Transnationalism and the Political Incorporation of Latin American Immigrants in the United States

Supplemental Award: $34,415, June, 2010

Technology has allowed people the world over to stay connected despite great distance. This has permitted immigrants to maintain strong connections to their native countries after coming to the United States. Do those connections dampen the likelihood that immigrants will incorporate into American civic life?

Alejandro Portes will seek to answer this question by studying the organizations to which immigrants belong in America, and the way in which these organizations affect immigrant incorporation into American life. He will compare U.S. organizations that focus on improving the quality of life domestically, those that are concerned with affairs abroad, and those that deal with both. With his collaborator Cristina Escobar, Portes will assemble an inventory of political and civic organizations created by immigrants from Columbia, Mexico and the Dominican Republic. They will interview members and leaders of these organizations, asking about civic and political participation. They hypothesize that involvement with transnational groups will actually serve as a vehicle, rather than a barrier, to involvement in American public life. They also believe that the level of transnational involvement an immigrant group shows will reflect the context of how and why they left their country of origin, as well as the reception they received when they came to the United States.

Reports and Publications

• Portes, Alejandro, Cristina Escobar, Renelinda Arana. 2008. "Divided or Contingent Loyalties? The Political Incorporation Process of Latin American Immigrants in the United States," Working Paper, Center for Migration and Development (PDF)

• Portes, Alejandro, Cristina Escobar, Renelinda Arana. 2008. "Bridging the Gap: Transnational and Ethnic Organizations in the Political Incorporation of Immigrants in the United States," Ethnic and Racial Studies 31 (6): 1056-1090. (Gated)
   
• Portes, Alejandro, Cristina Escobar, Renelinda Arana. 2007. "Bridging the Gap," Working Paper, Center for Migration and Development (PDF)