Product Details

Indigenous Mexican Migrants in the United States, edited by Jonathan Fox and Gaspar Rivera-Salgado. Copyright 2004, 525 pages, paperback. ISBN 1-878367-50-1. Price - $28.95 USD

The multiple pasts and futures of the Mexican nation can be seen in the faces of the tens of thousands of indigenous people who each year set out on their voyages to the north, as well as the many others who decide to settle in countless communities within the United States. To study indigenous Mexican migrants in the United States today requires a binational lens, taking into account basic changes in the way Mexican society is understood as the twenty-first century begins.

This collection explores these migration processes and their social, cultural, and civic impacts in the United States and in Mexico. The studies come from diverse perspectives, but they share a concern with how sustained migration and the emergence of organizations of indigenous migrants influence social and community identity, both in the United States and in Mexico. These studies also focus on how the creation and re-creation of collective ethnic identities among indigenous migrants influences their economic, social, and political relationships in the United States.

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Reviewers' Comments

"We all know that we are in the midst of a great new migration to the United States and that the majority of these newcomers are from Mexico. We assume they speak Spanish, eat enchiladas, love soccer, and listen to mariachi music. The truth is we know little about the 'Mexican' community that is settling in every region of the country, from the coastal urbs to the tiniest heartland towns. Here, finally, is a work that gives nuance to the Mexican migrant community in the United States.

"To say that this tome is cutting-edge would diminish its importance: it is beyond all the edges of our literature, in that it deals with communities excluded on all sides. 'Dirty Indians' in Mexico, 'dirty Mexicans' in the United States, the indigenous communities represented here have carved out social, cultural, economic, and political space by and large on their own. It is a space that will become increasingly visible in the coming years, one that will rewrite our notions of 'Mexican-ness,' of 'Indian-ness,' of 'migrant-ness.'

"The migrant Mexican indigenous story is a narrative of organic solidarity, a veritable primer for organizing in the shadow of global capital. And by going the extra step of allowing the indigenous to represent themselves--the first chapters are authored by the "subjects"--this collection is also a model for a democratized academe that must work at the service of the subject rather than itself."

Rubén Martínez, associate professor of creative writing, University of Houston, and author of Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail

"This collection sheds fresh empirical and conceptual light on a growing but heretofore little studied, phenomenon. The essays offer richly detailed analyses of indigenous (trans)migration processes and their social, cultural, gendered, and civic impacts, paying particular attention to the formation and transformation of ethnic identities among migrants and to how those identities shape their economic, social, and political relationships in the United States and in their country and communities of origin. Deploying a binational, multidisciplinary lens, the collection provides unique insight into the dense organizational webs that configure an expanding, transborder migrant civil society. It will interest students, researchers, and practitioners alike."

Sonia Alvarez, professor of politics, University of California, Santa Cruz, and vice president and president-elect of the Latin American Studies Association

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CONTENTS

1 Building Civil Society among Indigenous Migrants
Jonathan Fox and Gaspar Rivera-Salgado

2 The FIOB Experience: Internal Crisis and Future Challenges
Rufino Domínguez Santos

3 Cross-Border Indigenous Organizations: Lessons from the Past, Challenges for the Future
Gustavo Santiago Márquez, Filemón López, Yolanda Cruz, Ulises García, Guillermo Delgado-P., and Alejandrina Ricárdez

4 Organizational Experiences and Female Participation among Indigenous Oaxaqueños in Baja California
Laura Velasco Ortiz

5 Building the Future: The FIOB and Civic Participation of Mexican Immigrants in Fresno, California
Jesús Martínez-Saldaña

6 Collective Identity and Organizational Strategies of Indigenous and Mestizo Mexican Migrants
Gaspar Rivera-Salgado and Luis Escala Rabadán

7 Mixtec Farmworkers in Oregon: Linking Labor and Ethnicity through Farmworker Unions and Hometown Associations
Lynn Stephen

8 Alive and Well: Generating Alternatives to Biomedical Health Care by Mixtec Migrant Families in California
Bonnie Bade

9 Mixtecs and Zapotecs Working in California: Rural and Urban Experiences
Felipe H. López and David Runsten

10 Indigenous Mexican Migrants in the 2000 U.S. Census: "Hispanic American Indians"
Javier Huizar Murillo and Isidro Cerda

11 Practical Research Strategies for Mexican Indigenous Communities in California Seeking to Assert Their Own Identity
Edward Kissam and Ilene J. Jacobs

12 Yucatecos and Chiapanecos in San Francisco: Mayan Immigrants Form New Communities
Garance Burke

13 P'urépecha Migration into the U.S. Rural Midwest: History and Current Trends
Warren D. Anderson

14 The Blossoming of Transnational Citizenship: A California Town Defends Indigenous Immigrants
Paul Johnston

15 Heritage Re-Created: Hidalguenses in the United States and Mexico
Ella Schmidt and María Crummett

16 Expressions of Identity and Belonging: Mexican Immigrants in New York
Liliana Rivera-Sánchez

17 Oaxacan Municipal Governance in Transnational Context
Michael Kearney and Federico Besserer

18 Migration and Return in the Sierra Juárez
Sergio Robles Camacho

19 Migrant Communities, Gender, and Political Power in Oaxaca
María Cristina Velásquez C.

20 "Now We Are Awake": Women's Political Participation in the Oaxacan Indigenous Binational Front
Centolia Maldonado and Patricia Artía Rodríguez