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n vii RUBÉN O. MARTINEZ Transnational Workers and the Politics of Citizenship The liberalization of economic markets across the globe has intensi- fied the growth of a global economy and increased the migration of workers across national boundaries. The phenomenon of runaway plants, that is, plants closing in industrialized nations and opening in countries with lower operating structures, was part of the processes of globalization. Also central to the globalization processes was the imposition of structural adjustment policies on developing countries by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. To receive loans and/or low interest rates on loans, the borrowing nation had to adopt free-market practices of Western industrialized nations, including the elimination of trade barriers, deregulation of the economy, and the transfer of public-sector services to the private sector. These neoliberal policies and practices framed the rise of the global economy, and promoted the displacement of millions of people throughout the globe. Here in the United States, middle-class jobs declined while job growth was limited to low- and high-wage sectors. The growth of low-wage jobs was met by displaced workers from south of the border who came seeking opportunities to make a living, often not thinking of themselves as immigrants, but rather as transnational workers. Transnational workers parallel the growth of the transnational capitalist class viii n The Politics of Citizenship and its attendant “service class fraction,” in the sense that where capital demands labor, workers will show up. Capital demands for low-wage labor in the United States are reflected in the rapid growth in numbers over the past three decades of foreign-born Latinos, many of whom are undocumented. Once here, these workers continue to maintain strong kinship and network ties to their communities of origin, giving their lives a truly transnational dimension, though perhaps not as flamboyant as that of their capitalist counterparts. These experiences as transnational workers and as undocumented immigrants have engendered widespread sensitivity among them regarding their rights both as workers and as human beings, and have brought into sharp focus issues surrounding citizenship. The influx of transnational workers engendered nativistic movements that challenged their presence here and demanded their exclusion and deportation. At the same time, at least one view of the concept of cultural citizenship was used to promote the normative view that there ought to be dialogue about the complexity that arises when national cultures become increasingly fragmented. This includes listening to the voices of the excluded; that is, those living outside the mainstream of American society. On another level, however, life on a transnational plane gives rise to critical questions about citizenship and global citizenship. For example, does displacement from one’s homeland and exclusion from the core institutions of the receiving society mean that, de facto, one has no human rights, no platform from which to voice one’s concerns, and no society to which to belong? The nativists would respond with a vehement yes to this question. But what does their denial of rights to others produce in the lives of the excluded? What is the experience of non-citizenship, and how does one cope when one is in such a situation? How does one connect to or create a sense of community and build bonds of solidarity while occupying the status of non-citizen? How does one become part of society in an informal way that goes beyond the private realm and integrates one into the public realm? How does a family with citizen and non-citizen children cope with the glaring inequalities in opportunities and protections that distinguish their lives? All of these are questions about the experiential aspects of transnational workers and their families. Moreover, the experiences that attend these dimensions of transnational workers’ lives are those that will frame and shape the future of citizenship both at national and global levels. Theoretical, empirical, and normative studies will surely be published as we move into the global future. I am pleased to present Raymond Rocco’s Transforming Citizenship as a pioneering work on associative citizenship and Latinos within the series on Latinos in the United States. His study focuses on the political conditions and issues produced by the rise of globalization and transnational workers. His work makes a significant contribution to the systematic study of the experiential aspects of the rights of Latino The Politics of Citizenship n ix immigrants and transnational workers and the political challenges that have arisen in this country...

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