New Book: Mexicanos en el Exterior

The new book “Mexicanos en el Exterior: Trayectoria y perspectivas (1990-2010)” is a magnificient contribution to the analysis of the transnational relations between the Mexican government and the organized Mexican diaspora. It is published by the Instituto Matías Romero, Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores, Mexico.

The contents of the book, which is written in Spanish, is divided in four sections. The first section is written by former directors of the Program of Mexican Communities Abroad (PCME): Roger Dáz de Cossío, Leonardo Ffrench Iduarte, Rodulfo Figueroa Aramoni, Teodoro Maus, and Melba Pría; and the former director of the Institute of Mexicans Abroad (IME): Carlos González Gutiérrez. In this section, we find a rich set of considerations about the most important aspects of the Mexican government’s institutional efforts to contact and organize Mexicans abroad: How everything began, the transition from PCME to IME, the networking efforts, the pending stuff, and the future.

The second section is a collection of essays from Mexican and American scholars about the IME: The importance of the actions of the Advisory Council of the IME, the IME as a tool of Mexican Foreign Policy, the role of the United States in the process, and thoughts about the migrant him/herself, mostly as a social subject of study.

The third section was written by representatives of the civic society who have witnessed the process from different perspectives: organizations of civil society abroad, the cultural factors of the process, and historical essays on the matter. Last, but not least, the fourth section deals with the topic from the perspective of the members of the Advisory Council of the IME: Leni González, Laura González Martínez, Gloria Inzunza-Franco, Orlando Iturbe, María de los Ángeles López-Gallo, Eliseo Medina, Enrique Morones Careaga, Juan de Dios Pineda, and Mario César Ramírez.

I think that this book is a strong, updated reference for scholars in Mexican migration issues, institutional transnationalism, and historical studies of Mexican foreign affairs. To get the book, go directly to the website of the Instituto Matías Romero.

What’s New in the "Immigration Research Now" Website?

There have been some changes in the last 12 months in the Immigration Research Now website. Here you have a brief update of the changes:

Weekly News
Here you can find the most important immigration news from various sources, grouped by week, from January to April, 2010. It includes Spanish and English news from American newspapers.

LINKS: U.S. Immigration
LINKS: The European Perspective
Here you can find updated links to websites related to U.S. and European immigration. First by alphabetical order, then by subject: Government agencies / institutions, immigration news, organizations, research centers and think thanks, research sources and resources, and workshops and working groups.

CRIMEN TRANSNACIONAL
TRANSNATIONAL CRIME
Here you can find a transnational approach to the U.S. – Mexico transnational crime dynamics. Mostly articles focused on the drug war from both sides at the same time. Transnational crime in English (the U.S. perspective), and Crimen transnacional in Spanish (the Mexican perspective).

Dream TeamThis is the gallery of collaborators. A terrific group of Mexican and international students that are making this project a vibrant reality.

The institutional sponsors of this academic effort are the Mexico-North Research Network (Washington D.C.) and the Universidad de Monterrey (Monterrey, Mexico).

Greetings from Mars: Mexican Immigrants and Major Works on Latino Politics

I would like to comment on the reference guide titled “Latino Politics: A Growing and Evolving Political Community” (2009). This magnificent work, published by The University of Arizona Libraries and authored by John Garcia (University of Arizona), Gabriel R. Sanchez (University of New Mexico) and J. Salvador Peralta (University of West Georgia), is a first-rate bibliography on practically every relevant aspect of Latino Politics: History, demographics, mass media, Latino identity, ethnic studies, political behavior, elites, inter-group relations, public policy issues, and methodology and measurement issues (this last, my favorite section). It covers works published mainly during the 1990s and 2000s.

I also enjoyed very much the ‘Retrospective Essay’ of their work: “Latino Politics: Both a Growing and Evolving Political Community,” in which the authors address implicitly and in a very straight forward manner the research and teaching agenda of those who address the Latino community from a scholar, political standpoint: The pan-ethnic perspective, group identity issues, assimilation and acculturation, opinion and policies, organization and mobilization, the foreign-born, and how the context does matter. It is highly recommended for those who are preparing a syllabus on Latino Politics, or for those who wish to update their current syllabus, to take a careful look to the whole compilation of references. The work is also an essential starting point for those students or scholars who are currently looking for new veins of research on Latino political issues.

Now, let’s take a look to a very specific aspect of this major reference work. As a scholar on Latino immigration in the United States, with specialization on Mexican immigrants, I looked immediately for the section on Mexican immigrants and... I guess there is something that I do not understand very well here. In Chapter Five, “Books Focused on Ethnic Studies,” the authors present a section on Central American studies, Cuban studies, Dominican American studies, Mexican American studies, Chican@ studies and Puerto Rican studies… but no Mexicans in the U.S., a category that covers those Mexicans who were born in Mexico, who work and live in the U.S. and who are not American citizens. In Chapter Nine, “Public Policy Issues,” I found a section on “Immigration and Naturalization,” in which there are several references to Mexican immigrants.

If an inhabitant from Mars would arrive today to our planet and would take the reference guide to see what is the state of the affair with Mexican immigrants in the United States, it would take some time for the Martian to realize that Mexican immigrants are important within the analytical framework of Latino Politics, although the Martians would have to look out specifically hard for the topic. At a first glance, Mexican immigrants appear nowhere in this work.

Good news is that research on Mexican immigrants appears and appears in good, healthy numbers. I counted the references that included only Mexican immigrants as a main target of research in the sections of National Origin Based Identity, Political Attitudes, Political Participation, and Immigration and Naturalization and found 43 references. This is, a higher number of references than the total combined references that appear under the categories of Central Americans, Cuban Americans, Dominican Americans, Mexican Americans and Chican@s presented in the Ethnic Studies section of the bibliography.

I think it is time to point out the elephant in the room. Researchers cannot skip anymore the importance that embodies Mexican immigrants for Latino Politics, and certainly for American Politics as a whole. Good that this work makes a distinction between Mexican Americans and Chican@ studies from a political perspective, but it is not enough. Mexican immigrants are now about 30% of the foreign-born population of the most powerful country on this planet, and issues like immigration reform are a big deal in Washington D.C. right now. The study of Mexican immigrants goes well beyond the study of “Immigration and Naturalization.”

Mexican immigrants deserve a category of their own in this type of macro research. Indeed, the current classification of research on Mexican Immigration in this work gives the impression that the topic is only a subject of incorporation/integration… which is not the case. I also think that changing the scope of this classification by creating a category for Mexican immigrants would contribute in leading researchers to deal in a simultaneous way with issues of assimilation, acculturation and transnationalism, for example.

Finally, I have reorganized the section of Papers, Reports and Field Research in my website. Now the information (on immigration-related research) that is offered in this section has been classified in the following categories: Alphabetical Order; American Cities and States of the Union; Economy; Education and Health; Immigration Reform; (The) Mexican Perspective; Mobilization and Participation; Political Integration/Incorporation; Population; Public Policy; Studies and Field Research; and Undocumented-Unauthorized Immigrants / Illegal Immigration. Enjoy.

Mexican State Federations in the U.S.: The Basics

Some researchers tend to make little or no difference at all between Home Town Associations (HTAs) and State Federations (SFs) when addressing the organization of Mexican immigrants in the United States. The only aspect in which they both are similar is that they can be considered transnational organizations. They are “here and there at the same time,” and that’s pretty much it.

A Home State Association (HTA) is a group of immigrants who get together with a common purpose or activity which is highly related to their place or town of origin: they can get together to send money back home to build a road or to rebuild a school or the local church; they can also send money to participate in a 3X1 Program or they can get together to see how they can improve their lives locally, in the host society. The most important characteristic is of a HTA is that all the members of the organization come from the same town. HTAs may or may not be political in their activities.

State Federations generally group several HTAs from the same state in Mexico. Their activity is highly political, even if some of them assert that they do not do politics. A State Federation ideally groups all the HTAs of their respective state, but this does not happen all the time. The natural field of political action of a SF is the relationship between local and state host governments and local and state home governments, plus the Mexican Consulate. Indeed, most State Federations were created under the initiative of the Mexican Consulates during the 1990s and early 2010s; although there are SFs that have existed without the explicit recognition of the Mexican Consulate, however, these are more the exception than the rule.

In some consular circumscriptions there are two State Federations, from the same state in Mexico, officially accredited by the Mexican Consulate. This has led to the local Mexican leadership to point the finger at the face of the Mexican Consulate for trying to divide the community, but it has also led to a relatively sane competition between different SFs from the same state to address in a more efficient way the issues of their constituencies. After almost 20 years of regular existence of SFs in the political arena of Mexican organizations in the U.S., State Federations have become important monopoly-type power brokers between state governments in Mexico and local governments in the U.S., although a high level of dependence and coordination with the Mexican Consulate still is a dominant tone in their actions.

The relationship between SFs and their local constituency generally is characterized by a strong lack of representativeness. Some SFs affirm that they represent all the HTAs of their respective states, and this is not accurate. Some SFs also state that they do represent all the individuals from a single state, whereas most of the individuals have not heard about such federation. It is easier for Mexican immigrants to know about their respective HTA than their respective State Federation. Even worst, there are researchers that report that there are federations that represent all the Mexican State Federations in the U.S. This is not true; as of today, there is not such an organization.

Although there are some aspects in which the relationship between the SFs and their local constituency tends to improve, for good or for bad. If an HTA wants to get resources from the federal government through a 3X1 Program, the HTA must obtain the recommendation of the SF to start the process. No recommendation, no access to the process. This has led the HTAs to rethink their relationship with their respective SFs and has led to the politicization of the process.

Regarding the relationship between the State Federations and their respective home state governments we have an incredible rich field of research on the politicization process of transnational organizations. Some State Federations tend to have a love/hate relationship with their state government (Michoacán, Guerrero, Oaxaca); others act more like a representative trade office of their state (Guanajuato); others struggle to become a real actor to the eyes of their state government (Hidalgo); others are formed based on the Klan rationality of family grouping (Durango); others become a leading role of a mutually beneficial relationship between state government and State Federation (Zacatecas); and others become a little bit of ‘all of the above’ (Jalisco); etc. Here the only sure thing is that a continuous changing political context “here and there” definitely guarantees that a State Federation of a specific state in Mexico will never remain the same in terms of their political activities and status in both sides of the border. They are evolving, all the time.

For the young researcher, the best way to start doing research on the matter (HTAs or SFs or both) is, first, to take a look to the webpage of the Institute of Mexicans Abroad (IME) and gather all the information you can and become familiar with terms, concepts and reports, and the region that you are interested in. Then go to the Mexican Consulate and make an appointment with the representative of the Institute of Mexicans Abroad. Generally he/she will be very helpful in addressing your questions. If this does not work or if you require additional information, my best guess is to contact directly the person in charge of the research and analysis unit at the IME, Elisa Diaz Gras ediazg@sre.gob.mx. An incredibly efficient lady, who shall be able to assist anybody with reasonable research questions.

Doing Research on U.S. Immigration: Best Websites

It seems that a new stage in the U.S. Immigration Debate is around the corner. Time for researchers and scholars on both sides of the border to get ready... I would like to share with you some observations about the most important websites on immigration research:

The Migration Policy Institute, the Migration Information Source and the Pew Hispanic Center offer first-hand information and research on immigration issues. Extremely useful websites if you want to have access in a timely manner to information or field research or core surveys on documented or undocumented immigration and policy issues in the U.S.

When doing research on immigration news, the best sites are Yahoo, Los Angles Times, New York Times, Newsday, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post and PollingReport. For a news recap on Spanish, definitely Impresiones Latinas is the best source.

If you are doing research on Mexican immigrants in the United States, the best sites to start your research are the webpage of the Institute of Mexicans Abroad and Huellas Mexicanas, both in Spanish mostly.

If you are interested in acknowledging a serious position against unauthorized immigration, the best website is that of the Center for Immigration Studies. If you are interested in knowing the position of anti anti-immigrant groups, take a look to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

The perspective of the Catholic Church is exposed at the Justice for Immigrants website, and the website of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Regarding research centers affiliated to U.S. universities or academic institutions, the following websites are worth visiting: Center for Comparative Immigration Studies (UCSD), the Mexican Migration Project (Princeton), the Mexico Institute (W. Wilson Center), The Urban Institute, the Center for Migration and Development (Princeton), and the Border Battles website of the Social Science Research Council. For a Mexican perspective in Spanish, go to the website of El Colegio de la Frontera Norte or to the website of the Red Internacional de Migracion y Desarrollo.

Websites of organizations which are very active in defending the rights of immigrants: America’s Voice, American Civil Liberties Union, and the National Immigration Forum. To acknowledge the position on the matter of the major unions go to AFL-CIO and SEIU.

The U.S. government Office of Immigration Statistics (Dept. of Homeland Security) offers substantive information in terms of numbers. The National Conference of State Legislatures has done an excellent work in documenting the legislative process of the immigration debate in every state of the Union.

A unique collection of 200 documents regarding the U.S. Immigration Debate during the first semester of 2006 can be found at the website of the Mexico-North Research Network.

You can find an exhaustive list of websites that are related to immigration research in the United States and Europe (96 links, total) in my website, Immigration Research Now (IRNow). Also you can find the most updated information about what happened during the first semester of 2006 in terms of political mobilization at IRNow. Finally, you will find more than 130 images of those mobilization actions across the U.S., 35 links to syllabi on immigration and transnationalism and, of course, a section that addresses the question of What is Transnationalism?

Last but not least, I would like to call your attention to the way The Onion deals with the issue. They make me laugh and, most important of all, they make me think; regardless of my frank opinion about the satire. Humor is essential to deal in a healthy way with serious business in life.

Orale con los websites!