Débora Upegui-Hernández
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199732074
- eISBN:
- 9780199933457
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199732074.003.0013
- Subject:
- Psychology, Social Psychology
This chapter explores how Colombian and Dominican children of immigrants living in New York City negotiate multiple identities, selves, cultures, and histories within transnational social fields. ...
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This chapter explores how Colombian and Dominican children of immigrants living in New York City negotiate multiple identities, selves, cultures, and histories within transnational social fields. Children of immigrants grow up in the midst of multiple cultures and juggle an array of cultural norms, values, and expectations of their parents’ culture and those of mainstream “American” culture, while they maintain transnational ties to the home country of their parents. This chapter is based on a mixed-methods secondary analysis of both qualitative and quantitative data collected on Dominican and Colombian young adult children of immigrants (ages 18 to 32) living in New York City by the Immigrant Second Generation in Metropolitan New York study (ISGMNY) in 1998–2000 (Kasinitz, Mollenkopf, & Waters, 2004). The author argues that children of immigrants navigate multiple identities as a result of their experiences of growing up within transnational social fields shaped by their parents’ home country and the United States. Second, children of immigrants embrace and feel at ease with the complexity and ambiguity inherent in their border-crossing lives. Third, children of immigrants construct and manage their personal and social identities by comparing and contrasting their multiple cultural repertoires without juxtaposing them as oppositional dichotomies. Using a transnational perspective allows us to approach the study of migration and its impact on people’s lives with a lens of continuity and recognizes migration as a family project and as a process of transition and change where migrants maintain connection between their pasts, presents, and futures through subsequent generations.Less
This chapter explores how Colombian and Dominican children of immigrants living in New York City negotiate multiple identities, selves, cultures, and histories within transnational social fields. Children of immigrants grow up in the midst of multiple cultures and juggle an array of cultural norms, values, and expectations of their parents’ culture and those of mainstream “American” culture, while they maintain transnational ties to the home country of their parents. This chapter is based on a mixed-methods secondary analysis of both qualitative and quantitative data collected on Dominican and Colombian young adult children of immigrants (ages 18 to 32) living in New York City by the Immigrant Second Generation in Metropolitan New York study (ISGMNY) in 1998–2000 (Kasinitz, Mollenkopf, & Waters, 2004). The author argues that children of immigrants navigate multiple identities as a result of their experiences of growing up within transnational social fields shaped by their parents’ home country and the United States. Second, children of immigrants embrace and feel at ease with the complexity and ambiguity inherent in their border-crossing lives. Third, children of immigrants construct and manage their personal and social identities by comparing and contrasting their multiple cultural repertoires without juxtaposing them as oppositional dichotomies. Using a transnational perspective allows us to approach the study of migration and its impact on people’s lives with a lens of continuity and recognizes migration as a family project and as a process of transition and change where migrants maintain connection between their pasts, presents, and futures through subsequent generations.
Stephanie Elizondo Griest
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781469631592
- eISBN:
- 9781469631615
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469631592.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
After a decade of chasing stories around the globe, intrepid travel writer Stephanie Elizondo Griest followed the magnetic pull home--only to discover that her native South Texas had been radically ...
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After a decade of chasing stories around the globe, intrepid travel writer Stephanie Elizondo Griest followed the magnetic pull home--only to discover that her native South Texas had been radically transformed in her absence. Ravaged by drug wars and barricaded by an eighteen-foot steel wall, her ancestral land had become the nation’s foremost crossing ground for undocumented workers, many of whom perished along the way. Before Elizondo Griest moved to the New York/Canada borderlands, the frequency of these tragedies seemed like a terrible coincidence. Once she began to meet Mohawks from the Akwesasne Nation, however, she recognized striking parallels to life on the southern border. Having lost their land through devious treaties, their mother tongues at English-only schools, and their traditional occupations through capitalist ventures, Tejanos and Mohawks alike struggle under the legacy of colonialism. Toxic industries surround their neighborhoods while the U.S. Border Patrol militarizes them. Combating these forces are legions of artists and activists devoted to preserving their indigenous cultures. Complex belief systems, meanwhile, conjure miracles. In All the Agents and Saints, Elizondo Griest weaves seven years of stories into a meditation on the existential impact of international borderlines by illuminating the spaces in between.Less
After a decade of chasing stories around the globe, intrepid travel writer Stephanie Elizondo Griest followed the magnetic pull home--only to discover that her native South Texas had been radically transformed in her absence. Ravaged by drug wars and barricaded by an eighteen-foot steel wall, her ancestral land had become the nation’s foremost crossing ground for undocumented workers, many of whom perished along the way. Before Elizondo Griest moved to the New York/Canada borderlands, the frequency of these tragedies seemed like a terrible coincidence. Once she began to meet Mohawks from the Akwesasne Nation, however, she recognized striking parallels to life on the southern border. Having lost their land through devious treaties, their mother tongues at English-only schools, and their traditional occupations through capitalist ventures, Tejanos and Mohawks alike struggle under the legacy of colonialism. Toxic industries surround their neighborhoods while the U.S. Border Patrol militarizes them. Combating these forces are legions of artists and activists devoted to preserving their indigenous cultures. Complex belief systems, meanwhile, conjure miracles. In All the Agents and Saints, Elizondo Griest weaves seven years of stories into a meditation on the existential impact of international borderlines by illuminating the spaces in between.
Stephanie Elizondo Griest
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781469631592
- eISBN:
- 9781469631615
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469631592.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
After a decade of nomadism, the author returns home to her native South Texas and discovers her homeland has turned into a death valley in her absence, poisoned by petrochemical industries, ravaged ...
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After a decade of nomadism, the author returns home to her native South Texas and discovers her homeland has turned into a death valley in her absence, poisoned by petrochemical industries, ravaged by the drug war, and soon to be barricaded by a steel wall. The concept of “nepantla” is introduced as the way Aztecs described their struggle to reconcile their indigenous ways with the one Spanish colonizers forced upon them in the sixteenth century. More recently, Tejana writer Gloria Anzaldua described nepantla as a metaphor for a “birthing stage where you feel like you’re reconfiguring your identity and don’t know where you are.”Less
After a decade of nomadism, the author returns home to her native South Texas and discovers her homeland has turned into a death valley in her absence, poisoned by petrochemical industries, ravaged by the drug war, and soon to be barricaded by a steel wall. The concept of “nepantla” is introduced as the way Aztecs described their struggle to reconcile their indigenous ways with the one Spanish colonizers forced upon them in the sixteenth century. More recently, Tejana writer Gloria Anzaldua described nepantla as a metaphor for a “birthing stage where you feel like you’re reconfiguring your identity and don’t know where you are.”
Stephanie Elizondo Griest
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781469631592
- eISBN:
- 9781469631615
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469631592.003.0012
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
Part Two of the book commences when, after five years of story-gathering in her native South Texas, the author relocates to the region of upstate New York known as “The North Country” for a year-long ...
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Part Two of the book commences when, after five years of story-gathering in her native South Texas, the author relocates to the region of upstate New York known as “The North Country” for a year-long professorship at St. Lawrence University. She soon learns that the Mohawk Nation of Akwesasne is just a 40 minute drive away. She recognizes this nation as the setting for the haunting 2008 film “Frozen River,” about human trafficking across the St. Lawrence River. After an encounter with the U.S. Border Patrol, the author quickly realizes she is back in nepantla, the land of in-between.Less
Part Two of the book commences when, after five years of story-gathering in her native South Texas, the author relocates to the region of upstate New York known as “The North Country” for a year-long professorship at St. Lawrence University. She soon learns that the Mohawk Nation of Akwesasne is just a 40 minute drive away. She recognizes this nation as the setting for the haunting 2008 film “Frozen River,” about human trafficking across the St. Lawrence River. After an encounter with the U.S. Border Patrol, the author quickly realizes she is back in nepantla, the land of in-between.
Stephanie Elizondo Griest
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781469631592
- eISBN:
- 9781469631615
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469631592.003.0022
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
The author concludes her exploration of the U.S. borderlands with a meditation on the concept of borderlines. They don’t just delineate countries. Political parties are highly adept at redrawing the ...
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The author concludes her exploration of the U.S. borderlands with a meditation on the concept of borderlines. They don’t just delineate countries. Political parties are highly adept at redrawing the lines of congressional districts with a legal magic that—at the ballot box—brings about “miracles” on par with La Virgen de Guadalupe (only nowhere near as hopeful). For a borderline is an injustice. It is a time-held method of partitioning the planet for the benefit of the elite. Fortunately, there are legions of activists, artists, and faith keepers out there, petitioning on humanity’s behalf, but they need serious reinforcement. For the greatest lesson in nepantla is that many borderlines needn’t exist at all.Less
The author concludes her exploration of the U.S. borderlands with a meditation on the concept of borderlines. They don’t just delineate countries. Political parties are highly adept at redrawing the lines of congressional districts with a legal magic that—at the ballot box—brings about “miracles” on par with La Virgen de Guadalupe (only nowhere near as hopeful). For a borderline is an injustice. It is a time-held method of partitioning the planet for the benefit of the elite. Fortunately, there are legions of activists, artists, and faith keepers out there, petitioning on humanity’s behalf, but they need serious reinforcement. For the greatest lesson in nepantla is that many borderlines needn’t exist at all.
