The major emphasis of this week’s reading was on New York, and how it was such an important central focal point for immigrants coming over from the Caribbean region. The article mostly focused on the West Indians, and how these groups of individuals gradually formed what we today know as transmigrants. In the first article, the migration of the West Indians was summarized by stating the important factors that affected these individuals. One important factor that led them to move in the first place was the horrible economical conditions back in their home country which led to unemployment, limited resources, and scarce opportunity to better their life. Once having left their home countries, these individuals faced another major factor of racism and segregation in New York (where most of the immigrants arrived) This unwelcoming environment allowed the newly migrated immigrants to miss their homes even more because despite it being horrible in terms of financial status, at least they were well respected back home. Many of these individuals were given a cumulative identity of just being “West Indians” and they were failed to be recognized as being their own unique identity. This nativism and racism that these individuals faced, allowed them to keep strong ties with their home countries, thus forming the transnational networks that spanned across numerous countries.
These transnational networks were emphasized in the third reading, especially in financial terms. The title of the article “Trust Networks” concisely gets the major point across that these networks were strong ties with their home country, and with people back home, thus increasing their level of trust between the individuals. One of the major reasons of these transnational networks was to get money from one point to another point. As mentioned in the reading, remittances were crucial for people back home, and even people in New York. Personally I was astonished how remittances were sent from home countries to individuals in U.S, however, it makes sense that these individuals needed help in starting up their life in some place completely new, and where they faced racism/ segregation. Many of these individuals relied on these transnational networks just to survive, which emphasizes how they relied on so much trust. These networks considering their capability, were quite remarkable because at some points, they involved the transfer of billions of dollars. Many families relied on the money being sent from other countries in the form of remittances, to survive in their current economic slump. These networks involved numerous individuals, thus if one person were to ruin the general flow of the money, it would devastate many families. These networks involved the lending and transfer of money, and if fraud actions were committed by few individuals, it would hurt many, thus it empathizes the importance of trust. A personal example would be that when my family moved from Afghanistan to India to immediately escape the war conditions. Afterwards, half of our family migrated to the U.S, while the other half stayed in India momentarily. During this time, my older brother and sister sent money to us every month from America, until eventually, we migrated to America as well. This emphasizes my family’s personal transnational network, and even though we all live in America, we still have ties with our home countries of Afghanistan and India, hence transnational.
The second article was the most intriguing in my opinion, considering the way Olwig conducted her research based on personal interviews. However, although many other individuals have conducted interviews and used them as viable results, the other individuals mostly correlate the interviews, and state their findings in a summarized manner, combining numerous interviews. However, Olwig’s article treated the interviews as unique examples in her article, and actually stated the personal experiences of families she interviewed in a distinct manner in her article, to describe the complex action of migration. Another aspect of the article that was intriguing was how Olwig started the article by stating how she will debunk the definition of migration, being that it is only the act of moving from one country to another. However, Olwig emphasizes that the process of migration is much more complex, involving many other important factors, and I agree with her based on my personal experiences when migrating to the U.S. Olwig states that the process of migration does not end when one person arrives at a different country, that is just one step of migration. Migration involves all the hardships that the individuals face before migrating, during their actual act of moving, and even after they arrive, when they are attempting to assimilate into the setting which is inevitably unwelcoming because of the racism and segregation there. The process of migration is much more complex, because during the time, it wasn’t a short occurrence, but it was a gradual life changing period of time.
