Mexico-U.S. Migration and the Nation-State: A Transnational Perspective on Transformations since 1990

• Author: Judith A. Boruchoff
• DOI: 10.1177/0002716219856584
• Published date: 01 July 2019
• Date: 01 July 2019

ANNALS, AAPSS, 684, July 2019 43

DOI: 10.1177/0002716219856584

Mexico-U.S.

Migration and

the Nation-

State: A

Transnational

Perspective on

Transformations

since 1990

By

JUDITH A. BORUCHOFF

856584ANN The Annals of The American AcademyMexico-U.S. Migration and the Nation-State

research-article2019

This article examines Mexico-U.S. migration from a

transnational perspective, explaining the implications of

cross-border ties for the nation-state. It builds on

30 years of original research in Mexico and the United

States, and contributions of the Mexican Migration

Project and other research that show that conventional

understandings of the nation-state have become inade-

quate. Focusing on relations between migrants and the

Mexican government as well as their struggles for inclu-

sion in the United States, it demonstrates how each

nation-state is transformed as migrants maintain attach-

ments and participate simultaneously in countries of

origin and destination. It advances scholarship on this

topic by specifying how, in each case, the connections

among territory, state, and nation are changing in dis-

tinct ways. In the case of Mexico, the state framework is

extended beyond geographical borders to encompass

extraterritorial citizens within the nation. In the United

States, a disjuncture between state and nation is emerg-

ing within the bounds of the national territory.

Keywords: Mexico-U.S. migration; transnationalism;

nation-states; state formation; citizenship

Ever since Douglas Massey and Jorge Durand

initiated the Mexican Migration Project

(MMP) in the early 1980s, the resulting database

and analyses have contributed to pioneering

research on the nature of the migration process

(see Massey et al. 1987), a classic treatise on

changing migration patterns (see Durand and

Judith A. Boruchoff is a professor/researcher at the

Universidad Autónoma de Guerrero. Her long-term eth-

nographic research investigates the constitution of trans-

national spaces linking Guerrero, Mexico, and Chicago,

Illinois, analyzing mechanisms through which migrants

participate simultaneously in distinct national territories.

Her recent scholarship examines political implications of

migrant organizations in the United States, by exploring

consequences for migrant empowerment, conceptualiza-

tions of citizenship, and the nation-state.

Correspondence: jaboruch@uchicago.edu

44 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

Massey 2003), and incisive critiques of migration policy (see Massey, Durand, and

Malone 2002). Perhaps more than any other research initiative on Mexico-U.S.

migration, the extensive corpus of work stemming from the MMP, now encompass-

ing 161 communities, has illuminated the complexities of Mexico-U.S. migration in

recent decades.

This article highlights historical trends in Mexico-U.S. migration as well as the

perspectives used to analyze it that have spanned 30 years of the MMP. I ground

my arguments in research that I conducted in the regions of Iguala, Guerrero, in

Mexico, and Chicago, Illinois, in the United States, a principal destination for

migrants from northern Guerrero. I also draw on scholarship by the principal

researchers of the MMP and their collaborators, among other experts on the

topic. I situate my discussion within a transnational perspective, highlighting

fundamental aspects of this analytical lens pertaining, in particular, to implica-

tions of changing patterns of Mexico-U.S. migration for the nature and forms of

the two nation-states.

Whereas an extensive literature currently purports to examine Mexico-U.S.

migration from a transnational perspective, only a relatively small subset of stud-

ies explores its significance for the nation-state. Of these, a few authors focus

exclusively on the Mexican State, and fewer yet on the United States; rarely, if

ever, does extant work deal with both states in a single work, as I do below. I not

only explain modifications in the nation-state, as it is conventionally understood,

but show how transformations are configured differently in each country. Analysis

of the nation-state, the principal and encompassing framework within which

migration processes are shaped and unfold, provides a context that is pertinent to

the particular findings of research using the MMP database.

A Transnational Perspective on Migration and

the Nation-State

The book Return to Aztlan by Massey etal. (1987) represents a benchmark in

migration scholarship, pioneering the MMP’s ethnosurvey, which combines sta-

tistical sampling and ethnographic techniques. This comparative study of four

different types of communities identifies six principles that establish the dynamic

nature of migration, based in networks that develop into a social infrastructure

enabling this demographic movement to expand and become self-sustaining. Of

particular significance, “it views the migrant community as a binational entity and

collects data from migrants on both sides of the border,” emphasizing the link-

ages between “sending” and “daughter” communities that form “a single contin-

uum of social relationships” (Massey et al. 1987, 7). As such, the authors

consciously moved beyond previous research that had begun to take note of how

migration tends to modify conditions in communities of origin to promote further

migration (e.g., Reichert 1981; Dinerman 1982; Mines 1981), referring to them

as “binational communities” (Dinerman 1982, 78) or a “binational village migrant

community” (Mines 1981, 46).