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s i x t e e n The Emerging Community Leadership and Transnational Politics of Mexican National Immigrants in New England M a r t h a M o n t e r o - Si e b u r t h The presence of Mexican nationals1 in the United States has been historically , socially, and politically well documented and researched during the past one hundred years (Suro 2005; C. Suarez-Orozco and M. Suarez-Orozco 2001).2 Waters and Jimenez (2005, 119) argue that “Mexicans are the only immigrant group to span the Great European Migration, the post 1965 era of immigration, and the period in between ,” covering close to one hundred years. Yet the dimensions of their impact in terms of their growing numbers in the United States, identities, settlement patterns, social and cultural modalities, as well as their integration into U.S. society have become more recently debated from U.S. and Mexican perspectives, as immigration issues intensify and the passage of Arizona’s Law SB 1070 granting the state and local police power to enforce immigration calls into question the role of the federal government (Archibold 2010; Corchado and Solis 1999; Custerd 2003; Edwards 2003). 434 Mexican National Immigrants in New England ■ 435 Mexicans have been one of the largest and most continuous Latin American immigrant populations to the United States and are the largest single source of new arrivals (Suro 2005; Camarota 2004). Despite their long-term presence, the surge in large-scale migration of Mexicans is a recent phenomenon, increasing the U.S. population seventeen-fold since the 1970s. The Mexican immigrant population in the U.S. was then less than 800,000 but by 2008 had risen to 12.7 million (Camarota 2001; Guzmán 2000 U.S. Census 2000 Brief; Passel and Cohn 2009a). While Mexican immigrants have declined since the mid-­ decade,3 due to the impact of the recession and many returning to Mexico, they still account for 32 percent of all immigrants living in the United States (Passel and Cohn 2009b). Mexicans make up close to 59 percent of the share of unauthorized immigrants, a situation that has persisted over the past three decades, and 74 percent of their children are born in the U.S. and are U.S. citizens according to Passel and Cohn (2009a). This increase in numbers of undocumented immigrants as well as evident anti-immigrant sentiment has placed immigration reform at the center of heated political debates. Measures ranging from stronger legal enforcement of immigration policies such as those of Arizona and other states, to building a reinforced wall along the entire U.S.-Mexican border, to increasing INS raids are all responses advanced to stop what is being referred to as an “invasion” of the United States (see MonteroSieburth and Meléndez 2007). The supply and demand for workers has engendered much of the massive exodus of Mexicans each year. But family reunification has also added to an increase in their numbers. In recent years, the wars between the drug cartels and the high criminality experienced throughout Mexico have caused a social diaspora of many seeking secure lives in the United States. Since the 1960s after the Bracero program ended, Mexicans continued to leave Mexico. In the 1980s, 200,000 immigrants per year left for the United States, growing to 300,000 per year in the 1990s and from 2006 to 2008, such numbers rose to about 400,000 a year (Leite, Angoa, and Rodriguez 2009; Alba 2002; Instituto Nacional de Estad ística, Geografía e Informática; INEGI 2003). 436 ■ Martha Montero-Sieburth Mexico’s overall population has been highly affected by such emigration : 2.1 to 1.5 million citizens emigrated to the U.S. from Mexico between 1980 and 1990 and 3.3 million citizens left Mexico between 1990 to 2000, and close to 1.6 million citizens moved to the U.S. during 2004–2006 (López Vega 2003). The settlement patterns have also dramatically changed during the past twenty years. Research by the National Council of Population in Mexico (CONAPO) and the Pew Hispanic Center reflect these new trends: (1) a reduction in the circular migration leading to greater permanency of Mexicans in the United States, Mexicans are staying in their newfound areas;4 (2) an increase in the flow and stock of documented and undocumented Mexicans, with many having entered legally but overstaying and others simply entering irregularly; (3) a greater heterogeneity in the makeup of the immigrant...

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