Colleen Burke & Oressa Gray-Mullen

• Reflect on how people in countries may have such vast distinct experiences, but they also share similar hardships and benefits. What are these features?

Many immigrants have migrated due to the conditions of their home country. Regardless of where they might be from, they may have moved for similar reasons such as war, persecution, the pursuit of “better” education or finances, more job opportunities, freedom of speech, and other difficulties that may motivate someone to leave their known culture and life. Unfortunately, many migrants are “de-skilled” as their education and professional knowledge are not recognized as they migrate or after migration (Velasco, n.d.). In her media reflection, Jill Clark urges that immigrants should not be seen as a threat but “as an opportunity to generate innovation and growth.” Fears perpetuated by the media and politicians are unsupported, as “at the national level, immigrants contribute more to the generation of wealth in the host country than they may consume in public service” (Cortina & Ochoa-Reza, 2013, p.159). With such stigmas, the receiving nation misses out on the benefits of the human capital and the useful, cyclical knowledge of migrants that could be utilized to better manage migration.

Additionally, the demographics of migrants have shifted. According to the New Economics of Labor Migration theory, migration decisions are made within families or communities to maximize future expectations for migrants. Experiences can differ based on age and gender. Women traditionally prioritize family needs, while men often use resources for saving and investments to prepare for their planned return home. Women migrate primarily for employment reasons and secondarily for family reunification reasons. This was poorly studied until the 1980s as women were understood as accompanying dependents.

The migration journey may have similar challenges and experiences comparatively, such as shared resources, being scammed out of money, or ending up in a cycle of entering a new country and being sent back. One example of this is the story Velasco (n.d.) tells of Joseph from Zimbabwe. On his migration journey to the USA, Joseph was conned out of money and was stuck in Brazil then Ecuador, where he had to remain for years before he could afford to complete his goal of reaching the United States (Velasco, n.d.). Joseph did not give up because he was not welcome in Ecuador and because he was driven by a vision of journalistic freedom in America. Migrants accumulate knowledge in a cycle of movement and learning, which is shared in the digital safe spaces that connect them to other migrants and their home country (Velasco, n.d.). This contrasts with migrants’ potential experiences in their target country or a transit country like Ecuador, where there is a hostile environment for immigrants (Velasco, n.d.) or a stigma on discussions of documentation and migration (Gallo, n.d.).

Disruptions in a family can be experienced by any migrant and are impactful in complex ways resulting in varied motivations depending on the migrant’s physical and emotional relationship to their family. If they are deported like Princess’ father or migrated with the hopes to bring their family to them or to return home to them, this will affect their financial and physical movement. Velasco (n.d.) explains that movement is a story of power because movement indicates a desire for difference in circumstance. 

• Since we will read a chapter that discusses schooling specifically, reflect on how the other contexts could potentially be different for students. What does it mean for a discussion of culture?

Throughout Sarah Gallo’s (n.d.) interview, she touches on how migration and immigration status have a significant impact on the students and how they can learn. Some may have a different level of academic English (or another language), making it difficult to “keep up.” Classroom, school, and community culture also dictate how and if difficult conversations are breached. Gallo (n.d.) pointed out that schools in Mexico talk about undocumented statuses with ease, but it is taboo to discuss this within the American school system. There was a large difference between Princess’ second and third-grade teacher’s support offerings. Her third-grade teacher paid attention to her needs and also created opportunities for many students to come together with different but related troubles. If students come from vastly different backgrounds, it produces an opportunity for them to learn from each other and be supported. It can also lead people to feel othered or lead an unsupported educator to be unsure how to make the curriculum culturally appropriate. Educators must receive professional development to be aware of and ready for the challenges of students who are immigrants or children of immigrants.

Considering family dynamics, if someone within the family or family member is deported, that disruption can cause a great deal of difficulty for a student, both in their personal lives and classroom performance. Gender inequalities are a “powerful factor in precipitating migration, particularly when women have economic, political and social expectations” that they cannot fulfill under those unequal conditions (Cortina & Ochoa-Reza, 2013, p.159). This friction causes the movement, but is not necessarily resolved by movement. Host country family gender roles such as mothers being expected to communicate with the teacher or being the one to provide their child tutelage can create friction between the school culture and the family’s culture or ability to deliver. The father’s role in a student’s life can at times be overlooked, and men are more likely to be detained and deported (Gallo, n.d.). It is essential to understand family perspectives on good parent involvement as a teacher with a vulnerable student. Change in the students’ life (environment, risk, family support, finances) and challenges to meeting expectations as a family can lead to trouble in academic performance. 

• As you watch Sarah Gallo and Soledad Alvarez videos you should consider how migration changes and shapes people’s lives in relation to the theories that we learned in our previous module.

Velasco (n.d.) elaborates on Ecuador’s part in the pipeline between the south and north Americas. In Joseph’s story, his determination pushes him along a transnational journey, one that is bound by geographical lines despite globalization and the world system’s emphasis on movement away from nation-state boundaries. Economic opportunities are bound by residing in a nation’s boundaries. The US-Mexican Bracero program created new aspirations for migration to American, chasing a more permanent dream of financial opportunity (Cortina & Ochoa-Reza, 2013, p.154). Ease of entry and potential for opportunity determine migration patterns. For example, in the case of Poland becoming part of the EU, fears that migrants would move to the better welfare opportunities in Germany did not come to fruition due to bureaucratic hurdles and satisfactory existing opportunities in Poland (Cortina & Ochoa-Reza, 2013, p.153). 

A visible area of deterritorialization is the digital space, where these non-citizens can exchange knowledge and seek support to reach better economic opportunities or safety unbound by national allegiance. In these social relations the stretching emphasized in the globalization theory is facilitated by communications, media, and transportation. If you consider the impact of media and categorize migrant motivation as the ethnocentric seeking of the modern, industrialized condition of core, first-world nations, such as in modernization or dependency theory- then there should be more migrants flocking to the first world, whereas Gallo (n.d.) shares that more people are currently moving north from the USA to Mexico despite previous trends. This means third world countries’ culture and migrant motivation must be destigmatized and more accurately examined through data. 

In relation to the theories we have learned about recently, women are unconsidered despite the impact of gender on migration patterns. Traditional immigration theories are largely “gender blind” in their descriptions and focus on the labor aspect of the phenomenon (Cortina & Ochoa-Reza, 2013, p.143). However, it is also known that research on female migrants was lacking until the 1980s and so theories were not blind but male-focused. Piore (1979) attempted to revise this by illustrating a gendered transnationalism perspective on migration in his book “Birds of Passage: Migrant Labor and Industrial Societies” (Cortina & Ochoa-Reza, 2013, p.143). Gender in migration research has grown and developed in the last 40 years, after those major theories were established, but now better fitting theories can be established through micro accounts of female migration and macro data with a lens for gendered considerations.

References:

Cortina, J., & Ochoa-Reza, E. (2013). Women, Children, and Migration: DEVELOPMENTAL CONSIDERATIONS. In J. Cortina & E. Ochoa-Reza (Eds.), New Perspectives on International Migration and Development (pp. 139–163). Columbia University Press.

Gallo, S. (n.d.). Comparative International Education: Understanding the Different Stories of Children (G. Oliveira, Interviewer) [Interview]. In Boston College Canvas.

Gallo, S. (n.d.). Home and School Connections in Immigrant Communities (G. Oliveira, Interviewer) [Interview]. In Boston College Canvas.

Gallo, S. (n.d.). Princess’s Story (G. Oliveira, Interviewer) [Interview]. In Boston College Canvas.

Velasco, S. A. (n.d.). Migration Flows (G. Oliveira, Interviewer) [Interview]. In Boston College Canvas.

Velasco, S. A. (n.d.). Migrant stories, racism and non-transferable education (G. Oliveira, Interviewer) [Interview]. In Boston College Canvas.