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The empirical evidence that have been encountered suggests that transnational ties do indeed coexist with continuing immigrant adaptation. Initially, this had led the readers to the second puzzle guiding this study: How can one explain that the formation of transnational social spaces and unfolding immigration adaptation proceed simultaneously? Findings, crystallising in this puzzle, flatly contradict known theories of immigrant adaptation. The objection regarding concomitant transnationalisation and immigrant adaptation is: the more transnational or multifocal ties immigrants entertain, the greater their ambivalence towards the immigration policy, the weaker the roots in the nation-state of settlement, the stronger the incentives to form a transnational community, the bolder the claim to a diaspora, the greater the tendency on the part of natives to question the allegiance of the newcomers, and, finally, the weaker the inclination of immigrants to adapt in the country of destination.

To define and locate further “the Hong Kongers”, this chapter shows another dimension of population circulation and family dynamics that affect the human resource of Hong Kong society. Hundreds of thousands of middle-class Hong Kong families emigrated overseas in the 1980s and 1990s in anticipation of the territory's change of sovereignty in 1997. Some returned but their children continued their education in the West. The chapter focuses on the decisions of this educated young generation. In this global age, transnational talents are competitive. The term “transnational” refers to people's connections between different global locations, as manifested in their personal movements and the flows of information in which they are involved. The study finds that many of these young adults have no intention to stay permanently in either Hong Kong or Canada.

This chapter examines whether attachments to young immigrants’ parental homeland persist beyond the immigrant generation, and what factors might foster or hinder such ties in the long run. It is based on experiences of Maya indigenous and non-indigenous Guatemalan immigrants residing in Los Angeles with an empirical focus on religious practices and language use. The study demonstrates that ethnicity shapes the ties that young immigrants can forge (with their parents’ efforts) and what orientation to the parents’ places of origin they will hold. Global forces and lifestyles also influence the young immigrants’ perceptions of and ties to their homeland. Finally, the US government, through policies to limit movement across borders, shapes in critical ways the children’s orientation to the host society. With important differences by ethnicity, in general, the children’s generation is not as inclined as the parents’ generation to engage in transnational ties.

The chapter explains the evolution of transnational ties. All transnational endeavors—multinational business organizations, overseas military campaigns, diplomacy, missionary and humanitarian programs—share two central challenges: distance and difference. Distance increases costs and makes coordination more difficult. Difference is marked especially by the cultural and language barriers that have to be overcome or circumvented for relationships to be established. The literature on globalization emphasizes distance and difference, holding that both are less important now than in the past and that their reduction is the main reason for increased trade and communication. In this view, globalization can best be understood as a result of air travel replacing steamships and satellite communications replacing the slower transmission of telegraph and telephone messages through transoceanic cables. Dissolving distance and difference also necessitates social organization.

This chapter focuses on the social integration of Mexican immigrants. The immigrants interviewed in this study display an intense organizational life through participation in one or more associations of various sorts. Thus, the several dimensions of the process of social integration considered in this study—immigration status, families and family networks, access to health-care services, and education and language proficiency—are all permeated by participation in intermediary groups, which are a key element in shaping communities. Some of these associations have objectives clearly linked to Los Angeles. However, the majority reveals a strong presence of transnational ties, given that the place of origin is central to their identities.

This chapter examines a second kind of pathway, one concerning ideas and practices of religion and politics. In India, British rule both validated religious governance of family affairs and drove Islamic leaders to carve out their own spaces for teaching, learning, and the administration of Islamic law. In postcolonial Britain, the same logics of religious governance and autonomy facilitate efforts to transpose Islamic institutions to London or Birmingham. British Islamic actors have employed three distinct processes to create these spaces: they reproduce South Asian religious differences in Britain, they adapt Islam to the opportunity structures found in Britain, and they maintain transnational ties to religious or political movements elsewhere. To some degree, these three processes—reinforcing boundaries, adapting locally, maintaining transnational ties—figure in all Islamic actors' practical schemas for shaping British Islam.

Asian American psychology is a burgeoning subfield of psychology that owes its intellectual roots to Asian American Studies as well as to multiple and overlapping subfields of psychology that are concerned with culture, such as cultural psychology, cross-cultural psychology, and multicultural psychology. The author first reviews the historical contexts in which Asian American psychology emerged and the ways in which the methods and theories of Asian American psychology have been shaped by dialogues with allied fields in and out of psychology. The author then reviews programs of research in Asian American psychology that are organized into three main themes: (1) cultural and ethnic influences on individual distress, (2) influences of race and racism on individuals, and (3) influences of immigration and transnational ties in individuals and families. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the progress made thus far and the future directions in Asian American psychology.