MIGRATION STRATEGIES IN URBAN CONTEXTS: LABOR MIGRATION FROM MEXICO CITY TO THE UNITED STATES

Transcription

1 MIGRATION STRATEGIES IN URBAN CONTEXTS: LABOR MIGRATION FROM MEXICO CITY TO THE UNITED STATES Fernando Lozano Ascencio Centro Regional de Investigaciones Multidisciplinarias de la UNAM Av. Universidad s/n Circuito 2 Colonia Chamilpa, C.P Cuernavaca, Morelos, México Phone (7) Fax (7) flozano@correo.crim.unam.mx Paper presented at the XXII International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA2000) Miami, Florida March 16-18, 2000

2 INTRODUCTION The progressive urbanization of Mexican society over the last three decades is a process highly associated with the increasing participation of the urban-origin population in the migration flow to the United States. Urban migrants not only include those who were born in the cities, but also people from rural areas who have migrated and settled in Mexican cities. The urbanization of this international labor flow has promoted a changing profile in Mexican migration to the United States. Several authors have documented, among other changes, a shift from temporary to longer term migration, the incorporation of new Mexican states and metropolitan areas as providers of migrants, the presence of more women among migrants, and in general a more educated migrant population (Verduzco 1980; Alba 1985 and 1994; Bean, Espenshade, White and Dymoski 1990; Corona 1998, Cornelius 1992, Lozano-Ascencio 1998, Papail Marcelli and Cornelius, 1999). The existing body of research on Mexican migration to the United States has concentrated mainly on Mexican rural communities. Most of the theoretical approaches explaining international Mexican migration are based on studies from rural areas. However, the social dynamics of migration from urban contexts, and particularly, from major cities are sufficiently different from those of smaller towns to warrant separate study (Massey, Goldring and Durand, 1994). The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the social dynamics of international migration in urban contexts, particularly in the Mexico City Metropolitan Area (MCMA). Based on a migration system perspective, the idea is to explore the way that Mexico City international migration operates and the different migration strategies that Mexico City migrants pursue. After a brief reflection on migration systems, the paper examines the growing presence of Mexico City migrants in the international flow to the United States, and presents the methodology employed in the fieldwork (fieldwork design, questionnaire design, data collection, types of migrants interviewed, strategies to find and contact migrants). Next, the paper analyzes demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of individuals in the Mexico City sample, their patterns of internal and international migration, and the general characteristics of their U.S. migration experience. Finally it presents some biographic sketches to illustrate Mexico City patterns of migration and some conclusions. REFLECTIONS ON MIGRATION SYSTEMS At the basis of the system approach to the study of international migration is the concept of a migration system constituted by a group of countries that exchange relatively large numbers of migrants with each other (Kritz and Zlotnik 1992). These authors argue that at a minimum, a migration system includes at least two countries, although, it is possible to include in a system all countries linked by large migration flows. In a specific migration system, population exchange involves permanent migrants, migrant workers, refugees, students, businessmen and tourists, all of whom eventually become involved in labor flows. Extending on this migration system approach, Roberts, Frank and Lozano-Ascencio (1999) suggest that Mexico-US migration is based on three different migration systems that have distinct implications for Mexican migrant adjustment to the United States. These migration systems are temporary, permanent and transnational. Each system is defined by specific social and economic structures in places of origin and destination that reproduce 1

3 particular patterns of migrant behavior. When these structures complement each other, they create a migration system. A temporary migration system rests on a structure of economic opportunities in the place of origin that, while insufficient for the full subsistence of a household, nonetheless maintain a family if one or more members of the household become labor migrants. The temporary nature of this labor migration is reinforced by a structure of opportunities in the place of destination that provide work opportunities, which are temporary, either because of the nature of the job as in seasonal agriculture or because of official restrictions on permanent stay. Several studies, particularly in the Center-West region of Mexico, have documented that market-oriented, semi-subsistence agriculture, on the one hand, and the demand for temporary labor particularly in Californian agriculture on the other hand, constituted the basis of the historic temporary migration system between Mexico and the United States (Mines 1981, López 1986, Massey et. al 1987, Cornelius 1990). A permanent migration system rests on the lack of economic opportunities in the place of origin and the attraction of permanent work opportunities in the place of destination. The more abundant and stable the work opportunities at destination, and the fewer the legal barriers to obtaining them, the stronger the permanent migration system will be. Structural problems in the Mexican economy, such as low salaries and U.S. demand for year-round, low-skilled labor in industries such as construction and urban services, create the basis for a permanent migration system. A transnational migration system is based on the interrelationship between opportunities in places of origin and places of destination. According to Glick Schiller, Basch and Szanton-Blanc (1999) transnational migration is the process by which immigrants forge and sustain simultaneous multi-stranded social relations that link together their societies of origin and settlement. People who participate in this kind of migration are not sojourners; they settle and gradually participate more and more in the economy and political institutions of the host country. At the same time, however, they maintain social and economic connections with their country or community of origin, by sending money, building institutions, and participating in local and national events. Many scholars have documented a variety of transnational migration forms between the United States and different sending countries, including Mexico (Smith 1995, Rouse 1992), the Dominican Republic (Guarnizo 1993), as well as between European receiving countries and their sending states (Faist 1999). The three systems of migration operate simultaneously to shape Mexico-US migration and are by no means mutually exclusive. They are likely to be associated with differences in the individual characteristics and social networks of rural or urban migrants. Lomitz (1976) defines a social network as a structured set of social relationships among individuals, and Granovetter (1973) makes a useful distinction between strong and weak ties in social networks. Granovetter suggests that strong ties consist of those in which there are important emotional linkages and/or frequent, routine interactions; strong ties are similar to primary relationships, usually among kin and friends. Weak ties are not as encompassing as strong ties. Weak ties include specialized contacts within formal organizations, or between clients and service providers; they also include ties among individuals that simply lack emotional strength. Strong ties are usually associated with strong communities because they imply cohesion (Granovetter 1973). 2

4 The three systems of migration are closely associated with specific social networks. For example, migrants from villages or small towns are more likely to be part of either a permanent or a transnational migration system. Although their local ties are strong and the possibilities of investing and influencing community development are high, it is difficult from them to subsist at home without continuing year-round income from abroad, and this makes the temporary migration strategy less workable than in the past. Conversely, migrants from the cities are more likely to be temporary or permanent migrants, because community ties are weak and the possibility of contributing to local is low, but cities include economic opportunities to which migrants can return and in which they can invest their migrant earnings. Whereas one can find substantial evidence concerning the motivations behind rural migrants in promoting and engaging in transnational migration, very little work has been done to evaluate the options facing urban migrants and the different patterns of migration they follow. This paper explores the relatively recent nature of urban-origin international migration, particularly in the Mexico City Metropolitan Area (MCMA). TRENDS IN MEXICO CITY MIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES The participation of Mexico City migrants in the international flow to the United States has changed significantly over the present century. With the available data, it is possible to establish three different periods in the history of this migration flow. During the first period from the 1920s to the mid-1960s Mexico City presented medium to high rates of emigration to the United States. The second period, from the mid-1960s through the 1970s, was characterized by low rates of international migration, and the third period, from 1980 to the mid-1990s, was distinguished by moderate to high rates of international migration. The definition of these three periods is tentative, but it is helpful to illustrate the increasing migration from the Mexico City Metropolitan Area (MCMA) to the United States. In this section I examine the evolution of Mexico City migration to the United States, based on eleven nationally representative surveys (see Table 1). In this description, I include State of Mexico as part of the MCMA in order to make comparable the eleven sources. However, we have to recognize that until 1950, two State of Mexico municipios (Naucalpan and Tlanepantla) became part of the MCMA. In regard to the first migration period, Manuel Gamio (1930) found that Mexico City and the State of Mexico received 5.3 percent of money orders transferred from the United States during July and August of The source the author selected was postal money orders received by the Dirección General de Correos de México (Mexican Postal Service). Gamio s point of departure was the assumption that postal money orders originating in the United States and destined for Mexico were sent by Mexicans migrants to their families. The utilization of these data also led Gamio to identify the places of origin and destination of migration flows between the two countries. However, there is not enough evidence to assume that 5.3 percent of migrants were Mexico City-origin migrants. [Table 1 about here] According to Mexican Government statistics, in 1944, a quarter of U.S. temporary agricultural workers was from Mexico City. This considerable concentration does not necessarily mean that these agricultural migrants were permanent residents of the city. One explanation for this heavy concentration could be that one of the most important 3

5 recruitment centers for the Bracero program was located in the Federal District, and migrants from the surrounded states moved to Mexico City to be enrolled in the aforementioned program (Durand 1994). Thus, in spite of the fact that in the first migration period Mexico City appears as an important provider of international migrants, the city functioned mostly as a transit point for rural-origin migrants from the central region of Mexico. During the second period of international migration, particularly in the 1970s, the MCMA shows very low rates of international migration. Based on interviews on the Northern border among Mexicans deported by U.S. authorities, the Comisión Intersecretarial para el Estudio del Problema de la Emigración Subrepticia de Trabajadores Mexicanos a los Estados Unidos de América found that in 1974, 4 percent of 1,416 individuals were residents from Mexico City and the State of Mexico. One year later the same Commission found that 3.6 percent of 1,658 Mexicans deported were residents from the same states. Following the same methodology interviews among Mexicans deported by U.S. authorities the Centro de Información y Estadísticas de Trabajo found that in 1977 and 1978, 4.6 percent and 3.8 percent of migrants were Mexico City and State of Mexico residents. It is noteworthy that during the 1970s, the participation of migrants from the State of Mexico barely surpasses one percent of the total, situation that changed radically in the next decade. The third international migration period shows considerable growth of Mexico City and State of Mexico residents in the labor flow to the United States. The last five sources presented in Table 1 illustrate this trend. In 1984 the Mexican National Population Council coordinated a survey of 9,631 undocumented migrants along the Northern Mexican border. This survey called ETIDEU found that 5.1 percent of undocumented migrants were living in Mexico City and the State of Mexico before migrating to the United States. The Legalized Population Survey (LPS1) and the follow-up survey (LPS2) conducted among U.S. immigrants legalized under the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) in 1989 and 1992 found that Mexico City and the State of Mexico comprised the place of residence of 7.4 percent of respondents. By 1992 the National Survey of Demographic Dynamics (ENADID) found that return and absent migrants from Mexico City and the State of Mexico constituted 10.2 percent of the migrant population. In fact, 1992 is the first year that migrants from the MCMA become the third most important group after Michoacán (14.3 percent) and Jalisco (11.3 percent). The Encuesta sobre Migración en la Frontera Norte (EMIF), conducted in , shows that the flow of migrants from Federal District and State of Mexico to the United States constituted 8 percent of the total flow. Finally the CONTEO95 survey, a representative sample of 80 thousand Mexican households (conducted during November and December of 1995), shows that 9.6 percent of return and absent migrants who were working or looking for a job in the United States during the five-year period prior to the survey, were living in the Federal District and in the state of Mexico. It is noteworthy that the participation of State of Mexico s migrants in the international flow to the United States becomes significantly high in 1992 and 1995, at 6 and 7 percent respectively. As I mentioned before, I decided to include the State of Mexico figures as a part of the Mexico City metro area because in most of the surveys (with the exception of EMIF) it is not possible to distinguish the municipios that belong to the 4

6 MCMA (37 in 1995). However, I recognize that not all international migrants from the State of Mexico are part of the MCMA, and thus I could be over-estimating this flow. Nonetheless, Federal District migrants by themselves share increasing participation in the international labor flow to the United States, a process that reflects a powerful change in the international migration pattern: the incorporation of new states and new urban areas to this international flow. DATA COLLECTION AND DESCRIPTION OF THE SAMPLE A survey of 60 Mexico City residents with international labor experience in the United States was conducted between May and August Two research questions orient this analysis: (1) what is the urban experience that promotes international migration? And (2) what are the social and economic strategies employed by Mexico City dwellers in the migration process to the United States? Intensive interviewing was employed to understand how extended is international migration in Mexico City, the effects of the Mexican economic crisis on the internal and international migration, and concentrations of international migrants in specific barrios or colonias. Key informants included migration specialists, political leaders, city government officials, and grass-roots neighborhood organization leaders. The general finding of this preliminary interviewing was that migration to the United States is a very dispersed process in the MCMA. There does not appear to be any great concentration of migrants within the metro area, even in neighborhoods that traditionally have sent migrants to the United States, such as Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl. So, I faced the problem of finding migrants with international migration experience in a metropolis of 17 million people. I solved this problem of contacting potential interviewees through grass-root neighborhood organizations, and by using the snowball technique, through which the interviewees suggest other potential interviewees (Wolcott 1995). I decided to interview people from the working class (manual and low-skilled workers), as well as middle-income workers and professionals (public employees, clerical workers, small business employees, and teachers). Males and females in the different stages of the life cycle were interviewed. I also decided to interview people from two areas inside the MCMA. One area that I call the Center Zone has a population with a high share of native Mexico City natives, and the other are the Periphery Zone is constituted by barrios and colonias with a higher share of non-native Mexico City residents. Working through grass-root neighborhood organizations to find potential interviewees was a very a successful experience, since most of these organizations have members with international migration experience. One of the central goals of these organizations is to get housing for their affiliates, and migration to the United States is a good option for many people to get quick money to buy or build a house. I employed the following strategy to establish contact with these organizations. I first established contact with Mexico City leaders of the Urban Popular Movement (Movimiento Urbano Popular- MUP). This movement coordinates the social and political activities of the majority of neighborhood organizations in the Mexico City metropolitan area. The MUP has weekly meetings with grass-roots organization leaders. At two MUP meetings, I presented the purpose of my investigation and explained my intention to interview migrants and exmigrants in several barrios. In this way I contacted ten different organizations in both the 5

7 Center and Periphery Zones. Table 2 presents the names of these organizations, their locations and predominant economic class of their affiliates. [Table 2 about here] Survey respondents were asked questions about their labor and migratory histories, as well as individual and household networks. The survey questionnaire is divided in six sections: (1) sociodemographic information about the household members, (2) family background, (3) labor and migration history, (4) Labor market experience in the United States, (5) socioeconomic conditions in Mexico, (6) respondents attitudes and opinions about life, social and civil rights in Mexico and in the United States. Open-ended questions were used extensively in order to allow full exploration of a number of significant topics. CONTEMPORARY MIGRATION PATTERNS IN MEXICO CITY TO THE UNITED STATES In this section I use data gathered from 60 Mexico City metropolitan area residents with international migration experience. Active migrants as well as ex-migrants were interviewed. The main purpose of this section is to analyze the different patterns of migration that characterize my Mexico City sample. First, I analyze demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of individuals in the sample, their patterns of internal and international migration, and the general characteristics of their U.S. migration experience, such as legal status, occupation and length of stay. This information is central in my definitions of current migration patterns and migration strategies. Next, I present some biographic sketches to illustrate Mexico City patterns of migration. In each case I examine the urban experience that promoted international migration, the social networks that Mexico City respondents employ to migrate and to find jobs in the United States, and the different migration strategies adopted by Mexico City migrants. Demographic Profile of Migrants In Mexico City we collected information from individuals living in seven different Federal District Delegaciones, and in five State of Mexico Municipios, all of them in the Mexico City metropolitan area (MCMA). We interviewed 34 individuals from the MCMA Central Zone and 25 individuals from the MCMA Periphery Zone. 1 One interviewee declared he lived in the United States. The demographic profile of our interviewees is the following: 75 percent are males (45 cases) and 25 percent females (15 cases). Half of them are concentrated in the age group 30-39, and the average age of the whole group is 36.5 years. Married migrants are the majority in the sample, with 56.7 percent of the cases, 35 percent are single persons, and 8.3 percent divorced and widowed migrants. With regard to respondents positions inside their households 68.3 percent declared they are household heads, 11.7 percent spouses, and 16.7 percent children. The average number of persons living in the household is 4.3 (see Table 3). Although results from the Mexico City data are illustrative not as representative of a defined universe, the demographic profile we got from this data is pretty close to the metropolitan migrant profile based on Encuesta sobre Migración en la Frontera Norte (EMIF) data. 1 The Central Zone includes the following Delegaciones: Coyoacán, Cuauhtémoc, Gustavo A. Madero, Miguel Hidalgo, and Tlalpan. The Periphery Zone includes three Federal District Delegaciones (Iztacalco, Iztapalapa, and Tláhuac), and five State of Mexico Municipios, Chimalhuacán, Ecatepec, Los Reyes la Paz, Naucalpan, and Ciudad Nezahualcóyotl. 6

8 The Mexico City international migrants possess considerable levels of formal education: 16.7 percent were enrolled in primary school, 20 percent in secondary schools, 30 percent in preparatory, and a full third in university-level programs (Table 4). The average schooling of the sample is 11.3 years, considerable higher than the average schooling among metropolitan migrants in EMIF (8 years). It could indicate an overrepresentation of middle-class individuals in the Mexico City sample. Concerning the occupation and family income in Mexico 23.3 percent of respondents were working as professionals or technical workers, 31.6 percent as clerical workers, and 23.3 percent as low-skilled manual workers. The reminder (21.7 percent) were unemployed, housekeepers or pensioners. Monthly family income averaged about US$460, and ranged from US$765 (for professionals) to US$221 (for pensioners and the unemployed). As I expected, Mexico City migrants living in the Central Zone have a higher level of education (12.3 years) than their counterparts who live in the Periphery Zone (9.8 years). Differences in education levels by zone are consistent with differences in family income. Migrants living in the Center Zone earned an average of US$563 per month, and migrants from the Periphery Zone earned an average of US$322. [Tables 3 and 4 about here] Migratory Sequences Not surprisingly in a region with a high presence of internal in-migrants, I found that 27 percent of Mexico City respondents were born outside of the metropolitan area (Table 5). 2 This statistic is consistent with the population distribution by place of birth in the Federal District in 1995: 75 percent born in Mexico City and 25 percent born outside the city (INEGI 1997). However, these numbers are not consistent with the distribution of native and non-native population by state of residence in some international migration surveys. For example, 1992 ENADID data show that 71 percent of return migrants living in the Federal District at the time of the survey were non-natives. According to ENADID, the percentage of non-native migrants in the State of Mexico was 66 percent. On the other hand, the U.S. Legalized Population Survey (LPS) data show similar trends. According to this source, 63 percent of the legalized population from the Federal District was non-native, as was 60 percent from the State of Mexico. Thus, ENADID and LPS data confirm that around two-thirds of international migrants from these two states migrated first to the Federal District or State of Mexico, and after that, moved to the United States. [Table 5 about here] Our data indicate that, in addition to the 27 percent who were born in another state, 18 percent of the MCMA natives moved inside the country before or after migrating to the United States. This last figure elevates the share of respondents with internal migration experience to 45 percent. To continue, I analyze the internal and international migration sequences of Mexico City migrants. First, I examine migration sequences of MCMA natives, and then those of MCMA non-natives. The data indicate that 44 of our interviewees were born in the MCMA, and of those, 75 percent had only international migration experience, while 25 percent had both internal and international migration experiences. Considering only the group with internal migration 2 Contrary to what I expected, those who declared were born outside the MCMA are equally distributed in the Central and the Periphery zones. 7

9 experience, more than half migrated internally (interstate migration in the Mexican Republic) before going to the United States, and slightly less than half migrated internally after going to the United States (Table 6). The most frequent migration sequence of those with internal migration before going to the United States is the following: migrants move first to a Mexican state in the northern border region; then they migrate to the United States, and finally they move back to Mexico City. Migrants in this type of sequence do not necessarily move to the border in order to migrate to the United States; however, once at the border, they gather information about the labor market in the United States, and eventually decide to migrate. The case of César Delgado is typical of this type of sequency. César was born in 1968 in the Colonia Ramos Millán, Delegación Iztacalco, Mexico City. Because he married very young and immediately began to raise a family he completely only a secondary education, and at age 16, he began to work as a manual worker in a garment factory. At age 17 he moved alone to Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, to work in a hardware store. One year later he moved back to Mexico City and continued working in the garment sector. After three years, in 1989, he moved to Rosarito, Baja California, and worked there for a year in a passenger-elevator business. In 1990, under the advice of a brother-in-law, César migrated to Los Angeles, California, and he worked there for four years in a furniture factory. During those four years, his wife and his two children lived with him in Los Angeles. In 1993 the whole family moved back to Mexico City, where César worked in a hotel as a receptionist. César migrated to the United States two more times. From June 1995 to December 1996, he worked in Los Angeles in the same furniture factory. Finally, from March to August 1997, César traveled to San Francisco, California, where he joined one of his brothers. In San Francisco he worked as a driver in a valet parking business and as a handyman in a restaurant. César currently lives in the Delegación Iztapalapa, Federal District, and he does not currently have a job in Mexico. However, if he finds a good job in Mexico not necessarily in the MCMA César would resign his carrier as temporary migrant to the United States. Migrants who were born in the MCMA and migrated internally after going to the United State, adopted the following migration sequence. All of them were born in the MCMA; without migrating in Mexico, they moved directly to the United States. After a period of time abroad, instead of going back to the MCMA, they moved to a different state inside Mexico. Finally, they moved back to their place of origin, that is, to the Mexico City metropolitan area. Although I found some individuals who participated in this type of sequence I did not find any particular pattern of destinations within Mexico that could further characterize this migration sequence (see Table 6). [Table 6 about here] Our data indicate that 16 of the migrants were born outside the MCMA: 10 in the center-south region, 5 in the historic region, and one in the border region. 3 The most frequent migration sequence I found among non-native migrants includes individuals born 3 The states considered in each region are the following. Border: Baja California Norte y Sur, Coahuila, Chihuahua, Nuevo León, Sinaloa, Sonora, and Tamaulipas. Historic: Aguascalientes, Colima, Durango, Guanajuato, Jalisco, Michoacán, Nayarit, San Luis Potosí, and Zacatecas. Center-South: Distrito Federal, Guerrero, Hidalgo, Estado de México, Morelos, Oaxaca, Puebla, Querétaro, Tlaxcala, Campeche, Chiapas, Quintana Roo, Tabasco, Veracruz and Yucatán (see Corona 1998). 8

10 in the center region, particularly in the states of Hidalgo, Guerrero, Oaxaca, and Puebla. Center region migrants moved first to the MCMA, then to the United States, and finally back to Mexico City. The other significant migration sequence includes individuals born in the historic region (Guanajuato, Jalisco, and Michoacán), who eventually migrated to Mexico City, then to the United States, and then back to Mexico City. One of four Mexico City migrants included in our sample were step-migrants, who moved initially to Mexico City and subsequently to the United States. Thus, our data support Cornelius (1992) argument that Mexico City is not only absorbing internal migrants from the countryside and provincial cities, but also serves increasingly as a platform for migration to the United States. Although many migrants experienced sequences that combined internal and internal migration, the majority of Mexico City migrants (55 percent) migrated only to the United States, and did not experience any type of internal migration. In the next section I elaborate patterns of international migration in the sample, and I consider elements from migrants U.S. experience. Migration Frequency, Duration and Destinations Almost half (46.7 percent) of the Mexico City sample made only one labor trip to the United States, while 37 percent made two or three trips, and 21.6 percent made four trips or more trips during their migration career. However, migration frequency per se does not indicate any particular migration pattern. To establish those patterns we must combine information about the number of migration trips, the duration of these trips, and the period of time during which these trips were made. Focusing on the last trip s characteristics, about 45.7 percent of respondents stayed in the United States up to one year. One-fourth of them stayed for one to two years, and 30.5 percent stayed more than two years. The mean length of stay in the United States was 22 months, and the median stay was 15 months. These high average stays may indicate that metropolitan migrants are less involved in seasonal occupations and more involved in yearround activities (such as full-time work) which reduce their frequency of temporary labor migration. We interviewed both active and non-active migrants. About 30 percent of respondents ended their last migration before 1990, and 70 percent ended their last migration during the 1990s. [Table 7 about here] Mexico City data indicate that the expansion of migrant networks and the shift to year-round, full-time work have become important factors affecting the choice of migration destinations. Mexico City migrants destinations in the United States vary across data sources. Historically, California and Texas have been the two main destinations. The Legalized Population Survey (LPS2) reports that 67 percent migrated to California, 15 percent to Illinois, and 11 percent to Texas. Although the LPS2 was administered in 1992, it includes only those migrants who arrived in the United States by January 1, 1982, that is, five years prior to IRCA approval in Therefore, the LPS2 reflects the characteristics of older cohorts of settled migrants. In contrast, EMIF data report that 51 percent of Mexico City migrants went to Texas, and 36 percent to California. This discrepancy could be the result of the different populations included in LPS2 and EMIF. As mentioned LPS2 interviewed immigrants who arrived to the United States up to 1982, while EMIF interviewed current migrants in , that is, people who were at the precise moment of moving back to Mexico. 9

11 Our Mexico City data show that 50 percent of respondents migrated to California during their last trip, while10 percent went to Texas, to Illinois, to New York, and 23.4 percent to eight other states (see Table 7). Our respondents migrated to 24 different U.S. cities. However 25 percent were concentrated in Los Angeles. Thirty percent migrated to four cities New York, San Francisco, Dallas, and Chicago and 45 percent migrated to the other 19 U.S. cities. A Typology of Migrants Information about migration frequency, duration of residence in the United States, and time of departure and arrival during the last labor trip are central in my definition of migration typology. Alejandro Portes (1997) argues that typologies are valid intellectual exercises, but that they are not theories, because the distinction between different migrant groups does not say anything about the causal origins of each flow or its particular pattern of adaptation. 4 Thus the construction of a migration typology based on the variables mentioned requires some arbitrary simplifications, and these typologies are only methodological instruments to examine the different migration strategies that Mexico City people pursue. Figure 1 summarizes a scheme I developed for classifying strategies employed by migrants in the Mexico City sample. 5 According to this classification scheme, retired migrants are those who stopped migrating at least twelve years ago. I assume they will not move again to the United States. New migrants are those who have migrated only once during the 1990s, and spent up to two years in the United States. Settled migrants spent two years or more on their most recent trip. Finally, temporary migrants have migrated more than once; they spent less than 2 years in the United States on most recent trip, and began migrating in 1987 or later. The temporary migrant group is the most diverse and complex one. The temporary group includes people with recurrent migration patterns, i.e., cyclical migrants with regular periods of stay in the United States. The temporary group also includes erratic migration patterns, for example those who move initially for noneconomic reasons (e.g., just for the experience), but eventually take a job in the United States. 4 Portes points out that typologies may become building blocks for theories but, by themselves, they do not amount to a theoretical statement because they simply assert differences without specifying their origins or anticipating their consequences. (Portes 1997:806) 5 I make use of some definitions suggested by Massey et. al (1987) 10

12 Figure 1 Operational Definition of Migrant Strategies using Mexico City Data Migrant Strategy Definition Retired Began last labor trip and returned to Mexico before 1986 New Settled Temporary Migrated only once time, returned to Mexico after 1990, and spent up to 24 months in the United States. Spent more than two years in the United States on most recent trip Migrated more than once, spent less than two years on most recent trip, and began migrating in 1987 or later Table 8 presents migration frequency, duration and destination in the United States by migrant strategy. While 80 percent of retired migrants named California as their place of destination during their last trip, more than half of new and temporary migrants moved to other states. Texas was the most recent destination for 30 percent of the new migrant group. These patterns suggest that the changing profile of Mexican migration to the United States is characterized, among other things, by a growing number of destinations in the United States (Cornelius 1992, Corona 1998). [Table 8 about here] Table 9 shows demographic and social characteristics of the four groups. The sex ratio in all four groups is similar about three males for each female. As we expected, retired migrants are concentrated in the oldest age group (40 years old or more), new migrants in the youngest (between 20 and 29 years old), and settled and temporary migrants in the 30 to 39 age range. Whereas 43.3 percent of all respondents are single, only 56 percent of temporary migrants are single. Although the level of education in the sampled population is high (since 63 percent of respondents have either high school or university preparation) among settled migrants that percentage increases to 80 percent. In terms of the occupation and family income in Mexico, temporary migrants are more likely to be professional or technical workers, and less likely to be low-skilled manual workers than the other type of migrants. Their occupations may explain why they have higher family incomes on average. Temporary migrants also possess the highest rates of unemployed and pensioners. [Table 9 about here] Table 10 shows migrants place of birth, zone of current residence s in the MCMA, and internal migration experience. Our data show that migrants who were born in the MCMA have a higher propensity to participate in the settled migration pattern than those who were born outside the MCMA. Settled and temporary migrants tend to live in the Center Zone of the MCMA, and settled migrants tend to have considerable less internal migration experience. Thus, people participating in the settled migrant strategy move directly to the United States, without going to other internal destinations. [Table 10 about here] 11

13 CASES OF MIGRATION STRATEGIES In the following section I present cases that illustrate three types of migration strategies identified in the Mexico City fieldwork: new, temporary and settled. New Migration Victor Manuel, 34, is a new migrant from the MCMA Periphery Zone. He has made just one trip to the United States in his lifetime. Born in 1964 in the Colonia Obrera, Federal District, Victor is the second of three children. His father was born in Hidalgo, and his mother in Veracruz. Since he was eight years old, Victor has lived in the Delegación Iztapalapa, and he had never moved, even within the city. At age 17, he began working at an electronic parts factory, while continuing to attend the high school. Victor earned his Bachelor s degree in psychology, and as soon as he left the University he found a job at the Mexican Ministry of Health, where he has been working for the last ten years. Although Victor has university education, he does not work in the psychology field; instead, he has an administrative job with a monthly salary of US$300. In January 1998 Victor decided to migrate to the United States by crossing the border with a tourist passport. Victor asked the Health Ministry for a six-month leave without pay. The primary motivation for his move to the United States was to earn some extra money. However, he also expressed a desire to visit his sister in Oklahoma, and his brother in San Jose, California. They are settled migrants in the United States. He went to visit his sister first, and he spent three months in Oklahoma. While he was there, he worked in an automobile assembly plant. After his three months in Oklahoma Victor joined his brother in San Jose, California, where he worked in a food-processing factory. He left the United States on the day his tourist visa expired, exactly six months after he first entered the United States. He wanted to keep a good record with U.S. immigration authorities, so that he could return to the United States in the future. Although he felt his U.S. salary was good and considerably higher than his salary in Mexico he said he definitely would not travel again to work in the United States. Victor s experience reflects the situation of a high proportion of Mexican migrants who have made only one labor trip to the United States and never returned. Working with EMIF data, Rodolfo Corona found that 34 percent of all Mexicans interviewed at the U.S.- Mexico border, as they were traveling back to Mexico, had migrated to the United States just once during their lifetime (see Corona 1998, Table 1). Temporary migration Hugo Torres, aged 35, was born in Epazoyucan, Hidalgo, Mexico. He attended primary school in that rural town of Epazoyucan until the sixth grade, and then at thirteen he moved to a traditional working-class neighborhood in Mexico City. In this neighborhood called Tepito, he began his own business buying and selling used merchandise. In 1994, when he was 32, he migrated internationally for the first time to San Diego, California. He crossed the border without inspection, as an indocumentado. His immediate family had no tradition of migrating to the United States. However, one of his cousins invited him to go to the United States, and he went because,...the economic situation in Mexico was extremely difficult. He spent five months in San Diego during his first trip, and eighteen months during the second trip. In both trips he worked as a dishwasher with an income of US$4.25 per hour. His aim of migrating to the United States 12

14 was to save some money to buy a car and a house in Mexico. He says that he has no intention of settling in the United States, however, Hugo is planning another trip to the United States, this time to Texas, because he believes there are more jobs there. His migration strategy reflects his desire to supplement his Mexican income. Margarita Robles, aged 39, was born in Mexico City. She is indicative of a group of skilled and professional migrants including high school teachers, accountants, lawyers, and medical doctors who increasingly migrate temporarily to the United States. An important characteristic of this group of migrants is that they are unable to practice their professions in the United States and therefore their U.S. jobs are likely to be in low-skilled occupations. Margarita is the single mother of a four-year-old child. She lives with her mother and two sisters in La Colonia San Rafael, in the middle of the MCMA Central Zone. Margarita studied in the Chemistry Department at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), where she received her Bachelor s degree. In 1983 the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS) hired her, and she worked there for five years. Later, in 1988, following the advice of a friend, she migrated to Los Angeles, where she worked as a housekeeper in a hotel and as a cook at Taco Bell. Although she only earned US$4.75 per hour, she saved US$10,000 in fifteen months, by working at two jobs for an average of fifteen hours per day. That money allowed her to make a down payment on a house in Mexico. Despite obtaining a very good income, Margarita decided not to migrate permanently to the US. Instead, she is planning to migrate again,... but just to have some money, and go back to Mexico. Although Hugo and Margarita belong to different social classes, their migration experience is similar, partly because the US labor market tends to homogenize the jobs that Mexican immigrants can obtain. They do not belong to families where migration to the United States is part of the culture, and they choose temporary migration, because they retain social and economic interest are in Mexico. International migration is a survival strategy that allows them to generate additional financial resources. Settled Migration Claudia Moreno, aged 40, represents the group of migrants who have settled in the United States, although after several years, she had to return to her country of origin. Claudia was born and raised in Federal District. She is the fourth child of a family of nine siblings. After she completed middle school, she took a technical career in a commerce school. Since age fourteen she has worked in different jobs, mostly in white-collar occupations. Her most stable job was at a Mexican government office (ISSSTE), where she worked for twelve years. At age 25 Claudia married, and had two daughters. She never had a good relationship with her husband, and she divorced him in By then she was thirty years old, and she needed a better-paying job, in order to support her two daughters. However, she could not find a better job in Mexico, despite her substantial experience as an administrative assistant. In Claudia s words: For a single mother, for a divorced woman like me with two children, it is so difficult to find a job in Mexico. You can find a job, but with a very low salary. Moreover, if you are thirty or thirty-two, you are too old for the majority of 13

15 businesses. So, the only possibility is to have two jobs, but in that way you won t have enough time to share with your children. In 1990 Claudia decided to migrate to the United States permanently with her two children. Although Claudia had never worked before in the United States, she had made four short trips to visit members of her family. In fact, five out of eight of Claudia s siblings were residing permanently in the United States, three of them since mid-1970s. She had not chosen her final U.S. destination, and so she decided to visit different relatives in different cities to choose a place to live. Using a tourist passport to enter the United States, Claudia first flew from Mexico City to Los Angeles, and met her uncle who lived in Ventura, California. As soon as she arrived in Los Angeles area, Claudia realized that the city would not be a good place for to live. She borrowed an old car from her uncle and drove north to Chehalis, Washington, where one of her sisters lived with her husband and four children. With the help of her sister s neighbors, Claudia found a job in two days as a clerk in a gardening business, and one-week later she found her own apartment. At Claudia s workplace, a friend told her that Boston had better-paying jobs and that the city was nicer than Chehalis. Thus, after three months in Washington State, Claudia decided to move to Boston. However, on the way to Boston, she visited some distant relatives in Lockport, Illinois, and they warned Claudia about racism in Boston. Finally, she decided to settle in Lockport, where she had several jobs: first as low-skilled worker in a plastic manufacturing plant, the second as a low-skilled worker in a box-making factory, and the third as a delivery driver for a factory making car parts. Her last job, where she spent more than two years, was as a supervisor in a delicatessen at the Marriot Hotel. While Claudia was living in Lockport, she participated in a group that helps immigrants (mostly Mexicans) learn English and find jobs. A Catholic Parish coordinated this group. Claudia helped other Mexican immigrants to write job applications, and she helped type the group s paperwork. Claudia s participation in this social activity indicates a high level of integration into the host society, which is one of the characteristics of settled migration (Browning and Rodríguez 1985, Massey et.al 1987, Guarnizo 1993). Although Claudia moved to the United States permanently, at least according to her original plan, she could not control one important factor: her daughters always asked about their father. Thus in 1994, four years after they moved to the United States, Claudia and her two daughters flew back to Mexico City for a short trip to visit her ex-husband. When she tried to renew her tourist visa at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City the consular officers denied the visa, arguing that she could not demonstrate that she had a well-paid job in Mexico. The consular officers, however, did not find her to be a visa abuser. Claudia definitely plans to return to the United States. However, she does not want to cross the border as an indocumentada, because it is too dangerous, especially for small children. Since 1994 she has had four low-paid jobs, but she has not given up hope of getting a better-paying job and qualifying for another tourist visa. She is currently self-employed, selling instant soups and earning an average monthly income of US$

16 CONCLUSION Based on my Mexico City survey, I identified four possible migration patterns that MCMA migrants follow: Retired migration, new or exploratory migration, temporary migration and permanent migration. The construction of these migration patterns required some arbitrary simplifications. However, these patterns represent important methodological instruments to help understand the different strategies pursued by Mexico City people to migrate. Socio-economic conditions in the countries of origin and destination, and the individual characteristics of migrants (e.g., age, sex, and marital status) define specific migration behaviors. I found that urban experiences, which may promote first-time migration, include the local economic situation (e.g., low salaries or a recession), a desire to explore the U.S. labor market, or a thirst for the truth of migrating (a la aventura). Based on this first trip to the United States new migrants then decide to continue their migratory careers as temporary or permanent migrants, or they simply stop migrating. Migrants from the MCMA come from numerous barrios and colonias. They migrated individually, and once in the United States, they had little social contact with each other. Because their group ties are so weak, they do not see themselves collectively as a transnational migrant community. Instead, they tend to participate in temporary or permanent migration patterns. Temporary migrants are individuals who generally retain strong interest in Mexico. In my fieldwork I found that MCMA temporary migrants do not necessarily aspire to migrate permanently to the United States. On the contrary, they migrate to consolidate their social and economic situation in Mexico. The temporary migration strategy is a common way to obtain fast cash to meet specific expenses: to buy a car, to pay construction, remodeling or financing of a house, or to start a business. This fast cash strategy also reflects the difficulty sometimes the impossibility working and middle class people face in qualifying a bank loan in Mexico, since the 1994 peso devaluation elevated credit rates. Thus, temporary migrants keep their nuclear families in Mexico, and international migration is merely a strategy to complement their Mexican incomes. The combination of economic activities in Mexico and in the United States through temporary migration reflects not only the existence of social and economic structures that promote this temporary migration system, but also the high level of economic integration between these two countries. The permanent migration system is formed on the lack of economic opportunities in Mexico and on the availability of year-round, low- and medium-skilled jobs in U.S. labor market, especially in urban areas. Here individual characteristics also play an important role in migration behavior. Permanent migrants tend to see better opportunities in the United States not only in terms of wages, but also in terms of retirement plans, health services, and sometimes education for their children. Permanent migrants tend to settle in the United States with their families, and they play an important role in helping exploratory or temporary migrants by providing them with shelter and jobs networks. It is noteworthy that some permanent migrants, particularly those in the age group, decided to settle in the United States because they felt that the Mexican labor market favors the incorporation of young people, while the U.S. labor market is less selective with respect to age. This is a good example of how the combination of structural features (i.e., 15