Víctor Zúñiga

Sojourners in Mexico with U.S. School Experience: A New Taxonomy for Transnational Students

Millions of students attending U.S. schools were born in Mexico, as is well known, and many millions more are the American-born children of Mexican parents. What is less widely known—and less considered in educational research, policy, and practice—is that there are likely hundreds of thousands of students in Mexican schools who have previous experience in U.S. schools. There are many school-age children involved in the transnational movement of peoples between the United States and Mexico. Among those currently in Mexico (typically regarded as a sending country rather than a receiving country), most expect to return to the United States someday, although not necessarily permanently, and they variously identify as Mexican, Mexican American, or American. This suggests that the prospect of enduring geographic mobility affects the complicated work of identity formation and affiliation. Central to this negotiation are Mexican schools, which, like U.S. schools, are not deliberately designed to consider the needs, understandings, and wants of an increasingly international, mobile population. One purpose of this article is to build an understanding of transnational students from

Identifying the Anthropological in a Mixed-Methods Study of Transnational Students in Mexican Schools

Identifying surveying as more commonly sociological and semistructured interviewing as more commonly anthropological, which describes disciplinary histories more than any fixed formulas, we juxtapose transnational students’ survey answers collected in Mexican schools with their answers to interviewers several months later. From this, we consider what can be learned about research methodology and transnational student cosmology when different methods yield discrepant answers. Without claiming superiority for either mechanism, we find their combination illuminating, and it substantiates the claim that anthropological inquiry can add crucial value to mixed-methods, interdisciplinary inquiry.

Due decenni di ricerca sulla migrazione messicana in una nuova destinazione non-metropolitana: riflessioni di campo dagli Stati Uniti

L’articolo sintetizza due decenni di ricerca sulla migrazione messicana a Dalton, una piccola citta in Georgia, Usa. L’analisi si focalizza sui risultati del lavoro di campo e li colloca nel contesto dello studio della crescente rilevanza delle destinazioni piccolo-medie per la migrazione messicana e latina negli Stati Uniti. L’articolo presenta innanzitutto l’approccio induttivo, costruzionista e interazionista che e stato usato. Con questi strumento analitici si e studiato il processo sociale dell’immigrazione nelle piccole e medie citta come una rete di interazioni fra immigrati e residenti di ungo periodo, come protagonisti e non solo vittime di forza strutturali di ampio respiro. Questo approccio ha permesso di scoprire diverse e inaspettate interazioni, che includono alleanze, cooperazione, fratture, tensioni, conflitti, aggiustamenti, adattamenti e ri-defnizione dei confini fra immigrati e nativi. L’articolo si chiude con una breve analisi della seconda generazione messicana in questo contesto. I risultati di questa ricerca sono un invito ad approfondire lo studio dell’arrivo dei migranti in destinazioni non metropolitani in altri paesi.