Accidental Immigrants and the Search for Home: Women, Cultural Identity, and Community

Notes

INTRODUCTION 1. The number of accidental immigrants at any given time or in any specific locale is difficult to determine. The nature of this category is the unpredictability of individual intentions and decisions, over time, that are influenced by emotions and changing life circumstances. The evolution of these personal events cannot be recorded in visa applications, census data, or citizenship registers. For further discussion about the changing nature of immigrant decisions regarding permanency, see Redstone and Massey 2004 and Massey and Bartley 2005. 2. For an excellent discussion of migrants of privilege, see Croucher’s (2009) The Other Side of the Fence. For research on women and socioeconomic class in the United States, see Ostrander’s (1984) Women of the Upper Class. 3. Conversations with participants necessarily included information about the many people who helped create their life stories: parents, siblings, husbands, children, and friends. Because I interviewed only the four study participants, the depictions of events and personalities are theirs alone. To protect their own privacy and that of their families, all four participants requested anonymity and were therefore assigned pseudonyms. Identifying details such as the names of certain locations, employers, and family members were also changed. 4. For further reading about personal narrative analysis, see Clandinin and Connelly 2000; Maynes, Pierce, and Laslett 2008; and Behar 1993. 5. The findings of Walsh and Horenczyk (2001) indicate that the differences in men’s and women’s sense of self affect their response to immigration. They suggest that women tend to place a stronger emphasis on belonging, while men tend to focus on competence. Craig Gurney’s research supports the idea of gendered responses to home and suggests that women tend to provide more complex emotional responses, both negative and positive, in response to questions about the meaning of home. For a more detailed discussion of the relationship between gender, home, and place, see Bilinda Straight’s (2005) collection Women on the Verge of Home and the work of Doreen Massey, including “Double Articulation: A Place in the World” (1994a) and Space, Place and Gender (1994b). 6. Gurney’s research indicates that emotional events such as falling in love, getting married, having children, and mourning are intimately connected to finding meaning in the concept of “home” (1997, 383). NOTES 160 • nOTeS TO THe InTRODUCTIOn 7. The idea of a conversation, in this context, is derived from Clandinin and Connelly 2000, 136. 8. Because feelings around belonging, home, and identity are inherently personal, theories of identity formation, global cultures, and assimilation must not rely on abstract or external viewpoints but on research connected to the actual practices of migrants (Smith 2007, 1097). PART I 1. A comprehensive analysis of globalization is beyond the scope of this book. Readers who are interested in globalization, movement, and culture should see Arjun Appadurai’s (1996) Modernity at Large. 2. While the concept of place is implicated by and overlaps with issues of home, theories illuminating the meaning and significance of “place” are outside the focus of this book. For further reading on place, see Relph 1976; Feld and Basso 1996; Gupta and Ferguson 1997a, 1997b; Massey 1994a, 1994b; and Tuan 1980. 3. Feminist research has questioned conceptualizing home as a refuge for women (see Gurney 1997; Després 1991, 106; Straight 2005; and Martin and Mohanty 1986). 4. For additional discussion about the meaning of “home,” see Case 1996 and Hollander 1991; for a discussion of how the physical environment of home affects identity, see Després 1991. 5. For a more in-depth discussion of the politics of identity, see Hall 1996a and Croucher 2004. 6. Psychologist Greg Madison (2010) has coined the term “existential migrant” to refer to voluntary migrants who are motivated by the desire for self-discovery and fulfillment. PART II 1. Unfortunately many refugees and exiles know from the outset that they will never be able to return home. This book, however, does not focus on immigrants who feel torn from their homes but on those who have left home by choice. 2. Readers interested in immigration policy in norway are referred to Wikan’s (2002) book Generous Betrayal and Gullestad’s 2002 article “Invisible Fences: egalitarianism, nationalism and Racism.” 3. Readers interested in the recent history of Miami are referred to Portes and Stepick’s (1993) City on the Edge. 4. Research and literature on the concept of transnationalism and its effects on nation building and migrant belongings is prolific. See, for example, Glick Schiller, Basch, and Szanton...