Guatemala-U.S. Migration: Transforming Regions by Susanne Jonas, Nestor Rodríguez (review)

Susanne Jonas and Nestor Rodríguez introduce readers to an understudied population of Latino and Mayan migrants who navigate perilous spaces spanning multiple national borders in their attempts to reach the United States. The authors draw on a rich body of qualitative and quantitative data, including time serial statistics, participant observation, surveys, and interviews, that reflect the relationships the researchers have cultivated for well over a decade. Guatemala-U.S. Migration: Transforming Regions challenges our current understandings of globalization and transnational migration by introducing the reader to what the authors term “the migration region,” a transregional politicized space where different social actors and institutions either support or restrict migrants (p. x). Drawing on sociospatial theories, Jonas and Rodríguez identify the different phases of Guatemalan migration, introduce the transnational advocates that migrants encounter, and provide two comparative case studies in Houston, Texas, and San Francisco, California.

One of the strengths of the book, which will be of particular interest to migration scholars, is the researchers’ attention to a new migratory phenomenon in Mexico resulting from the large-scale migration of Central Americans though Mexico to the United States. In chapter 2 the authors, using a unique methodological approach, introduce five distinct phases of Guatemalan migration between the 1970s and the present. To estimate the fluctuations in the number of migrants entering the United States before and after the Department of Homeland Security took over responsibilities related to immigration in 2003, Jonas and Rodríguez generated data to identify the number of Guatemalans legally admitted to the United States and the number of deportable Guatemalans apprehended, primarily at the southwestern U.S. border, through figures from governmental agencies like the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Customs and Border Protection, and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

The authors’ temporal analysis reveals how contextual changes in Guatemala and the United States impacted the migrant experience and led to divergent outcomes for those who arrived before the passage of the Immigration and Reform Control Act of 1986. Predictably, the implementation of neoliberal policies increased the role of humanitarian organizations, networks of migrant rights advocates, nongovernmental organizations, community-based organizations, and other transregional actors described in chapter 3. Even as these migrants continued to transcend borders and boundaries, they still had to navigate official political structures and agents. Clearly, being afforded legal status and citizenship provided greater opportunities for incorporation, community formation, and therefore upward social mobility for early migrants and their second- and third-generation offspring. This text not only contributes to our understandings of globalization and international migration but also makes important theoretical interventions by addressing the underemphasized spatial dimensions of migration and settlement.

Drawing on the work of Henri Lefebvre, Edward W. Soja, and other theorists of space and place, Jonas and Rodríguez examine how migrants are resocializing space to convey the everyday life activities, perceptions, and representations that explain how spaces come to be produced and socially constructed. Students will be encouraged to understand space and place not just as backgrounds, settings, or contexts but as actors that both organize and represent behaviors, ideologies, and power relationships in a dialectical process. Of particular interest to scholars and students of the American South are the case studies that contrast the settlement experiences in Houston and San Francisco in chapters 4 and 5, which can be compared with migrant experiences in other parts of the Southeast and Southwest. These chapters examine the gendered dimensions of migration, labor market incorporation, the role of social capital in obtaining economic and social stability, and the factors that restricted upward mobility. This theoretically sophisticated, well-researched book is a must-read for students, academics, and policy makers interested in globalization, international migration, and community formation.