Immigration and the Border

Politics and Policy in the New Latino Century

David L. Leal, José E. Limón, David L. Leal, José E. Limón

• Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9780268013356, 9780268206338
• eBook ISBN: 9780268158712
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Public Policy
• Index: Social Sciences

The advent of the twenty-first century marks a significant moment in the history of Latinos in the United States. The "fourth wave" of immigration to America is primarily Latino, and the last decades of the twentieth century saw a significant increase in the number of Latino migrants, a diversification of the nations contributing to this migration, and an increase in the size of the native-born Latino population. A backlash against unauthorized immigration, which may indict all Latinos, is also underway. Understanding the growing Latino population, especially its immigrant dimensions, is therefore a key task for researchers in the social sciences and humanities.

The contributors to Immigration and the Border address immigration and border politics and policies, focusing on the U.S. side of the border. The volume editors have arranged the essays into five sections. The two chapters in the first section set the stage and discuss the binational lives of Mexican migrants; chapters in the subsequent sections highlight specific political and policy themes: civic engagement, public policies, political reactions against immigrants, and immigrant leadership. Because the immigration experience encompasses many facets of political life and public policy, the varied perspectives of the contributors offer a mosaic that contextualizes the impact of and contributions by contemporary Latino immigrants. Their research will appeal not only to scholars but to policymakers and the public and will inform contentious debates about migration and migrants.

PART I

Setting the Stage—Binational Lives

ONE

Formal and Informal Institutions in the Construction of Transnational Lives

A Study of Mexican and Mexican American Experiences in San Antonio, Texas—A Mexican-Majority U.S. City

HARRIETT D. ROMO

INTRODUCTION

This study is an exploration of the transnational experiences of Mexican origin residents in San Antonio, Texas. The context of the city of San Antonio, with a history of U.S.-Mexico relations and a majority Mexican origin population, creates an environment of organizations, institutions, work, and family relationships that promote transnational ties. Formal institutions such as religion, schools, and laws shape transnational lives, but work, family, and culture also transcend borders. Variations of Mexican culture permeate all aspects of life in San Antonio. The experiences of Mexican immigrants and Mexican American residents in a majority Mexican U.S. city can advance our basic understanding of the incorporation processes of diverse groups into U.S. society and the complexity of transnational experiences.

The main research questions addressed in this project are the following: How do people live their lives in a transnational community? How do transnational experiences differ across generations and socioeconomic class? How do Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans construct their cultural identities in a transnational community?

The physical connections that residents in San Antonio sustain to their Mexican communities are critical, but the cognitive and imagined elements of transnational lives are also important (Levitt and Waters 2002). Thus I am interested in how individuals of various generations and socioeconomic backgrounds conduct their daily lives and how these persons construct their identities and social groups within transnational social fields.¹

In studying the experiences of the Mexican origin population in San Antonio, I recognize that transnational identities are shaped across generations, but, like Eckstein (2002), I propose that generational influences are based on a shared historically contextualized experience. In San Antonio, this involves the heightened emphasis on the Spanish language during the twenty-first century as well as the dynamic borderlands culture promoted in San Antonio due to the city’s history as well as increased transnational trade, cultural ties, and immigration. Technology and communication links between sending and receiving communities in Mexico and San Antonio make maintaining connections much easier today than in earlier generations, even if individuals do not physically cross the borders between the two countries. The proximity of Mexico to Texas, the interpenetration of the economies and societies of the two areas, and the emergence of a U.S.-born Mexican-origin population as the majority population in San Antonio have transformed the process of migration and incorporation itself. Residents in San Antonio are constructing new, complex transnational identities that are both Mexican and American.

This chapter explores how transnational families in San Antonio live their lives and how they blend the experiences of Mexico and San Antonio. I focus on how institutions such as work and family shape transnational experiences and how formal institutions expand and restrict national borders.

METHODOLOGY

I directed a research team composed of sociology graduate students and two faculty colleagues² who completed 244 in-depth, wide-ranging, life-history interviews, all transcribed, of persons in San Antonio, Texas representing various generations and socioeconomic categories. The sample included individuals representing four main subgroups: (1) elites (high income, college educated, community leaders), (2) working-class people in the 20–50 age group, (3) individuals in their 60s, 70s, and 80s who had transnational business or family lives, and (4) high school students. These subjects provide a good representation of the experiences of transnational families in San Antonio. The subjects were contacted using a snowball technique for the adults. Two high schools from the Westside community, a working-class inner city school that was formerly a vocational high school and a middle-class high school that was initially majority non-Hispanic white students and is now majority Hispanic, agreed to participate in the study. Teachers identified student respondents from English as a Second Language (ESL) classes to reach immigrant students and from regular English classes to reach second-generation students. A selected group of teachers were interviewed to complete the context of the transnational lives of students.

The interviews with adults lasted approximately two hours and those with students approximately an hour. The case studies in this chapter were developed from interviews selected to represent different types of transnational experiences and persons of different social class status.

Target Areas and Groups

Geographic areas in San Antonio with the largest concentrations of Mexican origin families received special consideration in identifying interview subjects. The Westside of San Antonio, one of the oldest Mexican neighborhoods in the city, continues to be the home of many third- and fourth-generation Mexican Americans. Often these families have lived their lives on both sides of the border visiting family, conducting business, or living temporarily in Mexico or San Antonio. The families have extensive contact with Mexican culture and have been influential in shaping the culture of the Westside Mexican American community and San Antonio.

Many of the working-class interviewees, small business owners, and the oldest generation interviewed lived in this Westside Mexican American community. Upper income respondents and many of the professionals interviewed had moved to suburban areas of the city.

Analysis of the Interviews

Questions in the interview guide focused on transnational experiences and the ways families incorporated aspects of American and Mexican culture into their lives on both sides of the border. Other topics covered language, identity, social networks, political participation, and institutional processes that shape transnational experiences. Interviews were coded using Atlas Ti computer software for qualitative research. The research team met frequently to discuss emerging themes and assure consistency of coding.

The case studies of participants used in this chapter illustrate the types of transnational experiences families have in San Antonio and Mexico. I explore themes that arise from the interviews and statements drawn from interviews to identify interpretive frameworks. Mexican-origin middle-class and professional families have quite different transnational experiences compared to low-income Mexican migrants. Interviews with high school-aged students illustrate how transnational fields influence the younger generation’s experiences.

THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Classical ways of viewing ethnicity and assimilation in cities reflect a general belief in incompatibilities between traditional ways of doing things and a more urban, universalistic way of relating to other groups and of conducting one’s life. Generation and ethnic origin have been key factors in assessing the assimilation of different ethnic groups in the United States (Alba 1999; Alba and Nee 1997; Gordon 1964; Hirschman 1983; Lieberson 1980; Lieberson and Waters 1988; Perlmann 1988; Portes 1996; Waters 1990, 1999a, 1999b).

Research in the area of racial and ethnic relations has proven that individual ethnic groups vary considerably with respect to the impact of structural assimilation on ethnic group identity, participation in ethnic community activities, and loyalty to members of their ethnic group (McLemore and Romo 2005). Moreover, certain kinds of structural assimilation may in fact strengthen an individual’s identification with and participation in the ethnic community (Waters 1999a, 1999b; Gibson 1989). Roger Waldinger (2001) noted also that the functions immigrants fill in an economic system define them. For instance, the children of immigrants and U.S.-born minorities assert different prospects for their future and experience varying levels of acceptance and discrimination (Alba and Nee 1997; Perlmann and Waldinger 1997; Portes and Zhou 1993; Rumbaut and Portes 2001). This chapter proposes that first-, second-, third-, and fourth-generation Mexican-origin persons in San Antonio construct racial, ethnic, class, national, and gender identities in different ways because of distinct transnational interchanges and relationships between Mexico and San Antonio.

Waldinger (2001, 308) points out that the decisions of earlier immigrant settlements exercise a profound effect on the options available to those who come later, especially if they have established ethnic enclaves or have experienced and fought discrimination. Elites who fled Mexico and their descendants, second- and third-generation Mexican Americans, and the contemporary generations in San Antonio often live their lives on both sides of the border (Marquez and Romo 2008). There is also no longer an Anglo “mainstream” in San Antonio (Diehl and Jarboe 1985). Although there are neighborhoods that are predominantly Anglo residents and Anglos remain among the city’s elite, Mexican Americans hold prominent elected offices, make influential decisions, and live in all neighborhoods in the city (Montejano 2010; Wolff 1997). As a result, economic mobility and social standing do not depend on full acculturation or pleasing such a “mainstream” class order (Telles and Ortiz 2008).

The case studies presented here show that the Spanish language, Mexican customs, and Mexican institutions are diffused within the San Antonio population. The resulting transnational fields of experiences and social relationships represent an alternative to full assimilation into American culture and strongly suggest that international migration and assimilation can no longer be seen as a one-way process (Kasinitz et al. 2002). In the interviews conducted for this study, Mexican-origin residents in San Antonio talk about how they participate in the social life of Mexico through telephone contacts with family members, radio and TV, personal videos, and members of the community who cross the border frequently. Mexican American residents also participate in the social life of Mexico through work relationships and various social and religious institutions. A study of San Antonio can be presented as a model for understanding the impact of local contexts and institutions on the development of transnational fields and on the processes of incorporation into the economic and social fabric of a city.

Levitt (2001), in a study of Dominican migrants, discussed different types of transnational communities. In some cases, numerous individuals are embedded within transnational social fields and engage in many transnational practices but do not form a viable sense of community. In other sites, transnational migrants become organized and institutionalized sufficiently to think of themselves as a group. Resources, money, or ideas from both sides of the border are used to achieve transnational goals. Younger generations and older generations may experience periodic, selective transnational activities at various stages of their lives (Levitt 2002; Fouron and Glick-Schiller 2002; Glick Schiller, Basch, and Szanton Blanc 1995; Smith 2002), and members of a U.S. community may share identities, occupations, values, or an attachment to their home country—although they may vary greatly in the actual number of migrations back and forth. For example, many individuals from Mexico are living in San Antonio because they have been expelled from their homelands or displaced by security concerns, economic, political, or social forces; many are undocumented. They may live outside the physical boundaries of Mexico but within the defined space of the “borderlands” cemented by institutions, literature, political ideas, religious convictions, music, and lifestyles of Mexico as well as by permanent migrations (Cohen 1997; Levitt 2001, 15; Romo, H. 2008).

The perspective that guides this study moves away from the traditional three generation process of assimilation and focuses on evolving adaptive responses to ethnic identifications and institutions that help shape those identifications. Specific cultural content changes as the ethnic group—and different generations and socioeconomic classes within the ethnic group—face different structural exigencies (Lopez and Stanton-Salazar 2001; Smith 2006). Reasons individuals have for maintaining ethnic identification and ethnic community involvement may change with each succeeding generation (Gutierrez 1995). Ethnicity may also become important as a basis for pursuing interests within a democratic political system and within a transnational or global economic system (Diehl and Jarboe 1985). Historic events are also important in shaping the direction and meaning of a given ethnic community (Lopez and Stanton-Salazar 2001; Montejano 2010; Romo, R. 1993; Telles and Ortiz 2008).

In San Antonio, the long and often conflictual relationship between Anglos and Mexicans has had an impact on the persistence of Mexican identity and the sense of community that many Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants feel (De Leon 1982; Menchaca 2001; Montejano 1987, 2010). However, relationships within the local context may influence relationships between Mexico and the United States as has been demonstrated in anti-immigrant legislation passed in Arizona, Nebraska, and other states. Public figures in other states and communities as well as researchers have emphasized the strong contributions of Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans to the economies and social fabric of both countries (Durand, Massey, and Parrado 1999; Stephen 2007; Smith and Bakker 2008). Thus, there need not be a zero-sum relationship among structural and cultural assimilation, the retention of ethnicity, and relations with an ethnic community. Rather, ethnic groups, in varying degrees, transform the nature of their ethnicity and their communities to meet new exigencies that continually arise.

Increasingly, these new exigencies are transnational in nature and perhaps demand that individuals carry on their everyday lives as well as their cultural and community lives in more than one nation-state (Hernandez-Leon 2008). This is especially true in San Antonio where the capacity for Mexican-origin individuals and U.S.-born individuals to maintain interactions among members of Mexican and U.S. communities is high. I explore differences in the experiences of individuals who travel regularly to Mexico to conduct routine economic and political affairs; those whose lives are primarily rooted in San Antonio; and those who do not move but who live their lives in a community that has become transnationalized (see Levitt 2002, 9). All engage in numerous activities and social relationships that span borders.

HISTORICAL AND DEMOGRAPHIC CONTEXT OF SAN ANTONIO

San Antonio’s geographical location in the U.S. Southwest allows the city to be considered a borderland despite the fact that it is not located at the U.S.-Mexico border (Romo, H. 2008). Easy accessibility to San Antonio from the Mexican border along the Rio Grande and South Texas corridor is similar to other gateway cities like Los Angeles but distinct from east coast cities such as New York (Smith 2006; Cordero-Guzman, Smith, and Grosfoguel 2001). The demographics of San Antonio, a majority Latino population, make the city similar to Miami and a growing number of other cities with majority-minority populations (Stepick and Stepick 2009).

Many of the Mexican Americans of San Antonio can trace their ancestry back to the time when Texas was a part of Mexico (Arreola 2004; Montejano 1987; Telles and Ortiz 2008). Immigration from Mexico has also continued, largely uninterrupted but with ebbs and flows in response to the economic conditions on both sides of the border (Massey, Durand, and Malone 2003). Today, San Antonio-born Mexican Americans are the majority ethnic population in the city. Skilled workers and Mexican immigrants work in the service and tourism industries, reside in the Westside community where housing costs are low, and return to Mexico for long intervals each year or every few years. In addition, a large group of entrepreneurs, small business owners, professionals, and corporate representatives live both in Mexico and in San Antonio. Intergroup relations are affected by the global economy and the emergence of San Antonio as a transnational trading center with the implementation of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). As in many other metropolitan regions, demographic shifts in San Antonio are reshaping relationships among Anglos, Hispanics, and African Americans (O’Brien 2008). Between 1980 and 1990, Texas experienced an increase of over 1.3 million Latinos representing a 45 percent increase over the ten-year period. From 1990 to 2000, the Hispanic population of Texas increased by over two million individuals, and the Hispanic share of the state population moved from 25.5 percent to 32 percent (U.S. Census 2000). According to the 2010 census, Hispanics comprised 58.7 percent of the population of Bexar County, Texas—where San Antonio is located—and 84 percent of those Hispanics were of Mexican origin (U.S. Census 2010).

San Antonio has always been...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I. Setting the Stage—Binational Lives
• Part II. Immigrants and Civic Life
• Part III. Immigration and Public Policy
• Part IV. Political Reactions to Immigration
• Part V. Immigrants and Leadership
• List of Contributors
• Index