2004 Transnationalism Fellows Research Topics Deborah A. Boehm “Generación
Transnacional/Transnational Generation: Gender and Nation This presentation examines gender subjectivities among the next generation of transnational Mexicans, focusing on youth who are often referred to as 1.5 or second-generation (im)migrants. The study is part of broader dissertation research that examines gender, family, and citizenship among a community of transmigrants, a network of people that is rooted in the United States and Mexico and characterized by movement of members between the two countries. As Mexicans (im)migrate to the United States, they reflect on national membership in new ways. Not surprisingly, transnational Mexicans project many of the doubts and questions about national belonging onto their children. Celebrations, family interactions, work, and migration itself, are settings in which ideas about both gender roles and national membership are presented and contested. The intersection of gender and nation is especially pronounced in the lives of youth—young females and males on both sides of the border. Incorporating ethnographic data, I will argue that many of the negotiations of nation that play out among the next generation are simultaneously discourses of gender. Deborah Cohen “Bordering Modernities: Race, Masculinity, and the Cultural Politics of Mexico-US Migration” Bordering Modernities: Race, Masculinity, and the Cultural Politics of Mexican-US Migration situates mid-twentieth century economic, social, and political changes in the United States and Mexico within a global context and relational framework. It analyzes how flows of labor, technology, goods, and information between the United States and Mexico impacted US and Mexican racial formation. To do so, it examines the lives of Mexican agricultural migrants who journeyed to the US as part of the Bracero Program, a guest-worker program that, between 1942 and 1964, brought nearly 5 million Mexican men to labor in the US. It contrasts the diplomatic logic put forth by the US and Mexican governments to how migrants themselves understood the contradictions between the stated goals of the Bracero Program, their US living and working conditions, and the possibilities for US citizenship and belonging within the national polity. In the end we see how these men used the Program’s rhetoric to assert their right to inclusion in the US nation. Bordering Modernities, thus, argues for the fundamental interconnectedness and contingency of these two nations’ identities. Tomas Cruz-Cruz “Effects of remittances on Consumption and Agricultural Practices in the Indigenous Chatino Region of Oaxaca, Mexico” This research explores the changes occurring in consumer and agricultural practices resulting from remittances sent by US migrants. The influx of money into a small community is challenging traditional self-sustenance patterns of consumption particular of indigenous villages as well as creating a dependency on remittance dollars. The research takes place in a small village of 3889 people in the state of Oaxaca, Mexico. The research methodology combines a survey to obtain quantitative data with two family life histories for qualitative data. The expected results are not a break in traditions from the influx of remittance money but rather a transformation and redefinition of traditions to include new perceptions imported from the US. Patricia H. Hamm “Mexican Immigrants in the U.S.: Their Transnational Role in Mexico's U.S. Policy” This research investigates the role of Mexican immigrant transnational actors (MITNAs) in U.S.-Mexico relations, by looking at two questions. How much, and how, do they affect Mexican politics and foreign policy? Do they contribute to the creation of a new bilateral agenda and/or new institutions? For this purpose, it looks at MITNA activities on issues relating to their particular stakes on both sides of the border that might spill over bilateral issues and decision-making, and at political leaders’ responses to them. This investigation shows that MITNAs may be construed as a new “domestic” source of Mexican U.S. policy. MITNAs are likely to affect the bilateral relationship by putting items that directly or indirectly relate to the U.S. on the agenda of Mexico’s president, governors, congressmen, and state legislatures. Consequently, some items may become part of Mexico’s agenda with the U.S., and perhaps even the object of binational negotiations. Yet their clout is limited. While core issues and policy proposals --like overseas voting, U.S.-immigration reform, and migrant rights-- are likely to become part of the political debate, and sometimes even become presidential or congressional initiatives, they will only occasionally translate into policy outcomes. Miriam Jiménez Hernández “Transnational concerns: how responsive can members of Congress be?” The political aspects of transnationalism have been studied from two points of view primarily: a) political participation of migrants (i.e. naturalization, registration and voting,) and 2) the actions of governments or politicians to reach those who migrated. My research proposes a different perspective: the analysis of transnational concerns as reflected (or not) in the actions and agendas of ethnic members of Congress. I will focus on Latino representatives and their responses to immigration initiatives in the current administration (2000-2004,) in order to identify substantive and symbolic responses. These will be analyzed in a historical perspective that will allow us to start developing a typology of responses to transnational concerns, ranging from active involvement to silence or indifference. Danna Alexandra Levin Rojo “¿Conquistadores o Conquistados?: Identidad Hispana, Resistencia Cultural y Relaciones Interetnicas en el Condado de Rio Arriba, Nuevo México” El proyecto analiza las transformaciones identitarias que la comunidad hispana del norte de Nuevo México, arraigada en la región desde el periodo de la dominación colonial española, ha experimentado a partir de su integración en los Estados Unidos de América después de la Guerra Mexico-Norteamericana de 1847 así como el impacto que éstas han tenido en la re-formulación de las relaciones interétnicas a nivel local. Específicamente busca entender cómo se relacionan hoy los descendientes de aquellos primeros nuevomexicanos (también auto-denominados chicanos) política y culturalmente, con los distintos grupos indígenas de Nuevo México, con los grupos mexicanos de reciente inmigración, y finalmente con sus raíces españolas y mexicanas. Martin Medina Martinez “Informal Transborder Recycling in Juarez / El Paso”
Karen Lee Ogulnick “Empowering Indigenous Women and Children through Popular Education Programs in Mayan, Native American and Immigrant Communities” In this ethnographic research study, I intend to explore the work two Mayan cultural organizations in Chiapas, Mexico are doing to rescue, maintain and promote native language literacy in Mayan languages (Tsotsil and Tzeltal) for indigenous children and adults. In particular, this study will address issues pertaining to feminist themes that are engendering more expanded and empowered political and social spaces for indigenous women in Mexico and native American women in the U.S. This research will focus on the impact and influence of these organizations beyond the borders of Mexico--on immigrant workers, native people and women--in U.S. communities where members of the collectives have performed theater and cultural presentations. Julia María Schiavone Camacho “Mexicans and Chinese in the Formation of Gender, Race, and Nation in the U.S.-Mexican Borderlands, 1910-1940” This dissertation argues Chinese-Mexican relations helped shape the U.S.-Mexican Borderlands between the Mexican Revolution and the beginning of World War II. By moving beyond national frames and viewing U.S. and Mexican ideology and policy through the lens of gender, this study furthers the scholarship on transnational Chinese migration and racial exclusion in the border region. The dissertation begins in Sonora and moves to other areas of the U.S.-Mexican borderlands and Canton, China. It draws cross-border comparisons in Chinese-Mexican relations, popular ideology, and national policies, addressing the impact of these processes on national and transnational landscapes.
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