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Chapter One: Formal and Informal Institutions in the Construction of Transnational Lives: A Study of Mexican and Mexican American Experiences in San Antonio, Texas—A Mexican-Majority U.S. City
- University of Notre Dame Press
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o n e Formal and Informal Institutions in the Construction of Transnational Lives A Study of Mexican and Mexican American Experiences in San Antonio, Texas—A Mexican-Majority U.S. City H a r r i e t t D . R o m o Introduction This study is an exploration of the transnational experiences of Mexican origin residents in San Antonio, Texas. The context of the city of San Antonio, with a history of U.S.-Mexico relations and a majority Mexi can origin population, creates an environment of organizations, institutions , work, and family relationships that promote transnational ties. Formal institutions such as religion, schools, and laws shape transnational lives, but work, family, and culture also transcend borders. Variations of Mexican culture permeate all aspects of life in San Antonio . The experiences of Mexican immigrants and Mexican American residents in a majority Mexican U.S. city can advance our basic understanding of the incorporation processes of diverse groups into U.S. society and the complexity of transnational experiences. 45 46 ■ Harriett D. Romo The main research questions addressed in this project are the following : How do people live their lives in a transnational community? How do transnational experiences differ across generations and socioeconomic class? How do Mexican immigrants and Mexican Americans construct their cultural identities in a transnational community? The physical connections that residents in San Antonio sustain to their Mexican communities are critical, but the cognitive and imagined elements of transnational lives are also important (Levitt and Waters 2002). Thus I am interested in how individuals of various generations and socioeconomic backgrounds conduct their daily lives and how these persons construct their identities and social groups within transnational social fields.1 In studying the experiences of the Mexican origin population in San Antonio, I recognize that transnational identities are shaped across generations, but, like Eckstein (2002), I propose that generational influences are based on a shared historically contextualized experience. In San Antonio, this involves the heightened emphasis on the Spanish language during the twenty-first century as well as the dynamic borderlands culture promoted in San Antonio due to the city’s history as well as increased transnational trade, cultural ties, and immigration. Technology and communication links between sending and receiving communities in Mexico and San Antonio make maintaining connections much easier today than in earlier generations, even if individuals do not physically cross the borders between the two countries. The proximity of Mexico to Texas, the interpenetration of the economies and societies of the two areas, and the emergence of a U.S.-born Mexican-origin population as the majority population in San Antonio have transformed the process of migration and incorporation itself. Residents in San Antonio are constructing new, complex transnational identities that are both Mexican and American. This chapter explores how transnational families in San Antonio live their lives and how they blend the experiences of Mexico and San Antonio. I focus on how institutions such as work and family shape transnational experiences and how formal institutions expand and restrict national borders. Institutions in the Construction of Transnational Lives ■ 47 Methodology I directed a research team composed of sociology graduate students and two faculty colleagues2 who completed 244 in-depth, wide-ranging, life-history interviews, all transcribed, of persons in San Antonio, Texas representing various generations and socioeconomic categories. The sample included individuals representing four main subgroups: (1) elites (high income, college educated, community leaders), (2) working-class people in the 20–50 age group, (3) individuals in their 60s, 70s, and 80s who had transnational business or family lives, and (4) high school students. These subjects provide a good representation of the experiences of transnational families in San Antonio. The subjects were contacted using a snowball technique for the adults. Two high schools from the Westside community, a working-class inner city school that was formerly a vocational high school and a middle-class high school that was initially majority non-Hispanic white students and is now majority Hispanic, agreed to participate in the study. Teachers identified student respondents from English as a Second Language (ESL) classes to reach immigrant students and from regular English classes to reach secondgeneration students. A selected group of teachers were interviewed to complete the context of the transnational lives of students. The interviews with adults lasted approximately two hours and those with students approximately an hour. The case studies in this chapter were developed from interviews selected to represent different types of transnational experiences and persons of different social...