José Itzigsohn

Mapping Dominican transnationalism: narrow and broad transnational practices

This article maps the structure for understanding the Dominican transnational field. By transnational field we refer to a web of linkages that affects the lives of Dominicans in their places of residence in every social field. We find that social boundaries of the nation do not coincide with political ones and the degree of participation in transnational exchanges varies. We suggest that the structure of the transnational social field is better understood by establishing and defining broad and narrow transnational social practices.

Immigration and the Boundaries of Citizenship: The Institutions of Immigrants’ Political Transnationalism

This article analyzes the emergence and the institutional structure of contemporary immigrants’ transnational politics. It poses three questions: 1) How is transnational politics structured? 2) How can we explain the current emergence of transnational political linkages? 3) Who participates and who benefits from political transnationalism. The article focuses on the cases of the Dominican Republic, Haiti and El Salvador and argues that they share an institutional pattern of transnational politics in which there are three main actors: the state apparatus of the country of origin; the political parties of the country of origin; and migrant organizations in the country of reception. The article links the rise of this pattern of transnational politics to the need of the states of origin to guarantee the flow of remittances, the organization of immigrants in the country of reception, and the consolidation of competitive politics in democratic regimes. Although the analysis is based on the experiences of Latin American and Caribbean countries and their emigrants in the United States, the article argues that this institutional pattern may transcend this particular region.

Immigrant Incorporation and Sociocultural Transnationalism

This article analyzes sociocultural transnational linkages among Colombian, Dominican, and Salvadoran immigrants in the United States. It emphasizes the importance of comparative analysis and yields three main findings. First, participation in any particular transnational activity is low, but participation over all the different forms of transnational practices is extended. Second, the process of incorporation does not weaken transnational participation. Third, there is more than one causal path that can account for the rise of transnational sociocultural practices. The different paths can be explained by reference to the context of reception and the mode of incorporation of each group.

Incorporation, Transnationalism, and Gender: Immigrant Incorporation and Transnational Participation as Gendered Processes

This article analyzes immigrant incorporation and transnational participation as gendered experiences. The results indicate that the incorporation of immigrants is a complex process affected negatively by class and racial exclusion and positively by their knowledge of U.S. society. The analysis also indicates that incorporation and transnational participation are concurrent and intertwined processes. Our results show that gender matters in the analysis of immigrant incorporation. The experiences of immigrant men and women share a lot in common as they confront similar challenges, but are also affected differently by the most relevant factors in the process of incorporation and transnational participation.

Migrant political transnationalism and the practice of democracy: Dominican external voting rights and Salvadoran home town associations

Abstract In Latin America, the political participation of migrants in their societies of origin constitutes one of the major innovations brought by the consolidation of democracy. This paper examines the links between migrant transnational politics and democratization processes in the Dominican Republic and El Salvador. It asks whether and how migrant political participation affects the way democratic practices are institutionalized in these two countries. The results indicate that in the two cases migrant political transnationalism has been a positive force for the strengthening of the formal democratic rules of organizing political competition. The analysis also shows, however, that the contribution of migrant transnational politics to the deepening of democracy towards more participative and deliberative forms is limited.

Competing Identities? Race, Ethnicity and Panethnicity Among Dominicans in the United States

In this paper we explore the racial and ethnic self-identification of Dominican immigrants in the United States. This issue is central in understanding how immigrants experience the process of incorporation into American society. We argue that as Dominican immigrants incorporate to American life, they adopt a Hispanic or Latino identity. This identity serves both as a form of racial identification within the American racial stratification system and as a form of assertive panethnic identity. This identity, however, does not supersede national identification, which remains the anchoring identity.

Immigrant incorporation and racial identity: Racial self-identification among Dominican immigrants

This article explores the formation of racial identities by Dominican immigrants in the United States. We pose three questions: What are Dominicans’ racial identification choices? Do their identification choices correspond to different views of American society? What does racial formation among Dominicans tell us about racial classification in the contemporary United States? Our results show that the more the racial identification questions are asked in terms of the American racial classification system, the more limited the racial identification choices. The modal self-identification responses are hispano/a, and indio/a. However, when asked about beliefs concerning how the American mainstream perceives them, the modal answer is black. Furthermore, we found that self-identification as black correlates with a critical view of relations between Dominicans and white Americans. Our research points to the increasing complexity of the American racial classification system. Race, however, remains central to the immigrant experience.

SOCIOLOGY AND THE THEORY OF DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS

In this paper we emphasize W. E. B. Du Bois’s relevance as a sociological theorist, an aspect of his work that has not received the attention it deserves. We focus specifically on the significance of Du Bois’s theory of Double Consciousness. This theory argues that in a racialized society there is no true communication or recognition between the racializing and the racialized. Furthermore, Du Bois’s theory of Double Consciousness puts racialization at the center of the analysis of self-formation, linking the macro structure of the racialized world with the lived experiences of racialized subjects. We develop our argument in two stages: The first section locates the theory of Double Consciousness within the field of classical sociological theories of the self. We show how the theory addresses gaps in the theorizing of self-formation of James, Mead, and Cooley. The second section presents an analysis of how Du Bois deploys this theory in his phenomenological analysis of the African American experience. The conclusions point out how the theory of Double Consciousness is relevant to contemporary debates in sociological theory.

Living Transnational Lives

The emergence of a transnational perspective has changed the study of immigration. Before the introduction of this analytical approach, the study of immigration assumed that migrants basically broke their ties with their countries of origin and that the processes of acculturation and assimilation of migrants to their new society were what mattered most. Transnationalism as a perspective has challenged these assumptions. A large number of studies have shown that migrants retain lasting ties with their countries of origin. The identities and social practices of migrants transcend national boundaries. As Nina Glick Schiller asserts,

The Strengths and Limits of Waldinger's The Cross Border Connection

In this important book Roger Waldinger proposes a new analytical framework for the study of the migrant experience. He argues that migrants are at the same time immigrants and emigrants and their lives are subject to contradictory forces that on the one hand connect them with their country of origin and on the other hand pull them towards integrating into the country in which they reside. Waldinger affirms that this new analytical frame addresses the limits of assimilation theory – that is, methodological nationalism – and the blinders of the literature on transnationalism – that is, the exclusive focus on the connections between the places of origin and reception. I think that this is indeed true. At the same time, I believe that Waldingers analysis has limits and blinders of its own. It is too critical of the literature on transnationalism and too uncritical concerning the process of incorporation. In spite of these limitations, this book is an original contribution to the study of the migration experience.