Beyond the Borderlands: Migration and Belonging in the United States and Mexico by Debra Lattanzi Shutika (review)

In Beyond the Borderlands: Migration and Belonging in the United States and Mexico, Debra Lattanzi Shutika explores the lives of Mexican migrants in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, as well as in their home community of Textitlán, Mexico. The examination of connected communities in the United States and Mexico presents a unique perspective on the lives of Mexican immigrants and the issues they face in their homeland and their adopted country. Lattanzi Shutika gained access to the Mexican community by living among them in Mexico and by fieldwork in Kennett Square. She discusses the internal struggle experienced by migrants who come to this country in pursuit of financial opportunities while simultaneously maintaining distant relationships with loved ones in Mexico. The conflict associated with identity negotiation is a constant theme throughout her book as immigrants attempt to resolve the struggle between hopes for a better future in America while clinging to traditional Mexican ways of life. Similarly, the townspeople of Kennett Square seek to affirm their reputation as a progressive community while maintaining their cultural dominance in an emerging Mexican population. Throughout the book, Lattanzi Shutika attempts to answer how these negotiations are reconciled.

Lattanzi Shutika’s access to the Mexican populations in Pennsylvania and Mexico provide a compelling ethnographic portrait of Mexican migrants living within the context of dual countries. In the book’s introduction, the author describes how a short term research project evolved into a 10-year study that spanned two nations, resulting in a comprehensive study of Mexican migrants who leave family and friends in Mexico to pursue a better financial future in the community of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania.

Chapter 2, “‘I give thanks to God, after that, the United States’: Everyday Life in Textitlán,” uses historical data and statistics to provide a demographic profile of the Textitlán population. Lattanzi Shutika also provides readers with valuable personal observations of the living conditions in Textitlán. While some in the United States may consider Textitlán below the standards of American prosperity, Lattanzi Shutika notes that those departing Mexico for the United States place high value on the emotional bonds with family, friends, and traditions they leave behind in Mexico.

Chapter 3, “La Casa Vacía: Meanings and Memories in Abandoned Immigrant Houses,” explores the topic of place and belonging. Money earned by Mexican migrants in Pennsylvania affords them the luxury of maintaining two houses, one in America and another in their “home” Mexico. Though many migrants interviewed for this study are fulfilling their financial dreams in America, many people often spoke of their emotional connection to their home country and dreamed of an eventual return to Mexico.

Lattanzi Shutika reflects on the social and cultural changes within the Mexican population in Kennett Square during her 10 years of fieldwork and observation in chapter 4, “In the Shadows and Out: Mexican Kennett Square.” Originally viewed as a transient population, throughout the years, Mexicans began to establish roots in the Pennsylvania community. This permanence allowed migrants to come out of the shadows and overcome their feelings of invisibility toward developing a sense of place within the broader population of Kennett Square. As they became more connected to the community, expressions of Mexican culture were celebrated openly in the town’s community spaces. This cultural emergence coincided with the purchase of homes in the Kennett Square community by Mexican families. While many settlers still feel they reside in the margins of the Pennsylvania town and yearn for their homeland, a growing number of Mexicans are experiencing a sense of belonging in their newly adopted home of Kennett Square and becoming a significant part of the community’s identity.

The attempt to integrate the Mexican community with the broader English-speaking population is explored in chapter 5, “Bridging the Community: Nativism, Activism, and the Politics of Belonging.” Lattanzi Shutika explains that the effort to unify was not born primarily...