Fluent Essays

1） What does Susan Bibler Courtin, in her article Originary Destinations: Re/membered Communities And Salvadoran Diasporas, say about the reluctance of some emigres to travel to El Salvador?2）In The Mexican-American Diasporas Impact on Mexico, Yossi Shain explores the relationship between Mexico and its U.S. Diaspora. What does Shain say about the notion of Americanness and how does it play a role in this homeland-diaspora relationship? the_mexican_american_diasporas_impact_on_mexico.pdf originary_destinations.pdf Unformatted Attachment Preview The Mexican-American Diasporas Impact on Mexico Author(s): Yossi Shain Source: Political Science Quarterly, Vol. 114, No. 4 (Winter, 1999-2000), pp. 661-691 Published by: The Academy of Political Science Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2657788 Accessed: 16-01-2018 00:24 UTC REFERENCES Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2657788?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms The Academy of Political Science is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Political Science Quarterly This content downloaded from 128.111.128.91 on Tue, 16 Jan 2018 00:24:49 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms The Mexican-American Diasporas Impact on Mexico YOSSI SHAIN This article examines the changing relations between home coun- tries and their diasporic populations in the United States, using the interaction between Mexican Americans and Mexico as a case study. I focus on two major interrelated questions: First, how are homeland attitudes toward kin diasporas and homeland intervention in diasporic affairs being transformed over time and why? Second, how do these homeland/diaspora-related changes affect con- ceptions of national and cultural identities within the home country itself? These questions are particularly interesting in the context of the United States, where newly mobilized ethnic groups have gained importance in U.S. civic cul- ture and politics, and where new types of complex and elaborate interaction between ethnic Americans and their ancestral homelands have developed as a result of the growth of transnationalism. While many scholars have focused on the repercussions of diasporic influences on American foreign policy and issues of national identity and loyalty within the United States,2 there has been little recognition of the fact that the political, social, and cultural effects of diasporas are not confined to the host I See Yossi Shain, Ethnic Diasporas and U.S. Foreign Policy, Political Science Quarterly 109 (Winter 1994-95): 811-41. A different version of this essay appeared in Shain, Marketing the American Creed Abroad: Diasporas in the U.S. and Their Homelands (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999). Greatly increased interest in this subject has been expressed through the publication of several new works, including Luis Eduardo Guarnizo and Michael Peter Smith, eds., Transnationalism from Below (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1998); and Nancy Foner, Whats New About Transnationalism? New York Immigrants Today and at the Turn of the Century, Diaspora 6 (Winter 1997): 355-75. 2 See Alexander DeConde, Ethnicity, Race and American Foreign Policy (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1992). YOSSI SHAIN, who teaches at Tel Aviv University, is currently the Aaron and Cecile Goldman Visiting Professor of Government at Georgetown University. His most recent book is Marketing the American Creed Abroad: Diasporas in the U.S. and Their Homelands (1999). Political Science Quarterly Volume 1 14 Number 4 1999-2000 661 This content downloaded from 128.111.128.91 on Tue, 16 Jan 2018 00:24:49 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 662 | POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY country. I have discussed elsewhere the critical roles played by several U.S.based diasporas in helping to attain homeland political goals such as national self-determination and the removal of dictatorial regimes.3 This article explores the equally important impact diasporas have had on home country culture and society, in particular the construction and reconstruction of homeland national identity. The relatively recent rapprochement between Mexico and its U.S.based diaspora after years of estrangement makes Mexico an interesting case study in this regard. Mexicos new posture toward its diaspora and consequently its attempt to reimagine itself as a global nation4 is strongly connected to three things: the evolution of diasporic conditions in the United States, including the Mexican American communitys political and economic empowerment, and its dual self-perception as both an integral part of American society and a distinct ethnic diaspora; the growing economic, political, and social impact of the Mexican American diaspora on homeland affairs; and changes in U.S.-Mexico relations in the era of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The first part of this article examines the ramifications of the interplay between the homelands changing perceptions of its diaspora and of itself, while part two elaborates on the theory in view of the Mexican experience. THE HOMELANDS CONCEPTION OF EMIGRATION AND DIASPORA States and regimes adopt different postures toward their diasporic communities, which vary significantly according to: the national ethos of the country of origin; official and societal perception of emigration in general; reliance on the economic investments of diaspora members and emigrant remittances; the makeup of the diaspora (emigrants, refugees, or exiles) and its general attitude toward the home regime; the political role assigned by the home regime (or its opposition) to the voice of the diaspora in domestic or international affairs of the home country; citizenship laws (ius sanguinis vs ius soli) and especially the possibility of holding dual citizenship. All these factors may be in flux, changing according to the transformation of the home countrys regime, interests, and national self-perception; the material and political position of the diaspora abroad; the ways the home regime feels it can exploit and mobilize the diasporas status and organizations; and the availability of symbolic and material means that enable home states to intervene in the life of their overseas population and enforce their will abroad. Home governments, as prime manipulators of national symbols, use nationalist rhetoric to shape and control the attitudes and behavior of relevant constituencies vis-a-vis their rule. They tend to pose a psychological as well as an acSee, for example, Shain, Ethnic Diasporas. See Robert Smith, De-Territorialized Nation Building: Transnational Migrants and the Re-Imagination of Political Community by Sending States (paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, DC, 2-5 September 1993). This content downloaded from 128.111.128.91 on Tue, 16 Jan 2018 00:24:49 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms MEXICAN-AMERICAN DIASPORA S IMPACT ON MEXICO | 663 tual cost on those who reject their authority and to reward those who respect their claims as legitimate. Governments also use their powers to promote and sustain the attachment of the people to the motherland and often use the na- tional border to differentiate between us, the insiders, and them, the outsiders. The manipulation of loyalty boundaries often extends beyond state borders to include diaspora members who may be discredited as outsiders, or may alternatively be considered as insiders in accordance with the home govern- ments changing view of them.5 While some states have defined national membership based on the formality of holding citizenship, other states have defined their nationality to include kindred populations outside their territorial confines-even if they never resided, intended to reside, or held citizenship status in the home country. Such states, by their own ideological definition, may be considered diasporic entities. Germany is a classic case of this, though it is beginning to change. A law passed in 1999 allows foreign-born residents to apply for German citizenship after eight years (a shorter wait than the previous fifteen) and enables Germanborn children of foreign-born parents to gain citizenship if they have at least one parent who has lived in Germany for eight years. They may also maintain dual citizenship until the age of 23, when they must choose between German and their parents original citizenship.6 Diasporic states tend to perceive national life outside the homeland as abnormal, transitory, or even theoretically impossible. Israel approximates the prototype of such a case. It calls itself a Jewish state. By including every Jew, irrespective of his or her place of residence or citizenship, as a part of its national community, the state of Israel was unable to define nationality solely in territorial terms or to create a new nationality detached from Jewish diasporic life. By the Law of Return (1950), which sets down the legal foundations for Jewish immigration into Israel, every Jew is automatically entitled to Israeli cit- izenship. Moreover, since Zionism is based on the idea of Shlilat hagolah (the negation of diaspora) the state of Israel has long perceived emigration from the Jewish state as a national calamity that threatens the national sovereignty of the Jewish people. The Israeli treatment of emigration has been saturated with profound emotional and ideological weight, which is given symbolic expression by the accepted use of the term yeridah (descent), rather than the universal and neutral word emigration.7 In 1976, the late Israeli Prime Minister Itzhak Rabin used the expression the fallout of the weaklings to describe Israeli contempt for emigrants. By the following decade, however, as individualism and materialism dissipated the strong sense of social solidarity that had characterI See Yossi Shain, The Frontier of Loyalty: Political Exiles in the Age of the Nation-State (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1989). 6Roger Cohen, Germany Ends Old View of Nationality, International Herald-Tribune, 22-23 May 1999. 7 Ephraim Yaar, Emigration as a Normal Phenomenon, New Outlook, January 1988, 14. This content downloaded from 128.111.128.91 on Tue, 16 Jan 2018 00:24:49 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 664 | POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY ized Israeli society in its earlier years, public and official perceptions of emigration and diasporic life in general began to change. As Israel evolved into a more pluralistic society, and with the decline of the hegemonic ideology of the states early years, more Israelis began considering emigration as an action of nor- mal free choice and less and less as an act of treason.8 Ephraim Yaar, an Israeli sociologist, has written that, in view of the phenomenal economic success of Israelis in the United States, Israel must seek to preserve and strengthen the network of connection between the emigres and Israeli society, both because the emigres of today might be the immigrants of tomorrow and because they might be able to help the State of Israel, just as the American Jewish community traditionally has helped.... More advantage will be gained by encour- aging their link to Israel than by making life difficult for them and calling them names.9 A recent proposal to extend voting rights to Israeli emigrants would, if im- plemented, reinforce this trend of widening the transnational scope of electoral campaigns, with the votes of citizens living overseas potentially rivaling diasporic financial contributions as a factor in Israeli elections. Changing perceptions of emigration may result in different postures toward mobilizing or ignoring a diaspora, a policy that in turn impacts on the home-country perception of itself and its internal politics. Israel is a good example of the flexibility of membership and loyalty in countries with a history of entrenched ideological opposition to emigration. Many other countries with kin diasporas in the United States have also reversed their positions vis-a-vis their expatriates, because of the changing circumstances of the transnational world, economic and political expedience, or dramatic shifts in domestic society. Such changes in the concept of membership tend to manifest themselves in legal changes to citizenship status and political rights such as voting. CITIZENSHIP AND CONSULAR INVOLVEMENT ABROAD A growing number of states regard the acquisition of American citizenship in purely practical terms. They recognize that immigrants are simply trying to improve their economic and professional prospects, and they therefore accept such behavior with few qualms over issues of loyalty. This is a significant departure from a more traditional viewpoint still found in many countries where the acquisition of nationality through naturalization is considered to be an indication of shifting allegiances imposing on the individual the obligation to refrain not only from acts directed specifically against his country of adoption, but also from such acts as prove his firm attachment and loyalty toward his country of origin.10 8 Yael Har Even, Hayeridah Kebaaya Hevratit (Hebrew) (MA Thesis, Tel-Aviv University, Department of Sociology, 1989). 9 Yaar, Emigration as a Normal Phenomenon, 17. 10 N. Bar Yaacov, Dual Nationality (London: Stevens & Sons, 1961), 145. This content downloaded from 128.111.128.91 on Tue, 16 Jan 2018 00:24:49 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms MEXICAN-AMERICAN DIASPORA S IMPACT ON MEXICO | 665 Some countries that consider their diaspora populations in the United States to be integral parts of their own nations may treat diaspora members as regular citizens, regardless of their residential or citizenship status abroad. From the home countrys point of view-even if only rhetorically-such members of their diaspora are only waiting to return home. Ideological, political, and economic factors may be intertwined in the decision of how to approach the diaspora. Such decisions may vary dramatically over time according to conditions inside the homeland and the international standing of the home govern- ment, primarily vis-a-vis the United States. The fact that home regimes tend to manipulate citizenship as a carrot-and- stick mechanism means that naturalization and denaturalization are not always final acts: all patriots are potential traitors and vice versa.11 Changes in regime are particularly critical to the approach of homelands toward their kindred communities abroad. A diasporic community consisting of refugees and exiles may at one point be considered enemies of a dictatorial home regime and as a result suffer from blackmail, surveillance, threats and other intimidations abroad.2 This has happened to Iranians, Chileans, Filipinos, and Koreans in the United States. Over time, however, the same diaspora may come to be considered by a new regime as the key population for domestic transformation. On several occasions, emigrants and political emigres residing in the United States who were attacked by home country agents later became important players in the campaign to dislodge dictatorial home regimes and establish democracies.13 The Cuban diaspora, which for the most part has undergone a transition from exiles to immigrants, is now perceived as a major source of financial impe- tus toward democratization in the homeland. In January 1999, President Bill Clinton, with the backing of many Cuban-Americans and even hardline Republican Senator Jesse Helms, modified anti-Cuba legislation in an effort to strengthen and use Cuban civil society to undermine the Castro government. The initiatives increased the number of Americans permitted to send money to Cubans, expanded cultural and sport exchanges, and allowed the sale of food and agricultural products to nongovernmental organizations in Cuba. The Cu- ban government, very much aware of Washingtons intentions, referred to the measures as a subversive and counterrevolutionary ploy, a tool for bribery to buy peoples consciences. Nevertheless, Fidel Castros regime permitted some of these measures over which Cuba had some control to take effect, anx- ious for the infusion of cash they would bring into the islands economy.14 Morton Grodzin, The Loyal and the Disloyal: Social Boundaries of Patriotism and Treason (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1956), 213. 12 See Jack I. Garvey, Repression of Political Empire-The Underground to International Law: A Proposal for Remedy, Yale Law Journal 90 (1980): 79. 13 Shain, Frontier of Loyalty, 145-62. 14 Lucia Newman, The Posturing and Potential of Latest U.S. Changes on Cuba, 15 January 199 http://cnn.com/SPECIALS/views/y/1999/01/newman.cuba.janl5. CNN website (cnn.com). This content downloaded from 128.111.128.91 on Tue, 16 Jan 2018 00:24:49 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 666 | POLITICAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY While some countries consider emigration a national tragedy, others may promote it to ease domestic economic pressures or as a means of building eco- nomic outposts abroad in the hope of enjoying the flow of remittances back home. For example, the South Korean government has sponsored programs for professional emigrants seeking to build businesses abroad, with the expecta- tion of direct financial benefits to Korea.5 Once South Korean communities emerged in the United States, the South Korean government treated them as a supervised colony and used its consulates in New York and Los Angeles to monitor and control their activities in order to further Koreas economic and political goals. The immigrants responded positively, partly out of nationalism and partly out of economic interests, with the result that their principal organi- zations became subordinate to home government agencies.16 One scholar of Korean Americans has written that it is no exaggeration to say that the Korean Consulate General is the informal government of New Yorks Korean community and that the consul general is its mayor.17 The formal and informal control of the diasporic community by the South Korean state contributed to the diasporas failure to build overseas institutions and create authentic leadership in the United States. This failure prevented an effective South Korean community response to the 1992 Los Angeles riots and necessitated the financial and political intervention of the South Korean government to deal with the aftermath. Although local Koreans appreciated this assistance, they recognized the limits of this kind of help, as well as its potential negative effects on their efforts to integrate into American society. While demonstrating the strength of Korean power over its diaspora, the riots also led to diasporic reevaluation of ties with the home country. No doubt, a bear hug may provide emotional and practical protection to a diaspora, yet subordination to a distant government may also generate hostility, antagonism, and charges of foreign loyalties.18 THE ECONOMIC DIMENSION The size of a diasporic community and the affluence of its members may transform U.S.-based diasporas into a major force in the economics and politics of their countries of origin. The Greek-American diaspora, for example, has had a great impact on the evolution of the Greek state.19 More recently, newly de15 Myron Weiner, The Global Migration Crisis: Challenges to State and to Human Rights (New York: Harper Collins, 1995), 37. 16 Alejandro Portes and Ruben G. Rumbaut, Immigrant America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 110. 17 Cited in ibid., 111. 18 See Nancy Abelmann and John Lie, Blue Dreams: Korean Americans and the Los Angeles Riots (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995), 10-35, 184-91. ... Purchase answer to see full attachment