A Nation of Emigrants: How Mexico Manages Its Migration (review)

Mexican immigration to the United States has been a key topic of research across the social sciences. Scholars have examined questions such as: what determines migratory flows from Mexico to the United States; how are these flows sustained in the face of increasingly restrictive U.S. immigration laws; to what degree do Mexican migrants assimilate or are they living their lives more transnationally; is migration from Mexico, particularly undocumented migration, reshaping the form and substance of American citizenship?

Interestingly, scholars have been less attentive to the Mexican side of the immigration equation. The ways national belonging and citizenship may be transforming in Mexico as it is affected by processes of emigration have not been fully explored. Indeed, studies about the impact of international migration on the state and society of labor-sending countries continue to be scarce. Fitzgerald's book, therefore, is a vital contribution to the scholarship on Mexican migration as well as broader scholarly debate about nationalism, transnationalism and citizenship under conditions heightened by global mobility.

Based on a mix of methods including archival, interview, participant observations as well as survey research, Fitzgerald traces how the Mexican state has long been concerned with - and has attempted to regulate — processes of emigration. During the early 20^th century emigration, characterized as "demexicanization," was opposed and actively prevented by the central government with limited success. The uneven and sometimes contradictory implementation of restrictive emigration policies was due in part to the Mexican state's lack of internal cohesion. As well, policies introduced by Mexico's more powerful northern neighbor undermined attempts by the Mexican state to control the out-flow of its citizens. In the 1980s, the Mexican state's orientation towards emigration was practically reversed. Shifting from coercive strategies of emigration control, the state began to ultimately encourage out-migration as the remittances generated by overseas migrants became more and more appealing to the central government. Indeed, Mexican states have launched their own initiatives to engage with, and benefit from, overseas Mexicans. For example, the state of Zacatecas, since 2003, has allowed Zacatecanos overseas to run in the state's congressional and county elections. Meanwhile in Jalisco, the state government has found novel ways to funnel migrants' remittances into business investment and infrastructural development.

Despite years of tensions, the Mexican state would ultimately partner with and build upon the Catholic Church's infrastructure and methods for sustaining its reach over its mobile population. Indeed, Fitzgerald suggests that the model of what he calls "citizenship á la carte" or "emigrant citizenship" that has emerged most recently in Mexico is drawn largely from the kind of pastoral care engaged in by the Mexican Catholic Church to maintain its hold over its flock. As the Mexican church's flock moved northward, its reach did too. Hometown associations have been a key mechanism by which the Church, and now the state, maintains its ties with overseas Mexicans. Indeed, much of the scholarship on Mexican transnationalism has focused on the central role of HTAs in facilitating and sustaining Mexican immigrants' linkages to their communities of birth. HTAs however, as Fitzgerald reveals, are not a recent invention. Hometown associations were actually first encouraged by the church to sustain internal migrants' linkages with their hometowns. In Arandas, the site of focus for Fitzgerald, domestic HTAs were crucial to local economic development. In fact, domestic HTAs in the mid-20^th century appear to have had a far greater developmental impact than more contemporary trans-border ones. Nevertheless, today's trans-border HTAs are important both economically and politically to emigrant-sending communities.

While the state and the church have a more favorable stance toward emigration and migrants' continued homeland ties, migrants' transnationalism, at least from the perspective of some of their compatriots, is often unwelcome. While U.S. pundits may decry Mexican immigrants' refusal to assimilate into the mainstream of American life, the fact is, these very migrants are often perceived by their communities...