America in the hand, homeland in the heart: Transnational and translocal immigrant experiences in the American West

Western Historical Quarterly

Volumn 35, Issue 3, 2004, Pages 331-354

  Barkan, Elliott R ^a  

^a CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 34250000950     PISSN: 00433810     EISSN: 19398603     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/25443011     Document Type: Article

References (71)

1. This is discussed at length in Elliott R. Barkan, "Turning Turner on His Head? The Significance of Immigration in Twentieth Century American Western History," New Mexico Historical Review 77 (Winter 2002): 57-88.
2. Many scholars come under consideration here, such as Roger Waldinger, Pyong Gap Min, Ivan Light, Steve Gold, Alejandro Portes, Min Zhou, Joann Lessinger, Sarah Mahler, Nancy Foner, Ewa Morawska, George Borjas, Barry Chiswick, Peggy Levitt, Nina Glick Schiller, Patricia Pessar, Alex Stepick, Philip Kasinitz and Milton Vickerman.
3. Works illustrating each point will be discussed and cited later.
4. For an excellent discussion regarding the use of oral histories, see Sucheng Chan, "Methodology," in Not Just Victims: Conversations with Cambodian Community Leaders in the United States, ed. Sucheng Chan (Urbana, IL, 2003), xiii-xxiv.
5. See, too, Peggy Levitt's three accounts in "Keeping Feet in Both Worlds: Transnational Practices and Immigrant Incorporation in the United States," in Toward Assimilation and Citizenship: Immigrants in Liberal Nation States, ed. Christian Joppke and Ewa Morawska (New York, 2003).
6. Alejandro Portes, "Introduction: The Debates and Significance of Immigrant Transnationalism," Global Networks 1 (July 2001): 182-3.
7. Peggy Levitt, "Transnational Migration: Taking Stock and Future Directions," Global Networks 1 (July 2001): 196.
8. Roger Waldinger, "Immigrant 'Transnationalism' and the Presence of the Past" (keynote address, Immigration and Ethnic History Society (IEHS) conference on "Transcending Borders: Migration, Ethnicity, and Incorporation in an Age of Globalism," New York University, 31 October 2003. )
9. Leila Rupp, "Constructing Internationalism: The Case of Transnational Women's Organizations, 1885-1945," American Historical Review 99 (December 1994): 1571-1600, in particular pp. 1573, 1590, 1593.
10. Journal of American History 86 (December 1999). Special isssue, "The Nation and Beyond: Transnational Perspectives on United States History. "
11. and Waldinger, "Immigrant 'Transnationalism,'" 4.
12. Journal of American History, special issue, "The Nation and Beyond," 1124-5, 1129.
13. Eiichiro Azuma, "The Politics of Transnational History Making: Japanese Immigrants on the Western 'Frontier,' 1927-1941," Journal of American History 89 (March 2003): 1401-30.
14. Madeline Hsu, Dreaming of Gold, Dreaming of Home: Transnationalism and Migration Between the United States and South China, 1882-1943 (Stanford, CA, 2000), 7-15.
15. David A. Gerber, "Theories and Lives: Transnationalism and the Conceptualization of International Migrations to the United States," IMIS-Beiträge [Institut für Migrationforschung und Interkulturelle Studien, Osnabrück, Germany] 15 (2000): 31, 34-5, 36-7, 42.
16. Nina Glick Schiller, "Transmigrants and Nation-States: Something Old Something New in the U. S. Immigrant Experience," in The Handbook of International Migration: The American Experience, ed. Charles Hirschman, Philip Kasinitz, and Josh De Wind (New York, 1999);
17. Towards a Transnational Perspective on Migration: Race, Class, Ethnicity, and Nationalism Reconsidered, ed. Nina Glick Schiller, Linda Basch, and Cristina Blanc-Szanton (New York, 1992), ix;
18. Nina Glick Schiller, commentary, session on "Transnationalism and Diaspora: Incorporation vs. Homeland Ties," IEHS conference, 1 November 2003.
19. This summary is based on the essays in Ethnic and Racial Studies 22 (March 1999) by Alejandro Portes, Luis E. Guarnizo and Patricia Landolt; by Steven Vertovec; and the concluding essay by Portes. There are seven other articles on various West Indian, Central American, and South American communities.
20. See Steve Gold, "Transnational Communities: Examining Migration in a Globally Integrated World," in Rethinking Globalization(s): From Corporate Transnationalism to Local Interventions, ed. Preet S. Aulakh and Michael G. Schechter (New York, 2000), 73-90.
21. Related essays by Ewa Morawska and Peggy Levitt, appearing in late 2003, can be found in Toward Assimilation and Citizenship, 133-94.
22. Portes, "The Debates and Significance," 183-7, quotes on 184, 186, 187
23. and Levitt, "Transnational Migration," 197-9.
24. Ewa Morawska, "Immigrants, Transnationalism, and Ethnicization: A Comparison of this Great Wave and the Last," in E Pluribus Unum?: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives on Immigrant Political Incorporation, ed. Gary Gerstle and John Mollenkopf (New York, 2001), 190;
25. Nancy Foner, From Ellis Island to JFK: New York's Two Great Waves of Immigration (New York, 2001), 169-87;
26. Morawska, "Immigrant Trasnsnationalism and Assimilation: A Variety of Combinations and the Analytic Strategy it Suggests," in Toward Assimilation and Citizenship, 161, 165.
27. See also Luis Eduardo Guarnizo, "The Rise of Transnational Social Formations: Mexican and Dominican State Responses to Transnational Migration," Political Power and Social Theory 12 (1998): 45-94;
28. Gaspar Rivera-Salgado, "Transnational Political Strategies: The Case of Mexican Indigenous Migrants," in Immigration Research for a New Century: Multidisciplinary Perspectives, ed. Nancy Foner, Rubén Rumbaut, Steven J. Gold (New York, 2000);
29. Richard Alba and Victor Nee's interesting (and critical) perspective on transnationalism in Remaking the American Mainstream: Assimilation and Contemporary Immigration (Cambridge, MA, 2003), 145-53, esp. 150-1.
30. The three phrases cited appear in various works; the longer statement on shared meanings is in Valerie J. Matsumoto, Farming the Home Place: A Japanese American Community in California, 1919-1982 (Ithaca, NY, 1993), 4.
31. According to the 2000 Census, 14. 66 million foreign-born persons resided in the 14 western states, which equaled 47. 13 percent of all the foreign born in the country. Of them, Europeans, those from the Middle East (now labeled Western Asia), North Africa, Canada, and my estimate of those from Oceana, and South America who were also of European origin equals about 16 percent of the western total. That figure could be higher since no racial estimates were made of those from Central America and Mexico. U. S. Census, "Place of Birth of the Foreign Born Population," American Fact Finder, Table PCT 19 (2000 Summary File 3), http://factfinder. census. gov (accessed 21 April 2003).
32. Stanley A. Renshon, "Dual Citizenship and American National Identity," (Washington, DC: Center for Immigration Studies, October 2001), Appendix;
33. "U. S. Mexicans Gain Dual Citizenship," New York Times, 20 March 2003, sec. A, p. 31;
34. Michael Krikorian, "Local Armenians Flock to Polls for [Republic of Armenia] Presidential Runoff," Los Angeles Times, 6 March 2003, sec. B, p. 4.
35. "Nordic Heritage Museum Vanishing Generation Interview with Sissel Peterson," 24 May 2000, http://www. historylink. org/OHD_output. CFM?file_ID=36 (accessed 11 May 2003).
36. "Filipino Pioneers of Western Washington: Migrant Worker," interview with Rudy C. Romero, 20 March 1975, Oral History Collection, FILIPINO-KING Project, FIL-KNG 75 - 4tc, Washington State Archives, Olympia.
37. Manuel Gamio, The Mexican Immigrant: His Life Story (1931; reprint, New York, 1969), 13, 25.
38. The gift of the Leif Erickson statue is discussed in Kristine Leander, "Introduction," in Family Sagas: Stories of Scandinavian Immigrants, ed. Kristine Leander (Seattle, 1997), vii-xi.
39. Many family histories of those on the statue are in Leander's volume. See also, Janet E. Rasmussen, New Land, New Lives: Scandinavian Immigrants to the Pacific Northwest (Seattle, 1993), 19.
40. Robert James Theodoratus, "A Greek Community in America: Tacoma, Washington" (master's thesis, Sacramento State College, 1971), 4-5, 17, 22, 26, 107-9, 112, 190, 208, and the foreword by Dorothea Theodoratus, xiv-xv. This thesis was put out by the Sacramento Anthropological Society, No 10. Many men held on to village property for decades, believing that they would eventually retire there (pp. 131-3).
41. The Asian figure does not include persons from the Middle East.
42. See note 20, and Steven A. Camarota, "Immigrants from the Middle East: A Profile of the Foreign-born Population from Pakistan to Morocco" (Washington, DC: Center for Immigration Studies, August 2002), http://www. cis. org/articles/back902. html (accessed 8 February 2004).
43. Donald Worster, "Beyond the Agrarian Myth," in TRAILS: Toward a New Western History, ed. Patricia Limerick, Clyde A. Milner II, and Charles E. Rankin (Lawrence, KS, 1991), 18.
44. See also Barkan, "Turning Turner on His Head?"
45. Warren Vieth, "Exiles Make Plans to Rebuild Nation," Los Angeles Times, 20 February 2003, sec. A, p. 6
46. and Teresa Watanabe, "For Iraqi Americans, Joy and Fear," Los Angeles Times, 20 March 2003, sec. B, p. 1.
47. International crises frequently trigger concerns about homelands among immigrants. See, for example, Somini Sengupta, "Indian-Americans Mobilize to Send Aid Home" New York Times, 29 January 2001, sec. A, p. 12;
48. Sam Chu Lin, "Korean Americans Concerned About Homeland and Their Own Security in United States," Asianweek, 27 February 2003, 9;
49. Joanna Corman, "Local Iraqis Provide Help to Homeland," Los Angeles Times Inland Valley Voice, 29 April 2003.
50. For example, T. Christian Miller, "Emigrants Send a Lifeline to Salvadoran Hometown," Los Angeles Times, 9 August 2002;
51. Susan Sachs, "Immigrants Face Controls On Cash They Send Home," New York Times, 12 November 2002;
52. and Mai Tran and Mike Anton, "Warring Emotions About Vietnam," Los Angeles Times, 30 April 2003.
53. A news story on Latin American remittances, based on "reports from the Multilateral Investment Fund at the InterAmerican Development Bank," indicated that "the amount of money sent [in 2002] to Latin America from the United States increased about 18 percent, to more than $32 billion. " Daisy Hernandez, "Sending More Home Despite a Recession," International Herald Tribune, 14 July 2003, 3.
54. See Mark Wyman, Round-Trip to America: The Immigrants Return to Europe, 1880-1930 (Ithaca, NY, 1993), 7-12;
55. Elliott R. Barkan, And Still They Come: Immigrants and American Society, 1920 to the 1990s (Wheeling, IL, 1996), 121-3;
56. Bashir Ahmed and J. Gregory Robinson, "Estimates of the Emigration of the Foreign-born Population: 1980-1990," U. S. Census Bureau, Population Division Working Paper No. 9 (Washington, DC, December 1994);
57. Richard White, "It's Your Misfortune and None of My Own": A History of the American West (Norman, OK, 1991), 449-50.
58. The quoted phrase and Odmark's statement are both from Rasmussen, New Land, New Lives, 275.
59. The two Monterey Italian quotes are from Carol Lynn McKibben, "Sicilian Women and the Sardines: A Story of Identity and Migration" (unpublished manuscript, n. d. ), ch. 3, p. 3, and ch. 1, p. 20.
60. Allende's comments are from Mirta Ojito, "Both Chile and U. S. House Allende's Spirits," International Herald Tribune (Paris), 31 July 2003, 12.
61. "An Italian Immigrant Coal-Miner's Wife," interview with Camilla Saivetto, 20 April 1976, KITTITAS Project, KIT 76 - 69sa, Washington State Archives, Olympia.
62. Oral History, Clem Risberg, Oregon Historical Society, Acquisition no. 811 [no date].
63. "Filipino Pioneer: Reflections on His Life in the United States," interview with Mariano Angeles, 6 November 1975, Oral History Collection, FILIPINO-KING Project, FIL-KNG 75 - 32cm, Washington State Archives, Olympia.
64. "Nordic Heritage Museum Vanishing Generation Interview with Gudmundur Jacobsen," 2 May 2000, http://www. historylink. org/OHD_output. CFM?file_ID=26. Regarding other delayed returns
65. see Rasmussen, New Land, New Lives, 189, 195, 202-4.
66. Based on the biographical entry for Frode Frodesen and Inge Humlebekk, in Kristine Leander, Family Sagas, 39-40.
67. Johan Nordahl and Bruun Rolfsen, Norske Digtere: en Anthologi med Biografier og Portætter af norske Digtere fra Petter Dass til vore Dage (Bergen, 1886).
68. Four Mile Prairie was in Van Zandt and Kaufman Counties, 36 miles from Brownsboro, southeast of Dallas. The excerpts are drawn from Theodore C. Biegen, Land of Their Choice: The Immigrants Write Home (Minneapolis, 1955), 325-7, 332, 343, 345-6, 349-50.
69. "Starting an Oyster Company in the Thirties and the Japanese Immigration Experience," interview with Robert Yoshinori Nakao, 20 May 1975, Oral Histpry Collection, PACIFIC Project, PAC 75 -7dm, Washington State Archives, Olympia.
70. Interview with Fortuna Calvo, 9 February 1976, and 15 October 1979, Jewish Archives Project, University of Washington, Accession no. 2794.
71. For the Waterfront Fish & Oyster Company, see the photograph in Karyl Winn, "The Seattle Jewish Community," Pacific Northwest Quarterly 70 (April 1979): 70.