Mohamed Mohamed
Both the readings from Nancy Foner and Karen Olwig highlight the importance of New York City as a node for immigrants. Karen Olwig tries to discover the transnationalization of the Caribbean immigrants in recent years through a different lens than the modern migration scholars. Olwig conducts her research through the personal history of individual immigrants which then give her an idea of the behavior of the general population. Through her research she shows the attachment many Caribbean have to New York and how their idea distinguishes them from the new batch of immigrants. Olwig explains that New York has changed from a settlement location in hopes of economic and social opportunity, to a center location for family life and a place that held childhood experience. However, New York did not always play the same role for every individual’s life. For example, Bill did not find the career he hoped to achieve but rather ended up moving back to Jamica. On the other hand, Charles was successful in establishing a career and therefore continued to view the city as a place of opportunity.
Furthermore, Olwig was able to discover a form of transnationalism other than economically driven. Immigrants from the West Indies have tried to distinguish themselves from race and class as a form of transnationalism. As immigrants continued to pour into New York many West Indies left so to not be lumped into their group. Kathy, for example, a West Indian who lives in California far from any family members explains that in New York she became racially aware of whom she was. She separated herself from the rest of the immigrant batch so to make it clear that she is more of an American. Kathy refers to New York as place of her childhood and as a place of kin networks. Another great example is Jane who not only left New York but also married into a white family in order to distinguish herself and to escape the racial tension experienced in New York.
The other reading from Charles Tilly gives us a sense of how important immigrant remittances are to the people back home. Remittances are payments that immigrants make to send back to the countries they immigrated from. Tilly explains that these remittances not only funded families but it also assisted businesses and religious institutions as well as politics in that country (the same politics that helps run the country). Tilly also explains that these remittances are large and amount to billions of dollars. Therefore, this support is arguably a significant factor in running these countries. Furthermore, this financial support also proves that these immigrants still hold strong ties with their homelands, which in turn builds trust networks. These trust networks have shown to remain strong and one-way immigrants keep these strong ties is by sending children back. Children are sent back and forth in order that the loyalty of the immigrant remains to the homeland.
I believe that this system will soon fail. As the generations continue on living in the United States the ties between homeland and immigrant will begin to slowly die off. The children growing up in United States will eventually identify as Americans and will no longer demonstrate their loyalty through remittances. This makes me question how the homelands will react to a large decline of remittances. We have seen how important of a role these remittances play in the development, progression, and survival of these countries, so how will they cope without this financial support?
