Transnational Communities: Their Emergence and Effects Among Latin American Immigrants in the U.S.

这是一个涉及美国和拉丁美洲国家的跨国社区的出现的研究。 跨国社区是由移民创造的，他们在国家之间反复来回流动，利用这种流离失所来实施复杂的经济战略。跨国社区可以被定义为移民人口中主要职业活动需要跨越国界进行远距离接触的行为者的总和。 这些接触大多涉及移民的原籍国，其目的主要是经济方面的。 然而，随着跨国网络的发展，它们也开始包括社会和政治活动，并涉及第三国。 本研究将探讨这种新现象的起源，特点和影响，因为它已经在萨尔瓦多和多米尼加移民，近年来抵达美国的两个最大的群体之间发展。 移民回国、给家人汇款、赞助留在国内的亲属，这些都是人们熟悉的现象，过去曾研究过这些现象，认为它们表明移民与其祖国有着持久的联系。目前的新发展是这种联系的扩散，以至于输出地区和接收地区融入了统一的社会结构，有关人员获得了超越传统移民的地位。 为解决这一现象，该项目将进行一项综合性的原始数据收集工作，涉及美国的移民社区和两个移民输出国的选定城市。 两个阶段的数据收集将得到国家科学基金会的支持。 首先，将在每一移民群体的两个集中地区和每一输出国的两个城市采访知情人，以查明跨国企业的程度和范围。 在第二阶段，将在美国的四个目标社区对跨国企业家和正常移民进行调查。 由此产生的数据文件将包括在8个不同外地地点进行的2 300次访谈。 这项研究将大大增加我们对这一新的移民相关现象的理解，通过映射的社交网络潜在的跨国社区的出现和测试的假设成功的跨国企业家的网络结构。 由于跨国社区跨越国界将人口联系在一起，它们在现代世界的增长是全球变化的一个重要方面，将对世界的社会、文化、经济和自然环境产生重大影响。

This is a study of the emergence of transnational communities involving the United States and Latin American countries. Transnational communities are created by immigrants who engage in a pattern of repeated back-and-forth movements between countries, using such displacements in order to implement complex economic strategies. Transnational communities can be defined as the sum total of actors in an immigrant population whose prime occupational activity requires long-distance contacts across national borders. For the most part, these contacts involve the immigrants' countries of origin and their purpose is primarily economic. However, as transnational networks develop, they come to encompass social and political activities as well, and to involve third countries. This study will examine the origins, characteristics, and effects of this novel phenomenon as it has developed among Salvadoran and Dominican immigrants, two of the largest groups arriving in the United States in recent years. Processes of return migration, the sending of remittances to family members, and the sponsorship of kin left behind are all familiar events that have been studied in the past as manifestations of the enduring ties of immigrants to their home countries. The novel development at present is the proliferation of such ties to the point that sending and receiving areas become integrated into unified social structures and those involved acquire a status that transcends that of conventional immigrant. To address this phenomenon, this project will conduct an integrated primary data collection effort involving immigrant communities in the United States and selected cities in the two sending countries. Two phases of data collection will be supported by the National Science Foundation. In the first, informant interviews will be conducted in two areas of concentration of each immigrant group and in two cities of each sending country in order to identify the extent and range of transnational enterprises. In the s econd phase, a survey of transnational entrepreneurs and a matched sample of regular immigrants will be conducted in four target communities in the United States. The resultant data file will comprise 2,300 interviews in 8 different field sites. This research will add considerably to our understanding of this new immigration-related phenomenon, by mapping the social networks underlying the emergence of transnational communities and testing hypotheses about the structure of networks of successful transnational entrepreneurs. Because transnational communities link populations across national boundaries, their growth in the modern world represents a significant aspect of global change that will have great consequences for the world's social, cultural, economic and natural environment.