David FitzGerald, University of California – Los Angeles
Abstract: The controversial notion of ‘transnationalism’ has generated new insights into international migrants’ ongoing ties with their communities of origin that are unexplained by crude versions of the assimilation paradigm. However, the problematic conceptualization of ‘transnationalism’ and its vague usage in empirical studies needlessly inhibit the transnational perspective’s utility. Understanding the political and economic incorporation of migrants in both their communities of origin and destination is facilitated by disaggregating the types of political borders, types of nationalism, and levels of identification that have been conflated in the framework of ‘transnationalism’. I demonstrate the …

Belén Agrela, Center for Comparative Immigration Studies and University of Granada – Spain
Abstract: This paper explores how immigrants have caused a restructuring of identities in the “new” Spain, through a juxtaposition with those who have traditionally been defined as “cultural others.” To show how processes of categorization are used as a rhetoric of exclusion, Agrela analyzes the way in which public policies are constructing immigration as a symbolic, political, and cultural problem that has recently become one of the most salient issues on Spain’s political agenda at the local, regional, and national levels. The paper examines how formal and informal …

Martin Ruhs, Center for Comparative Immigration Studies and University of Cambridge – UK
Abstract: This paper comparatively discusses the policies and adverse consequences of six major temporary foreign worker programmes (TFWPs) in five different countries (Germany, Kuwait, Singapore, Switzerland, and the United States). I find that TFWPs have been quite different in design, but rather similar in their adverse consequences. The latter include: (i) the emergence of “immigrant sectors” in the host economy; (ii) the vulnerability of migrant workers toward various forms of exploitation in recruitment and employment; (iii) the tendency of TFWPs to become longer in duration and bigger in …

Angie Y. Chung, Center for Comparative Immigration Studies
Abstract: Drawing on these previous works and my own research data, the purpose of this article is to trace the historical evolution of Korean American organizations in Los Angeles within the context of ethnic power structures and to explore the various dimensions of inter-organizational conflict and cooperation as they have affected community politics in the post-1992 Los Angeles Riots era. While I argue that ethnic political structures in Koreatown have been formatively shaped by a variety of cultural, structural, and historical forces, my work emphasizes the central presence of what I call the …

Marc Rosenblum, University of New Orleans
Abstract: Immediately following the 2000-1 inaugurations of Presidents Vicente Fox and George W. Bush, Mexico and the United States entered into intense negotiations aimed at a bilateral guestworker agreement on migration. Although the terror attacks of September, 2001 put these negotiations on hold, the progress which had been made—and the extent to which Mexico set the bilateral agenda—highlight the transnational character of U.S. immigration policy-making. But what do sending-states want when it comes to U.S. immigration policy, and when and how can they influence the process? This paper draws on 90 elite interviews conducted with …

David Abraham, University of Miami
Abstract: This is paper analyzes changes in the nature of citizenship in the United States, Germany, and Israel over the past three decades. Abraham argues that the gap between “citizen” and “resident alien” has been shrinking. Overall, there has been a decline in the content of citizenship and easier access to it. Despite some recent hostility toward aliens in many countries, the tendency over the longer term has been to grant aliens greater rights. In part, this is because courts have come to focus on equal protection rights for individuals. However, the development also points to …

Laurie A. Brand, University of Southern California
Abstract: Although immigration obviously requires prior emigration, very little work in migration studies examines states of origin. In addition, most research that is concerned with a labor-exporting country generally examines either social networks or the impact of remittances and worker absence on families or home communities. Brand argues that just as immigration policy should be understood as more than simply the nature of border controls and visas, emigration policy should also be analyzed from a broad perspective. This includes political, economic, and cultural policies and practices of the home state that deliberately target some …

Robert H. McLaughlin, Center for Comparative Immigration Studies and University of Chicago
Abstract: A civic border–comprised of government institutions, the laws that govern them and their charge to regulate immigration, and the partial and incomplete circulation of legal knowledge about immigration determines patterns of lawful immigration and naturalization among immigrants in the United States. The process of naturalization, the voluntary passage from lawful permanent residence to citizenship, sheds light on the structure of the Untied States as polity and as a nation, and reveals its terms of membership. Drawing on ethnographic and documentary research in San Diego, California, this paper argues …

Takeyuki Tsuda, University of California, San Diego
Wayne A. Cornelius, University of California, San Diego
Abstract: The most commonly used model of labor market incorporation among immigrants in the United States analyzes their earnings largely as a function of human capital variables such as education, language competence, age, length of residence and employment experience in the receiving country. However, such a simple model is not necessarily cross-culturally applicable and may lose much of its explanatory power in other societies, where immigrants encounter different labor market conditions. This paper estimates multivariate models of wage determination among samples of foreign workers interviewed in 1996 …

Nana Oishi, Center for Comparative Immigration Studies
Abstract: This paper is a synopsis of Oishi’s forthcoming book Women in Motion: Globalization, State Policies, and Labor Migration in Asia (Stanford University Press), which analyzes the mechanisms involved in international female migration in Asia. Acknowledging the shortcomings of previous studies that focus too much on migrantreceiving countries and/or a single country case, this work examines female migration from a comparative and integrative perspective. The analysis proceeds at multiple levels of analysis: (1) the state (macro); (2) individuals (micro); and (3) society (meso) in both migrant-sending and receiving countries. How have foreign direct investment …