Organizing Immigrant Communities in American Cities: Is this Transnationalism or What?

The term transnationalism is now commonly used by a growing cluster of social scientists. However, some authors state that the term is practically useless: it tries to explain everything, and it ends up explaining nothing new, or even worst, its regular users seem not to agree on the definition of the term, and the debates that it generates generally takes social scientists nowhere. The proposed paper deals with this situation from two perspectives. Firstly, we point out the theoretical problems that transnationalism presents as an interdisciplinary concept. We expose the use of the term in several disciplines (political science, sociology, law, economy, migration studies, and anthropology), and emphasize how these disciplines generate different theoretical considerations. Then, we expose how each discipline has dealt with different units of analysis while attempting to build a solid theoretical background, focusing mainly on the individual, the family, organizations, the society, the economy, the polity, cultural practices, and the state. Finally, we argue that the use of the term transnationalism has been transformed to a point in which is practically impossible to sustain the broader sense of the term beyond its generic roots. Terms like political transnationalism, anthropological transnationalism, sociological transnationalism, etc., form a more feasible working frame if the term is to prevail in the neighborhood. Secondly, from an empirical perspective, we develop an analysis of political transnationalism based on the Mexican immigrant experience in American cities. We focus on an organizational analysis of transnational politics, and lay emphasis on the role of the Mexican and American states in the process. In the analysis, we underline several factors that characterize the analysis within a political transnational framework, like: (1) addressing the elite formation among immigrants in the process, (2) the agenda setting process, and (3) underlining the effect that non-electoral politics exert on electoral politics, mostly at local and state levels, within a framework of political mobilization of a immigrant community in an urban setting. Data for this paper was obtained from in-situ historical research, analysis of secondary sources, and more than 50 interviews that took place mostly in Houston and Chicago, between February and July 2002. Interviewees include leaders, activists, organizers, chairmen, and priests within a wide range of organizational backgrounds: community-based organizations, service providers, unions, church-based organizations, chambers of commerce, civic associations, and Mexican state federations. Immigration scholars, officials from the Mexican Consulate and city officials in both cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]