Creating Espacios Culturales: How are Salvadoran Transmigrants are establishing cultural spaces in t

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Creating Espacios CulturalesHow are Salvadoran
Transmigrants are establishing cultural spaces in
the Washington D.C. Area
Ronald W. Luna Department of Geography,
University of Maryland ronaldl_at_geog.umd.edu
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What Forces Are At Work?

• What factors would keep you and what factors
  would force you to move?
• Push factors induces people to move out of their
  present location.
• Vr.
• Pull Factors induces people to move into a new
  location.

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Voluntary vs. Forced Migration

• Which are forced and which are voluntary
  migration?
• Break into three groups and discuss the case of
  the Cuban, Haitian, and Puerto Rico immigrants
  (pp 345-350).

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Why Do People Migrate?

• Economic factors
• Cultural factors
• Environmental factors

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Characteristics of Migrants

• Most long-distance migrants are male (in the
  beginning stages) Guatemalans in D.C.
• Most long-distances are adult individuals
  (working age) rather than families with children.
• However, since the 1990s Mexican women account
  for half the illegal migration to the United
  States

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Is Migration Good?

• Points in favor?
• Points against?

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Who are the Latin American Immigrants?
Table 1 Number of Western Hemisphere
Immigrants From Leading Countries, 1971-1994
Source Immigration and Naturalization Service
Cited in Parrillo (1997), p. 426
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What Cities do Latin American Immigrants Settle?
Table 2 Top Ten Urban Settlements for 1986
Immigrants
Source Immigration and Naturalization Service
Cited in Simcox (1988), p. 21).
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What States do Immigrant live in? Table 1.Top
15 States with Foreign-born Population 1998
Source New Americans, 2000, p. 5
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According to the Census which are the Largest
Latino Immigrant Population?
Sources U.S. Census 1990 and 2000
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Another Point of View The Salvadoran Population
in the United States Estimated Number 2,215,600
Source Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores -
Actualizado a Enero 2001 www.rree.gob.sv
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Causes of Migration

• First Phase (1970s) Characteristics
• - Women as pioneers
• - Labor Recruitment
• - Head of Household
• - Social Network

Second Phase (1980s) Factors - Civil War -
Economic - Chain Migration
Third Phase (1990-Present) Causes -
Economic - Environmental
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Salvadoran Population in the Washington D.C.
Metropolitan Area 1990-2000
How has the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Area
changed in the last twenty years?
Source Bureau of the Census 1990, 2000
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Theoretical Framework
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Theoretical Framework

• Transnationalism
• is a process.
• creates economic, political, social, or cultural
  networks.
• manifest itself through various scales, over
  time, and across space.

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Transnationalism

• Circular Migration
• - The ability of immigrants to travel or
  communicate back and forth across space and time.
• Airplane
• Telephone
• Internet
• (Baia, 1999 Dunay, 2000 Levitt, 1998 and
  Vasquez, 1999)

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Transnationalism

• Networks
• - are linkages created by immigrants between
  their home country and their host country.
• - are strengthened when there is a continual
  interaction between the home country.
• - creates and expands preexisting ethnic
  community over time in the host country.
• (Faist, 2000 Itzigsohn, 2000 Kearney, 1995
  Kivisto, 2001 Levitt, 1998, 2001 Verderary,
  1998 and Vertovec, 1999)

Economical
Cultural
Social
Political
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Transnationalism

• Memory
• - is the collective memories (nostalgia) of
  immigrants about their home country.
• - is the desire to be both here and there
  stimulates, transfers, transforms and
  incorporates old memories into new memories in
  the host country.
• -a memory of a transmigrant triggers the need to
  manifest their ethnic identity.
• (Duany, 2000 Rutherford, 1990 Said, 1983 and
  Vertovec, 1999 )

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Transnationalism

• Ethnic Identity
• - is a cultural construction shaped by the home
  countrys memories (internal process) and the
  host countrys experiences (external process)
• - as well as the individuals self-identification
  of what ethnicity is, versus what others might
  think is your ethnicity.
• - the creation of an ethnic identity by
  immigrants in the host country is critical for
  the formation, unification, identification and
  expansion of the transmigrant community.
• - Cultural citizenship, allows ethnic groups the
  ability to construct cultural spaces in a new
  society by incorporating cultural symbols or
  practices into their new environment.
• (Baia 1999 Brettel, 2000 Chong 1998 Duany,
  2000 Flores, 1997 Vertovec, 1999 Warner, 1997
  and Yang, 2001)

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Transnationalism

• Cultural Spaces
• - cultural spaces begin when immigrants
  incorporate into their daily life in the host
  country their cultural activities, customs, or
  symbols, that remind them of home.
• -when immigrants claim cultural space, they
  do so not for the purpose of being different, but
  rather simply to create a place where they can
  feel a sense of belonging, comfortable, and at
  home" (Flores, 1997, p. 262).
• (Bailey, et all, 2002 Brettell and Hollifield,
  2000 Duany, 2000 Flores, 1997)

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Transnationalism

• Cultural Spaces
• -When transmigrants establish their ethnic
  identity,
• claim their cultural citizenship, and engage in
  cultural
• activities in the host country that is when the
  space
• becomes a cultural space.
• -the process of constructing and claiming
  cultural spaces is of
• extreme importance because it becomes the base by
  which a
• transnational community and cultural spaces can
  be establish,
• built, and identify (Luna, 2001).

Levitt, 1998 Luna, 2001 Warner, 1997 and Yang,
2001).
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Points to Consider

• Gangs
• Elderly
• Education
• New migration patterns
• Housing
• New types of businesses
• Religion
• other

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Preliminary Findings

• Shared/ Multi-ethnic

• Transform

• Permanent
• or temporary

• Manifestation
• ethnic identity

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Methodology

• Case studies criteria
• 1) Churches evangelical protestant.
• 2) Denomination churches whose are traditionally
  based or originated in El Salvador.
• 3) Ethnic composition churches whose
  congregation is more than 50 percent Salvadoran.
• 4) Linkages churches that remain in contact with
  El Salvador.
• 5) Accessibility to the pastor, religious
  leaders, and the congregation.

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Research Question

• How do Salvadoran evangelical protestant churches
  reinforce the process of transnationalism in the
  Washington D.C. metropolitan area?

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Additional Research Questions

• 1) What types of transnational networks are
  present in Salvadoran evangelical protestant
  churches?
• 2) Have gender roles been reinforced or have they
  been changed by the Salvadoran evangelical
  protestant churches?
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• 3) How has ethnic identity been manifested in the
  Salvadoran evangelical protestant churches?
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• 4) What evangelical methods are Salvadoran
  evangelical protestant churches using to grow in
  membership size in the D.C. metropolitan area?

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Additional Research Questions

• 5) What are the religious backgrounds of the
  individuals who attend Salvadoran evangelical
  protestant churches?
•  
• 6) What elements of transnationalism are evident
  in church services and church activities?
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• 7) How are social networks incorporated within
  Salvadoran evangelical protestant churches?
•  
• 8) How are Salvadoran evangelical protestant
  churches being used as cultural spaces?