Binational Social Networks and Assimilation: A Test of the Importance of Transnationalism

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dc.citation.firstpage329
dc.citation.issueNumber3
dc.citation.journalTitleSocial Problems
dc.citation.lastpage359
dc.citation.volumeNumber61
dc.contributor.authorMouw, Ted
dc.contributor.authorChavez, Sergio
dc.contributor.authorEdelblute, Heather
dc.contributor.authorVerdery, Ashton
dc.date.accessioned2014-08-29T20:22:42Z
dc.date.available2014-08-29T20:22:42Z
dc.date.issued2014
dc.description.abstractWhile the concept of transnationalism has gained widespread popularity among scholars as a way to describe immigrants' long-term maintenance of cross-border ties to their origin communities, critics have argued that the overall proportion of immigrants who engage in transnational behavior is low and that, as a result, transnationalism has little sustained effect on the process of immigrant adaptation and assimilation. In this article, we argue that a key shortcoming in the current empirical debate on transnationalism is the lack of data on the social networks that connect migrants to each other and to nonmigrants in communities of origin. To address this shortcoming, our analysis uses unique binational data on the social network connecting an immigrant sending community in Guanajuato, Mexico, to two destination areas in the United States. We test for the effect of respondents' positions in cross-border networks on their migration intentions and attitudes towards the United States using data on the opinions of their peers, their participation in cross-border and local communication networks, and their structural position in the network. The results indicate qualified empirical support for a network-based model of transnationalism; in the U.S. sample we find evidence of network clustering consistent with peer effects, while in the Mexican sample we find evidence of the importance of cross-border communication with friends.
dc.identifier.citationMouw, Ted, Chavez, Sergio, Edelblute, Heather, et al.. "Binational Social Networks and Assimilation: A Test of the Importance of Transnationalism." <i>Social Problems,</i> 61, no. 3 (2014) University of California Press: 329-359. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/sp.2014.12192.
dc.identifier.doihttp://dx.doi.org/10.1525/sp.2014.12192
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1911/77131
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherUniversity of California Press
dc.rightsArticle is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
dc.subject.keywordtransnationalism
dc.subject.keywordimmigration
dc.subject.keywordadaptation and incorporation of immigrants
dc.subject.keywordsocial networks
dc.subject.keywordcollecting data on immigration
dc.titleBinational Social Networks and Assimilation: A Test of the Importance of Transnationalism
dc.typeJournal article
dc.type.dcmiText
dc.type.publicationpublisher version
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