The Institute of Mexicans Abroad: The Day After… After 156 Years (original) (raw)
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In this paper we argue that transnational relations between the Mexican government and Mexican immigrants in the US are not new. However, the characteristics of these connections have varied across time, depending on the evolution and characteristics of migrant organisations, political and economic circumstances in Mexico, and foreign policy considerations involving USA-Mexico relations. The historical links between the government and the Mexican population abroad have influenced the development of current organisations of Mexican immigrants in the US as well as the recent creation and development of the Mexican government’s institutions to manage this relationship. For more recent years, we identify a change in Mexico’s traditional approach to migration issues in the bilateral agenda, as well as a shift in the relationship between the Mexican immigrant communities and the government. The process of institutionalisation of this new relation began with the Program for Mexican Communities Abroad in 1990, and was strongly consolidated in 2003 with the creation of the Institute of Mexicans Abroad (IME). We argue that IME is the first transnational institution dealing with these issues and we explore some of the challenges it faces in order to achieve its objectives and exert a positive influence for Mexican migrants in the US. The paper is in three parts. In the first, we discuss the value of using a historical perspective for the study of transnational politics. The second part offers a historical account of the development of transnational relations between the Mexican government and the organised Mexican immigrant community from 1848 to 2005. In the third and final part we analyse the challenges faced by IME as a transnational institution. Keywords: Political Transnationalism; Immigration; Migration Policies; Mexico; United States; Institute of Mexicans Abroad
Transnational Ethnic Processes: Indigenous Mexican Migrations to the United States
Latin American Perspectives, 2014
The experience of migration to the United States of indigenous peoples is producing a change in ethno-racial systems of classification that is not simply reactive but reflects the history of each indigenous people and is expressed both at the institutional level and in the formation of a transnational ethnic subject. The experiences of the Purépechas of Michoacán, the Nahuas of Guerrero, and the Mixtecs of Oaxaca involve different migration histories and processes of ethnicization but share a history of Spanish colonization, subordination in the Mexican social structure, and discrimination as immigrants in the United States. Comparison of these experiences reveals the importance of the instrumental dimension, of the institutional context in the place of destination, and of ethnic agents as creators of emblems of ethnicity under conditions of geographical dispersion. State action continues to organize much of the political and cultural content of subnational identities, and the state remains the interlocutor in processes of ethnic agency every step of the way.