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Four ConteMporary Movers International Migration When I got here I was glad to see all the people that came from my place, and they started to make a good time for me.They made a party, and they had wine and biscotti, and lots of meats and macaroni. I was surprised that we had macaroni because I thought that they only had this in the old country. —liberato Dattolo, italian iMMigrant who arriveD in briDgeport, ConneCtiCut, in 1914 My father came to America when I was very young, so I don’t really know what he did. In America he worked in what they call a “lardy,” a factory, in New Jersey. He lived in a boardinghouse. The landlords were a husband and wife and they were of the same nationality. And one day they said to him, “Martin, you need to get your wife and children over here.We’ll lend you the money. And when your wife comes, she can work to help us get boarders in, and you can pay us back.” So that’s what he did. —Cara weiCh, irish iMMigrant who arriveD in the u.s. in 1905 A few popular assumptions apply to international migration and make understanding the outcomes of international mobility difficult. First, there is the perception that international movement is something new. Second is the assumption that most international movers are poor and fleeing poverty by exercising mobility. Third is the belief that international migrants take jobs and opportunities away from the citizens of receiving nations and in the process drive down wages. Fourth, there is a perception that once migrants arrive in their destination, they will never leave; and fifth, there is the assumption that international migration is best Contemporary Movers 69 countered by supporting development in the home communities of the very migrants who are driven to cross the border because they are poor and cannot find jobs. While these assumptions are powerful and show up again and again in the literature and debates and in the popular media, the realities of international migration are really quite a bit more complicated; while we could probably find an example that proves each one of the above assumptions, in reality there is much more support for the following statements. First, international migration is not something new.1 In fact, the early decades of the twentieth century saw more international movement, at least in terms of the percentages of migrants moving to new destinations. Second, international migrants are not poor, except in relationship to those of us in the West with resources. Migration is a costly endeavor, and the poor in most countries cannot afford to cross international borders. Not only do they lack the money to cover the expense of border crossings, they also lack the social capital (or social ties) that typically support cross-border movement. They may also lack human capital and the experiences necessary to plan for, cope with, and succeed at migrating. Third, migrants generally take jobs that no one in the receiving area wants to fill; further, as they participate in a destination country’s economy , they create additional demands for goods and services that must be met. Migrants can thus have a positive effect as they encourage economic expansion to meet their needs, and, of course, their tax payments (whether through sales taxes, retirement programs, or federal taxes) fill a receiving nation’s accounts. Immigrants are almost always a low-cost addition to the qualified workforce in their destination, and employers are usually very happy to exploit them. Fourth, migrants typically do not want to stay in destination countries, but the rules and regulations that define borders and the increasing costs of crossing those borders make it more and more difficult for international movers to return home. The same rules that restrict access often force migrants to settle. The costs of border crossing and fears of arrest make circular or short-term migration almost impossible and so people settle. Finally, while local economic development is a tool we hope will keep people at home, until nations invest in real growth and the integration of migrant-sending regions into national economies, there is little potential for change or development. Our goal in this chapter is to define international migration, its motivations , and its patterns, and to explain why it is so important not just to movers, but to nonmovers and to the countries they are leaving as well as [18.221.174.248] Project MUSE (2024...

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