Transnational Ethnic Processes

• Date: 01 May 2014
• Published date: 01 May 2014
• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X14532073
• Subject Matter: Articles

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 196, Vol. 41 No. 3, May 2014, 54–74

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X14532073

© 2014 Latin American Perspectives

54

Transnational Ethnic Processes

Indigenous Mexican Migrations to the United States

by

Laura Velasco Ortiz

Translated by Margot Olavarria

The experience of migration to the United States of indigenous peoples is producing a

change in ethno-racial systems of classification that is not simply reactive but reflects the

history of each indigenous people and is expressed both at the institutional level and in the

formation of a transnational ethnic subject. The experiences of the Purépechas of

Michoacán, the Nahuas of Guerrero, and the Mixtecs of Oaxaca involve different migra-

tion histories and processes of ethnicization but share a history of Spanish colonization,

subordination in the Mexican social structure, and discrimination as immigrants in the

United States. Comparison of these experiences reveals the importance of the instrumental

dimension, of the institutional context in the place of destination, and of ethnic agents as

creators of emblems of ethnicity under conditions of geographical dispersion. State action

continues to organize much of the political and cultural content of subnational identities,

and the state remains the interlocutor in processes of ethnic agency every step of the way.

La migración de los pueblos indígenas a los Estados Unidos está produciendo un cam-

bio en los sistemas de clasificación étnico-racial que no es meramente reactivo sino que

refleja la historia de cada pueblo indígena y se expresa tanto en el plano institucional como

en la formación de un sujeto étnico transnacional. Las experiencias de los Purépechas de

Michoacán, los Nahuas de Guerrero y los Mixtecos de Oaxaca implican diferentes histo-

rias migratorias y procesos de etnificación, pero comparten una historia de colonización

española, subordinación en la estructura social mexicana, y la discriminación que sufren

como inmigrantes en Estados Unidos. Una comparación de estas experiencias revela la

importancia de la dimensión instrumental y del contexto institucional en el lugar de des-

tino, así como la de los de agentes étnicos como creadores de emblemas de etnicidad bajo

condiciones de dispersión geográfica. Las acciones del estado continúan gestionando gran

parte del contenido político y cultural de las identidades subnacionales y el estado sigue

siendo el interlocutor en los procesos de agencia étnica en cada momento.

Keywords: Transnational ethnicization, Indigenous Mexican migration, Purépechas,

Nahuas, Mixtecs

Laura Velasco Ortiz is a professor-researcher at the Colegio de la Frontera Norte and the author

of Mixtec Transnational Identity (2005). Some of the facts and assertions in this article appeared in

“Migraciones indígenas mexicanas a Estados Unidos: Un acercamiento a etnicidades transnacio-

nales,” her contribution to volume 3 of the Colegio de México’s Las grandes problemas de México

(2010). She thanks Oscar Contreras for reading and commenting on a draft of this article. Margot

Olavarria is a political scientist and translator in New York City.

532073LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X14532073Latin American PerspectivesVelasco / Transnational Ethnic Processes

research-article2014

Velasco / TRANSNATIONAL ETHNIC PROCESSES 55

In 2003, a group of indigenous Mexican activists—Mixtecs and Zapotecs—

erected two statues of the Mexican president Benito Juárez, one in the city of

Los Angeles and another in Fresno, both in the heart of the state of California

in the United States. Years later, one of them gave the following explanation:

“We did it because not only was he a president of Mexico but, most of all, he

was an indigenous president” (Jesús Estrada, interview, Los Angeles, January

20, 2007). This event would not have pleased Glenn Hoover (1929), who was

disturbed by the indigenous component of Mexican migration to the United

States and argued about it with Enrique Santibáñez (1991 [1930]), then Mexican

consul in San Antonio, Texas. Hoover thought that the indigenousness of many

Mexican immigrants was dangerous for the American nation, while the

Mexican consul argued that all Mexicans were racially and ethnically equal.

The course of history seems to contradict both: a great number of Mexican

immigrants are mobilizing for their rights as U.S. citizens without abandoning

their local or ethnic affiliations as indigenous people of Mexican origin.

Ethnic classification associated with the national origin of immigrants in the

United States is linked to the migration policies of the twentieth century (Ngai,

1999). Throughout the centuries, European immigrants and then Asians and

Latin Americans were racialized and ethnicized in terms of the value of white-

ness and that of foreignness. However, as Portes and Rumbaut (2006) point out,

to understand the classification of immigrants it is insufficient to consider the

ethnic configurations of their places of origin. It is imperative to understand the

ethnic configurations of the countries of destination and the multiple cultural

and territorial references through which immigrants to the United States expe-

rience social and cultural integration. Once there is a national state, the national

origin of immigrants is central to an understanding of changes in ethnic affili-

ations (Portes and Rumbaut, 2006; Roosens, 1994), but it is not enough; some

immigrants, among them indigenous Mexicans, are also classified and/or

identify themselves as subnational ethnic categories within their countries of

origin.

The objective of this article is to analyze the processes of identification, cat-

egorization, and commonality among Mexican indigenous populations that

have immigrated to the United States in the last two decades of the twentieth

century and the first years of the twenty-first in terms of the notions of ethnic

configuration and ethnicization. It proposes the hypothesis that the experience of

migration to the United States of indigenous people is producing a change in

ethno-racial systems of classification that is not simply reactive (Portes, 1999)

but also reflects the history of the specific commonality of each indigenous

nation and is expressed both at the institutional level and in the formation of

ethnic subjects. On the one hand, census and government records are produc-

ing new categories of classification. On the other, immigrants are collectively

recreating the universe of ethnic categories of belonging and strategies for con-

structing a sense of community in a transnational dynamic.

An understanding of ethnicization—the reprocessing of identifications and

affiliations resulting from collective action or political activism linked to inter-

national migration—presents the challenge of distinguishing ethnicity as an

interpretive category from ethnicity as a political tool. This is no easy task

because, as in other social science research, ethnic studies have become inti-

mately linked to social movements. This article nevertheless aims to contribute