Beyond Smoke and Mirrors: Mexican Immigration in an Era of Economic Integration

Appendix A: The Mexican Migration Project Database

165 Appendix A: The Mexican Migration Project Database M any of the tables and figures presented in this volume are based on official statistics, mostly from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and the U.S. Bureau of the Census. We also draw upon data from the Mexican National Statistical Institute, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the United Nations. Many aspects of Mexico-U.S. migration cannot be measured from official sources, however, such as the probability of undocumented migration in a given year, the likelihood of apprehension while attempting a clandestine border crossing, or the social characteristics of undocumented migrants. Whenever our analyses depart from official sources, we rely on data compiled by the Mexican Migration Project (MMP), a binational research project affiliated with the University of Guadalajara and the University of Pennsylvania and directed by Jorge Durand and Douglas S. Massey. Since 1987 the MMP has been funded by the U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (grants HD-23415 and HD-35643) and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation (grants 94– 7795 and 99–4106)) to gather reliable, representative data on documented and undocumented migration from Mexico to the United States. The project employs a data collection strategy developed in earlier fieldwork (Massey et al. 1987) that has come to be known as the ethno-survey (Massey 1987c, 2000b). Rather than attempting to sample national populations using standard survey techniques, the ethno-survey targets specific communities for intensive study by a team of anthropological fieldworkers. They spend several months at each site interviewing a representative sample of households and gathering standardized data using a semistructured interview while conducting ancillary in-depth interviews with local officials and informants . 166 Beyond Smoke and Mirrors Each year four to eight Mexican communities are selected for study, and a team of trained fieldworkers is sent to each site to conduct a census of dwellings, yielding a list of units that is then used as a sampling frame. The census is generally conducted in November, and the sample is drawn in early December. Interviewing takes place during December, January, and February because seasonal migrants return home in the winter to dwellings they have left unoccupied during the rest of the year. To avoid bias stemming from errors of omission, we include in our census anything that might be used as a dwelling, whether or not it appears to be occupied or occupiable at the time of the enumeration. In most communities we select a random sample of two hundred households, although in smaller places smaller numbers have been chosen, and in a few cases a larger sample has been compiled. Rather than attempting to sample large urban areas in their entirety, we demarcate specific working-class neighborhoods and sample them. If a dwelling proves to be empty at the time of the survey, we simply select a random replacement from the sampling frame. The Mexican community samples are thus representative of dwelling units occupied during the winter months of each survey year. Communities are not selected because they are known or thought to contain large numbers of U.S. migrants. Rather, research sites are chosen so as to build into the sample variation with respect to population size, geographic location, climate, economic base, social structure , and ethnic composition (Indian versus mestizo). Fieldwork has generally proceeded on a state-by-state basis, beginning in the core migrant-sending region of west-central Mexico, which comprises the states of Aguascalientes, Colima, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Michoacán, Nayarit, San Luis Potosı́, and Zacatecas. The sample was then broadened to include newer sending regions in the southwestern states of Guerrero, Oaxaca, and Puebla before moving to incorporate northerntier states such as Baja California Norte and Sinaloa. The database has been expanded annually through the addition of newly sampled communities ; at this writing, it includes seventy-one communities in thirteen Mexican states. The communities are listed by number in table A.1, and their approximate locations are plotted in the map reproduced in figure A.1. (Community names are suppressed to preserve confidentiality.) As can be seen, the sample embraces a rather wide cross-section of communities . Demographically the sample includes everything from tiny rural ranchos to dense urban neighborhoods within Mexico’s largest metropolitan areas. It includes agrarian villages, industrial towns, commercial cities, fishing villages, tourist cities, and centers of maquila Appendix A 167 Figure A.1 Geographic...