Mexican Hometown Associations in the U.S.
Motives for Transnational Engagement
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.7146/dl.v10i16.113578Keywords:
Hometown associations, transnationalism, collective remittances, indigenous communities, actor-centred approach, motivationsAbstract
Most of the literature on Mexican hometown associations (HTAs) has
focused on their role as development agents and often emphasized the
rapprochement carried out by the Mexican state in order to attract
remittances. Although the Mexican state plays an important part in the
proliferation of HTAs in the United States, the reasons for migrant
involvement in HTAs are often left unexplored and typically
explained as a result of ‘emotional attachments’. This article,
however, taking a Weberian approach, argues that it is important to
consider a wider range of motives of the individual migrants for
transnational engagement such as involvement in HTAs and
hometown development. The article is based on ethnographic
fieldwork carried out among migrants from the state of Oaxaca,
Mexico, living in Los Angeles, California.
References
Alarcón, R. and L. Escala Rabadán (2007) ‘Transnational Philanthropy and Organizational Strategies: The Challenge of Mexican Hometown Associations in the United States’, in G. Zárate-Hoyos (ed.) New Perspectives on Remittances from Mexicans and Central Americans in the United States. Kassel University Press: Kassel, 130-158.
Bada, X. (2003) ‘Mexican Hometown Associations’. Citizen Action in the Americas, 5 (March). http://americas.irc-online.org/pdf/series/05.hta.pdf [accessed 10 March 2009]
Bourdieu, P. (1985) ‘The Forms of Capital’, in J.G. Richardson (ed.) Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education. Greenwood: New York, 241-25.
Burger, T. (1977) ‘Max Weber’s Interpretive Sociology, the Understanding of Actions and Motives, and a Weberian View of Man’. Sociological Inquiry, 47(2): 127-132.
Doughty, P. (1970) ‘Behind the Back of the City: Provincial Life in Lima, Peru’, in W. Mangin (ed.) Peasants in Cities: Readings in the Anthropology of Urbanization. Houghton Mifflin: Boston, 30-46.
Ferguson, J. (1992) ‘The Country and the City in the Copperbelt’. Cultural Anthropology, 7(1): 80-92.
Fitzgerald, D. (2008) ‘Colonies of the Little Motherland: Membership, Space, and Time in Mexican Migrant Hometown Associations’. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 50(1): 145-169.
Glick Schiller, N., L. Basch, and C. Szanton-Blanc (1992) ‘Transnationalism: A New Analytic Framework for Understanding Migration’, in N. Glick Schiller, L. Basch, and C. Szanton-Blanc (eds.) Towards a Transnational Perspective on Migration: Race, Class, Ethnicity, and Nationalism Reconsidered. The New York Academy of Sciences: New York, 1-24.
Glick Schiller, N., L. Basch, and C. Szanton-Blanc (1995) ‘From Immigrant to Transmigrant: Theorizing Transnational Migration’. Anthropological Quarterly, 68(1): 48-63.
Goldring, L. (1998) ‘From Market Membership to Transnational Citizenship? The Changing Politization of Transnational Social Spaces’. l’Ordinaire Latino-Americain 173-174 (Juillet-Déc.): 167-172.
Goldring. L. (1998b) ‘The Power of Status in Transnational Fields’, in M. P. Smith and L. E. Guarnizo (eds.) Transnationalism from Below. Transaction Publishers: New Brunswick, 165-195. (2001) ‘The Gender and Geography of Citizenship in Mexico-U.S. Transnational Spaces’. Identities 7(4): 501-537.
Guarnizo, L., A. Portes, and W. Haller (2003) ‘From Assimilation to Transnationalism: Determinants of Transnational Political Action among Contemporary Migrants’. American Journal of Sociology 108 (6): 1211-1248.
Gupta, A. and J. Ferguson (1997) ‘Culture, Power, Place: Ethnography at the End of an Era’, in A. Gupta and J. Ferguson (eds.) Culture, Power, Place: Explorations in Critical Anthropology. Duke University Press: Durham and London, 1-32.
Hirabayashi, L. R. (1986) ‘The Migrant Village Association in Latin America: A Comparative Analysis’. Latin American Research Review 21: 7-29. (1993) Cultural Capital: Mountain Zapotec Migrant Associations in Mexico City. The University of Arizona Press: Tuscon and London (1997)
Hirabayashi, L. R. ‘The Politicization of Regional Identities among Mountain Zapotec Migrants in Mexico City’, in T. Altamirano and L. R. Hirabayashi (eds.) Migrants, Regional Identities and Latin American Cities. Society for Latin
American Anthropology Publication Series, 13. American Anthropological Association: Washington, D.C, 49-66.
Itzigsohn, J. and S. Giorguli Saucedo (2002) ‘Immigrant Incorporation and Sociocultural Transnationalism’. International Migration Review 36(3): 766-798.
Jongkind, F. (1974) ‘A Reappraisal of the Role of Regional Associations in Lima, Peru’. Comparative Studies in Society and History 14: 471-482.
Kearney, M. and F. Besserer (2004) ‘Oaxacan Municipal Governance in Transnational Context’, in J. Fox and G. Rivera-Salgado (eds.) Indigenous Mexican Migrants in the United States. UC San Diego, Center for Comparative Immigration Studies: La Jolla, 449-466.
Kleist, N. (2007) Spaces of Recognition: An analysis of Somali-Danish associational engagement and diasporic mobilization. PhD dissertation, Department of Sociology, University of Copenhagen.
Levitt, P. (2002) ‘Migrant Philanthropy in Latin America’. ReVista, Harvard Review of Latin America.
http://www.drclas.harvard.edu/revista/articles/view/15 [accessed 13 November 2008].
Little, K. (1973) ‘Urbanization and Regional Associations: Paradoxical Function’, in A. Southall (ed.) Urban Anthropology: Cross-Cultural Studies of Urbanization. Oxford University Press: New York, 407-423.
Massey, D. S., R. Alarcón, J. Durand and H. González (1978) Return to Aztlan: The Social Process of International Migration from Western Mexico. University of California Press: Berkeley.
Morrison, K. (2006) Marx, Durkheim, Weber: Formations of Modern Social Thought. SAGE Publications Ltd.: London.
Mountz, A., and R. Wright (1996) ‘Daily Life in the Transnational Migrant Community of San Agustín, Oaxaca, and Poughkeepsie, New York’. Diaspora 5(3): 403-428.
Nagengast, C. and M. Kearney (1990) ‘Mixtec Ethnicity: Social Identity, Political Consciousness, and Political Activism’. Latin American Research Review 25(2): 61-91.
Orellana S., C. L. (1973) ‘Mixtec Migrants in Mexico City: A Case Study of Urbanization’. Human Organization 32(3): 273-283.
Orozco, M. and M. Lapointe (2004) ‘Mexican Hometown Associations and Development Opportunities’. Journal of International Affairs 57(2): 31-52. (2007) ‘Central American Diasporas and Hometown Associations’, in B. J. Merz et al. (eds.) Diasporas and Development. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA, 215-253.
Parkin, D. J. (1966) ‘Urban Voluntary Associations as Institutions of Adaptation’. Man, New Series 1(1): 90-95.
Philpott, S. B. (1968) ‘Remittance Obligations, Social Networks and Choice among Montserratian Migrants in Britain’. Man, New Series 3(3): 465-476.
Portes, A. and P. Landolt (2000) ‘Social Capital: Promise and Pitfalls of Its Role in Development’. Journal of Latin American Studies 32(2): 529-547.
Ramos Pioquinto, D. (1991) ‘Migración y cambios socioeconómicos en la comunidad de Zoogocho, Oaxaca’. Estudios Demográficos y Urbanos 6(2): 313-345. Ramos Pioquinto, D. (2003) ‘Organizaciones de migrantes indígenas en las ciudades’. Ciudades 57 (enero-marzo): 16-20.
Rivera-Salgado, G. (1999) ‘Mixtec Activism in Oaxacalifornia: Transborder Grassroots Political Strategies’. American Behavioral Scientist 42(9): 1439-1458.
Rivera-Salgado, G. (2006) ‘Mexican Migrant Organizations’, in X. Bada, J. Fox and A. Selee (eds.). Invisible No More: Mexican Migrant Civic Participation in the United States. Mexico Institute: Washington, D.C. http://www.wilsoncenter.org/news/docs/Invisible%20No%20More1.pdf [accessed 10 March 2009].
Roberts, B. R. (1974) ‘The Interrelationships of City and Provinces in Peru and Guatemala’. Latin American Urban Research 4: 207-235.
Robles Camacho, S. (2004) ‘Migration and Return in the Sierra Juárez’, in J. Fox and G. Rivera-Salgado (eds.) Indigenous Mexican Migrants in the United States. UC San Diego, Center for Comparative Immigration Studies: La Jolla, 467-482.
Roberts, K. D., and M. D. S. Morris (2003) ‘Fortune, Risk, and Remittances: An Application of Option Theory to Participation in Village-Based Migration Networks’. The International Migration Review 37(4): 1252-1281.
Somerville, W., J. Durana and A. M. Terrazas (2008) ‘Hometown Associations: An Untapped Resource for Immigrant Integration?’ Migration Information Source (July).http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/Insight-HTAs-July08.pdf [accessed on 1 March 2009].
Trans, L. O. (2006) Vamos volando para ser pueblo fantasma! The Transnational Organization of a Zapotec Indian Village. Master’s thesis, Institute of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen.
VanWey, K. L., C. M. Tucker, and E. D. McConnell (2005) ‘Community Organization, Migration, and Remittances in Oaxaca’. Latin American Research Review 40(1): 83-107.
Vargas-Lundius, R. (2004) ‘Remittances and Rural Development’ Discussion Paper, IFAD. http://www.ifad.org/events/gc/27/roundtable/pl/discussion.pdf [accessed 15 March 2009].
Waldinger, R. (1996) ‘Ethnicity and Opportunity in the Plural City’, in R. Waldinger and M. Bozorgmehr (eds.) Ethnic Los Angeles. Russell Sage Foundation: New York, 445-470.
Weber, M. (1968) Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Bedminster Press: New York.
Wolf, E. (1957) ‘Closed Corporate Peasant Communities in Mesoamerica and Central Java’. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 13(1): 1-18.
Zabin, C. and L. Escala (1998) ‘Mexican Hometown Associations and Mexican Immigrant Political Empowerment in Los Angeles’ Working Paper Series. The Aspen Institute: Washington, D.C.
Zabin, C. and L. Escala (2002) ‘From Civic Association to Political Participation: Mexican Hometown Associations and Mexican Immigrant Political Empowerment in Los Angeles’. Frontera Norte 27(Enero-Junio): 7-41.
Bada, X. (2003) ‘Mexican Hometown Associations’. Citizen Action in the Americas, 5 (March). http://americas.irc-online.org/pdf/series/05.hta.pdf [accessed 10 March 2009]
Bourdieu, P. (1985) ‘The Forms of Capital’, in J.G. Richardson (ed.) Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education. Greenwood: New York, 241-25.
Burger, T. (1977) ‘Max Weber’s Interpretive Sociology, the Understanding of Actions and Motives, and a Weberian View of Man’. Sociological Inquiry, 47(2): 127-132.
Doughty, P. (1970) ‘Behind the Back of the City: Provincial Life in Lima, Peru’, in W. Mangin (ed.) Peasants in Cities: Readings in the Anthropology of Urbanization. Houghton Mifflin: Boston, 30-46.
Ferguson, J. (1992) ‘The Country and the City in the Copperbelt’. Cultural Anthropology, 7(1): 80-92.
Fitzgerald, D. (2008) ‘Colonies of the Little Motherland: Membership, Space, and Time in Mexican Migrant Hometown Associations’. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 50(1): 145-169.
Glick Schiller, N., L. Basch, and C. Szanton-Blanc (1992) ‘Transnationalism: A New Analytic Framework for Understanding Migration’, in N. Glick Schiller, L. Basch, and C. Szanton-Blanc (eds.) Towards a Transnational Perspective on Migration: Race, Class, Ethnicity, and Nationalism Reconsidered. The New York Academy of Sciences: New York, 1-24.
Glick Schiller, N., L. Basch, and C. Szanton-Blanc (1995) ‘From Immigrant to Transmigrant: Theorizing Transnational Migration’. Anthropological Quarterly, 68(1): 48-63.
Goldring, L. (1998) ‘From Market Membership to Transnational Citizenship? The Changing Politization of Transnational Social Spaces’. l’Ordinaire Latino-Americain 173-174 (Juillet-Déc.): 167-172.
Goldring. L. (1998b) ‘The Power of Status in Transnational Fields’, in M. P. Smith and L. E. Guarnizo (eds.) Transnationalism from Below. Transaction Publishers: New Brunswick, 165-195. (2001) ‘The Gender and Geography of Citizenship in Mexico-U.S. Transnational Spaces’. Identities 7(4): 501-537.
Guarnizo, L., A. Portes, and W. Haller (2003) ‘From Assimilation to Transnationalism: Determinants of Transnational Political Action among Contemporary Migrants’. American Journal of Sociology 108 (6): 1211-1248.
Gupta, A. and J. Ferguson (1997) ‘Culture, Power, Place: Ethnography at the End of an Era’, in A. Gupta and J. Ferguson (eds.) Culture, Power, Place: Explorations in Critical Anthropology. Duke University Press: Durham and London, 1-32.
Hirabayashi, L. R. (1986) ‘The Migrant Village Association in Latin America: A Comparative Analysis’. Latin American Research Review 21: 7-29. (1993) Cultural Capital: Mountain Zapotec Migrant Associations in Mexico City. The University of Arizona Press: Tuscon and London (1997)
Hirabayashi, L. R. ‘The Politicization of Regional Identities among Mountain Zapotec Migrants in Mexico City’, in T. Altamirano and L. R. Hirabayashi (eds.) Migrants, Regional Identities and Latin American Cities. Society for Latin
American Anthropology Publication Series, 13. American Anthropological Association: Washington, D.C, 49-66.
Itzigsohn, J. and S. Giorguli Saucedo (2002) ‘Immigrant Incorporation and Sociocultural Transnationalism’. International Migration Review 36(3): 766-798.
Jongkind, F. (1974) ‘A Reappraisal of the Role of Regional Associations in Lima, Peru’. Comparative Studies in Society and History 14: 471-482.
Kearney, M. and F. Besserer (2004) ‘Oaxacan Municipal Governance in Transnational Context’, in J. Fox and G. Rivera-Salgado (eds.) Indigenous Mexican Migrants in the United States. UC San Diego, Center for Comparative Immigration Studies: La Jolla, 449-466.
Kleist, N. (2007) Spaces of Recognition: An analysis of Somali-Danish associational engagement and diasporic mobilization. PhD dissertation, Department of Sociology, University of Copenhagen.
Levitt, P. (2002) ‘Migrant Philanthropy in Latin America’. ReVista, Harvard Review of Latin America.
http://www.drclas.harvard.edu/revista/articles/view/15 [accessed 13 November 2008].
Little, K. (1973) ‘Urbanization and Regional Associations: Paradoxical Function’, in A. Southall (ed.) Urban Anthropology: Cross-Cultural Studies of Urbanization. Oxford University Press: New York, 407-423.
Massey, D. S., R. Alarcón, J. Durand and H. González (1978) Return to Aztlan: The Social Process of International Migration from Western Mexico. University of California Press: Berkeley.
Morrison, K. (2006) Marx, Durkheim, Weber: Formations of Modern Social Thought. SAGE Publications Ltd.: London.
Mountz, A., and R. Wright (1996) ‘Daily Life in the Transnational Migrant Community of San Agustín, Oaxaca, and Poughkeepsie, New York’. Diaspora 5(3): 403-428.
Nagengast, C. and M. Kearney (1990) ‘Mixtec Ethnicity: Social Identity, Political Consciousness, and Political Activism’. Latin American Research Review 25(2): 61-91.
Orellana S., C. L. (1973) ‘Mixtec Migrants in Mexico City: A Case Study of Urbanization’. Human Organization 32(3): 273-283.
Orozco, M. and M. Lapointe (2004) ‘Mexican Hometown Associations and Development Opportunities’. Journal of International Affairs 57(2): 31-52. (2007) ‘Central American Diasporas and Hometown Associations’, in B. J. Merz et al. (eds.) Diasporas and Development. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA, 215-253.
Parkin, D. J. (1966) ‘Urban Voluntary Associations as Institutions of Adaptation’. Man, New Series 1(1): 90-95.
Philpott, S. B. (1968) ‘Remittance Obligations, Social Networks and Choice among Montserratian Migrants in Britain’. Man, New Series 3(3): 465-476.
Portes, A. and P. Landolt (2000) ‘Social Capital: Promise and Pitfalls of Its Role in Development’. Journal of Latin American Studies 32(2): 529-547.
Ramos Pioquinto, D. (1991) ‘Migración y cambios socioeconómicos en la comunidad de Zoogocho, Oaxaca’. Estudios Demográficos y Urbanos 6(2): 313-345. Ramos Pioquinto, D. (2003) ‘Organizaciones de migrantes indígenas en las ciudades’. Ciudades 57 (enero-marzo): 16-20.
Rivera-Salgado, G. (1999) ‘Mixtec Activism in Oaxacalifornia: Transborder Grassroots Political Strategies’. American Behavioral Scientist 42(9): 1439-1458.
Rivera-Salgado, G. (2006) ‘Mexican Migrant Organizations’, in X. Bada, J. Fox and A. Selee (eds.). Invisible No More: Mexican Migrant Civic Participation in the United States. Mexico Institute: Washington, D.C. http://www.wilsoncenter.org/news/docs/Invisible%20No%20More1.pdf [accessed 10 March 2009].
Roberts, B. R. (1974) ‘The Interrelationships of City and Provinces in Peru and Guatemala’. Latin American Urban Research 4: 207-235.
Robles Camacho, S. (2004) ‘Migration and Return in the Sierra Juárez’, in J. Fox and G. Rivera-Salgado (eds.) Indigenous Mexican Migrants in the United States. UC San Diego, Center for Comparative Immigration Studies: La Jolla, 467-482.
Roberts, K. D., and M. D. S. Morris (2003) ‘Fortune, Risk, and Remittances: An Application of Option Theory to Participation in Village-Based Migration Networks’. The International Migration Review 37(4): 1252-1281.
Somerville, W., J. Durana and A. M. Terrazas (2008) ‘Hometown Associations: An Untapped Resource for Immigrant Integration?’ Migration Information Source (July).http://www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/Insight-HTAs-July08.pdf [accessed on 1 March 2009].
Trans, L. O. (2006) Vamos volando para ser pueblo fantasma! The Transnational Organization of a Zapotec Indian Village. Master’s thesis, Institute of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen.
VanWey, K. L., C. M. Tucker, and E. D. McConnell (2005) ‘Community Organization, Migration, and Remittances in Oaxaca’. Latin American Research Review 40(1): 83-107.
Vargas-Lundius, R. (2004) ‘Remittances and Rural Development’ Discussion Paper, IFAD. http://www.ifad.org/events/gc/27/roundtable/pl/discussion.pdf [accessed 15 March 2009].
Waldinger, R. (1996) ‘Ethnicity and Opportunity in the Plural City’, in R. Waldinger and M. Bozorgmehr (eds.) Ethnic Los Angeles. Russell Sage Foundation: New York, 445-470.
Weber, M. (1968) Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology. Bedminster Press: New York.
Wolf, E. (1957) ‘Closed Corporate Peasant Communities in Mesoamerica and Central Java’. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 13(1): 1-18.
Zabin, C. and L. Escala (1998) ‘Mexican Hometown Associations and Mexican Immigrant Political Empowerment in Los Angeles’ Working Paper Series. The Aspen Institute: Washington, D.C.
Zabin, C. and L. Escala (2002) ‘From Civic Association to Political Participation: Mexican Hometown Associations and Mexican Immigrant Political Empowerment in Los Angeles’. Frontera Norte 27(Enero-Junio): 7-41.
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Published
2009-01-01
How to Cite
Trans, L. O. (2009). Mexican Hometown Associations in the U.S.: Motives for Transnational Engagement. Diálogos Latinoamericanos, 10(16), 20. https://doi.org/10.7146/dl.v10i16.113578
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