Mexican American & Salvadoran Diasporas Susan Bibler Articles Discussion 1） What does Susan Bibler Courtin, in her article “Originary Destinations: Re/memb

Mexican American & Salvadoran Diasporas Susan Bibler Articles Discussion 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 Diaspora’s 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 Diaspora’s 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
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The Mexican-American Diaspora’s
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, “What’s 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
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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. Mexico’s new posture toward its diaspora and consequently its attempt to reimagine itself as a “global nation”4 is strongly connected to three things: the evolution of diasporic conditions in the United
States, including the Mexican American community’s 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 homeland’s changing perceptions of its diaspora
and of itself, while part two elaborates on the theory in view of the Mexican experience.
THE HOMELAND’S 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 country’s 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 diaspora’s 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 ac’See, 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).
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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-
ment’s 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 ha’golah (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 Ya’ar, “Emigration as a Normal Phenomenon,” New Outlook, January 1988, 14.
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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 state’s
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 Ya’ar, 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 Keba’aya Hevratit (Hebrew) (MA Thesis, Tel-Aviv University, Department of Sociology, 1989).
9 Ya’ar, “Emigration as a Normal Phenomenon,” 17.
10 N. Bar Yaacov, Dual Nationality (London: Stevens & Sons, 1961), 145.
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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 country’s 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 Washington’s intentions, referred to the
measures as “a subversive and counterrevolutionary ploy, a tool for bribery to
buy people’s consciences.”‘ Nevertheless, Fidel Castro’s 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 island’s 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).
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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 Korea’s 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 York’s 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 diaspora’s 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….
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