Latinos in the Midwest

Reaching across Borders: The Transnationalizing Effect of Mexican Migration on Public Schools on the Outskirts of Chicago

n 227 JENNIFER TELLO BUNTIN Reaching across Borders: The Transnationalizing Effect of Mexican Migration on Public Schools on the Outskirts of Chicago In 2002 a local newspaper reported on the start of a distance learning program at an Aurora, Illinois, high school that would link adult students in Aurora with teachers in Mexico via satellite (Moore 2002). [District One] ready to launch partnership with Mexico Distance learning: Satellite link will allow immigrants to complete education aurora—People walking or driving past [District One] High School might notice for the first time a large object on the roof of the building. A satellite dish that will link the school to Mexico for a distance-learning program was installed this week. It should be tested and fully functional by Monday, when administrators meet with local educators and officials from the Mexican Consulate to kick off the adult education program, the district’s technology coordinator said. The satellite link facilitates real-time communication between the school and educators in Mexico . . . The district has partnered with the Mexican Consulate and a local community organization to help Aurora’s Mexican immigrants complete the education they might have left behind when they came to the United States. . . . Participants who complete the 228 n Jennifer Tello Buntin program will earn a certificate from the Mexican Minister of Education. (Moore 2002; organization and individual names obscured). This program, called Plazas Comunitarias, was a partnership between the local school district, the Mexican government, and a local community organization. Teachers in Mexico were to instruct participants via satellite and, upon completion of the program, each student would receive a degree from the Mexican minister of education. The program is intriguing. Since the early 20th century, public education has been a primary vehicle for national assimilation and Americanization projects, a goal at odds with the introduction of transnational elements to the institution. Yet here was a story of a local school district working directly with the Mexican government to provide community residents with Mexican educational certifications. The transnationalism literature suggests that at least some immigrant communities in the United States develop and maintain strong ties with their home communities and nations. Recent research by Alejandro Portes, Luis Guarnizo and colleagues (Portes, Escobar, and Radford 2005; Guarnizo, Portes, and Haller 2003) provides insight into transnational organizations that serve the political, social, and economic needs of immigrants. However, Aurora’s distance learning partnership with Mexico differs from these types of organizations in a crucial way. The transnational organizations these scholars describe are immigrant-based organizations, whereas the school district in Aurora is part of a broader community institution. The distance learning program, as well as subsequent observations of Aurora, led to the central questions of this chapter: How do receiving community institutions , like public schools, respond to the arrival and development of a transnational migrant population? Furthermore, what are the implications of those responses for both the immigrants and the community at large? This chapter argues that current approaches to studying migration processes are unable to address these questions because the study of migrants and their families has been removed from the study of the communities in which they are embedded. Immigrants and their families are often portrayed as isolated and socially disconnected from the rest of the receiving community. Observations in Aurora, however, suggest that migrants and their families interact with nonmigrants of various ethnic origins in a multitude of social and institutional contexts, such as schools, churches, workplaces, and stores.1 Furthermore, these receiving communities are not static venues, but dynamic communities that respond to and are changed by the presence of a transnational immigrant population. In other words, migration is a social process that transforms not only the lives of the migrants, but also the communities they travel between. These transformations have consequences for both immigrant and nonimmigrant The Effect of Migration on Public Schools n 229 residents. Current approaches that focus on the immigrants in isolation obscure these transformations and their implications. Public education is a key research site for uncovering the ways that the presence of immigrants transforms a community. First, schools are the frontier of any dramatic population change. They often deal with the impact of changing demographics long before other parts of the community even perceive the change. Second, schools play an important role in the local community beyond the obvious function of educating children. They are cornerstones of community life, bringing together neighboring families in a multitude of social activities. They also...