Our cultural affinity with the author of a text may rely entirely on our trust in the accuracy of an online bookseller’s logarithms. Given all of this, and the historically recent scientific confirmation that there is no biological basis for racial categorization, we could forgive black poets today for suffering the malaise of the motherless child. Yet, like the placards (which we shouldn’t forget are likewise texts) of striking sanitation workers in Memphis in 1968, the African American poet today is compelled to make the [End Page 959] founding assertion, “I am a wo/man.” She does this not because her humanity has been called into question, but, I surmise, because technology threatens to obscure the fact of the racialized body, the one material certainty black poets still have, altogether. Employing strategies that are both conventional and idiosyncratic, poets representative of this trend implicate bodies on both sides of the page, producer and consumer, by elevating the lyric moment beyond the merely descriptive, and beyond the damaged grammar of our age. Indeed, it is striking the way poets increasingly resort to visual culture to circumvent the obscuring effects of the page. Black poets today foreground the role of the body in both literary production and consumption. While there are often overt references to the body composing the poem, what I find equally compelling are the demands contemporary black poets make on the body of the reader. By employing formal strategies that call for an active engagement with the page, the three poets I am particularly interested in here, Thomas Sayers Ellis, Duriel E. Harris, and Douglas Kearney, enlist the reader in the performance of blackness, and thereby (re)establish the poem as the site of communal engagement. All three poets are interested in the various ways blackness is...