Abstract
This study explores whether being a member of a migration-trust network (MTN; social structures that immigrants create to manage the challenges of undocumented status) affects the acquisition of English language proficiency among undocumented heads of household who migrate to the United States from Mexico. The analysis shows that human capital accumulation and interactions with non-Hispanic white Americans are important to learning English in this migrant population. But it also suggests that membership in an MTN can inhibit the acquisition of English language proficiency. I use Mexican Migration Project data and other accumulated research to argue that being undocumented and participating in MTNs can deter migrants from assimilating into American mainstream society: a lack of legal status among many first-generation Mexican immigrants pushes them toward survival strategies that rely on MTNs.
Research shows that Mexicans, like generations of immigrants before them, integrate into U.S. society over time and across generations—a tendency that is most clearly demonstrated by comparing the children of immigrants (i.e., second-generation immigrants) to their first-generation immigrant parents (Waters and Pineau 2015). Some scholars nonetheless argue that Mexican immigrants today are not assimilating as fast as first-generation European migrants did at the turn of the twentieth century (Huntington 2009). A major difference between now and then is that virtually all earlier European immigrants were in the United States legally, whereas a large share of Mexicans today are unauthorized. If current-day Mexicans were to have the same access to legal status as that enjoyed by prior generations of European immigrants, they might be assimilating more rapidly (Gans 1962; Flores-Yeffal 2013).
In this study, I argue that the lack of access to legal status experienced by many first-generation Mexican immigrants today pushes them toward survival strategies that rely on migration-trust networks (MTNs)—social structures that immigrants strategically create to manage the challenges of undocumented status (see Flores-Yeffal 2013). Although participation in these networks aids migrants in coping with the demands of undocumented status, I hypothesize that these networks might also have negative effects on the assimilation process, slowing their progress toward English proficiency, and thus undermining their fuller integration into U.S. society. The resulting failure to achieve proficiency in English might then compromise mobility prospects for the children of immigrants (Tilly 2007). Not speaking or understanding English places immigrants, and perhaps even their descendants, at a clear disadvantage in gaining access to economic opportunities in the United States (Jasso and Rosenzweig 1990).
I examine the possibility that undocumented Mexican migrants today face barriers to the acquisition of English because they live encapsulated within MTNs (Flores-Yeffal 2013). Even those who have legal residence or U.S. citizenship may be compelled to participate in these MTNs because others in the network are undocumented and vulnerable to deportation. This reality compels those with documents to limit their contacts and interactions to trusted members of the network so as not to jeopardize the welfare of friends and relatives who are undocumented (Flores-Yeffal 2013).
Since current U.S. immigration laws provide few options for poor, unskilled, and undocumented migrants to legalize their status (Flores-Yeffal 2018, 2019), and, given that the militarization of the Mexico-U.S. border prevents them from crossing back and forth for seasonal work in the United States (Massey, Durand, and Pren 2016), undocumented immigrants have become “trapped” north of the border, and therefore embedded within MTNs over a long span of time. MTNs function most effectively when they are grounded in segregated communities where migrants live in close proximity to one another. As neighbors within ethnically homogenous neighborhoods, migrants are better able to share babysitting services during work hours, carpool with migrants holding a valid driver’s license, and connect to jobs in the local ethnic enclave (Garcia 2005). Neighbors are also well-equipped to guide undocumented migrants to immigrant-owned businesses where they can safely shop, as well as to parks where they can socialize and share information while watching or participating in sporting events (Massey et al. 1987).
Upon arrival, neighbors also provide psychological support to help migrants recover from the traumas of clandestine border crossing, and, over time, they provide ongoing emotional support to bear the strains of an unauthorized existence. Living alongside other migrants helps to build trust and cohesion, and facilitates attending ritual events such as baptisms, weddings, quinceañeras, and fiestas patronales, often connecting them to other migrants from the same town or region (Flores-Yeffal 2013). At the same time, however, living in ethnically segregated neighborhoods, working in ethnic labor enclaves, and socializing solely with other Mexicans are not conducive to learning English—an outcome I seek to assess in this study.
Theoretical Framework
Flores-Yeffal (2013) in her study following undocumented migrant networks from Guanajuato, Mexico, to the United States, for a period of 13 years, found that the participation in MTNs helps to mitigate the hazards and risks of traveling to, crossing into, and surviving within the United States in the absence of legal status. She also found that, by relying on information and assistance from network members, unauthorized migrants gain access to a variety of benefits. Using network-based resources, they are able to travel northward safely, connect with trusted border-crossing guides, pay the costs of unauthorized crossing, gain entry to the United States, travel to specific destinations, find food and lodging, acquire clothing to replace clothes discarded before or during their crossing, and ultimately gain access to employment.
Flores-Yeffal (2013) also found that, even after finding a job, undocumented migrants may continue to rely on MTNs to navigate everyday life, drawing on social ties to help with such tasks as renting an apartment without a social security number or established credit, arranging transportation to and from work, and learning where to cash their paychecks without having government-issued identification. The same study showed that, as their stay lengthens, migrants continue to turn to MTNs to help register their children at school, find affordable Spanish-speaking doctors, get help with the filing of tax forms, and ultimately to survive and even prosper in the United States despite a lack of legal authorization.
Within MTNs, migrants have strong expectations for social support, cohesion, and assistance from one another in times of need. These expectations are normatively reinforced by network members who monitor the behavior of others to assure that everyone, including newly arrived members, adheres to commonly held informal rules and values. Since acts of betrayal place others in the MTN at risk, any violation of these shared expectations results in social condemnation or exclusion, sanctions that are costly because they block access to an important source of social capital. In addition to relatives, neighbors, and workmates, MTNs comprise paisanos (people from the same hometown or region of origin), cuates (the Nahuatl word for twins, which also refers to godparents and in Mexico serves as a kind of fictive kinship bestowed upon close friends; see Lomnitz 1977), and cliques (dense and socially cohesive subnetworks within MTNs). These relationships often predate the act of migration itself, stemming from interpersonal ties formed long ago in communities of origin.
Relationships between network members are characterized by very high levels of confidence and trust, and expectations for support go well beyond simple reciprocity. Network members are expected to pay forward service to others, especially new arrivals, allowing the MTN to grow over time. The norms of trust, support, and solidarity are enforced transnationally by people remaining behind in communities of origin as well as those living in places of destination. Network members monitor one another via phone calls, mail, Facebook, Instagram, and other forms of social media. MTNs develop differently among migrants from rural versus urban areas, however. Network connections emerge automatically when migrants hail from the same small town or village of origin. In such cases, people have often known one another since birth and are already embedded within relationships of trust that have long been subject to social collective surveillance.
MTNs are less likely to develop among migrants from urban settings in Mexico, where people are more individualistic and social monitoring is less intense. Nevertheless, MTNs do develop among urban-origin migrants whenever they migrate as part of a group of friends known from work or the neighborhood. Urban-origin migrants at times can also integrate into rural-based MTNs by befriending rural-origin migrants they met in the United States, yielding an “MTN effect” (Flores-Yeffal 2013). In addition, urban-origin migrants sometimes have family connections to rural communities from which they, or their forbearers, originally left as rural-urban migrants. These connections to rural areas can at times be mobilized to gain entry into rural-based MTNs within the United States (Massey et al. 1987).
MTNs depend on what Sampson (2006, 2008) calls collective efficacy—an intangible resource found in social contexts characterized by high levels of cohesion, trust, and confidence in the support and good will of others. The concept was first elaborated to explain why certain Chicago neighborhoods—including those with high concentrations of poor Mexican immigrants—displayed lower crime rates than neighborhoods housing equally poor concentrations of black or white residents, thereby creating a “criminological paradox” (see Romero 2014). According to Sampson (2006, 164), “collective action for problem-solving is a crucial casual mechanism that is differentially activated under specific kinds of contextual conditions. The density of personal networks is only one, and probably not the most important, characteristic of neighborhoods that contributes to effective social action and mutual social support.”
Despite the potential advantages that MTNs offer to undocumented migrants, they also carry certain limitations and disadvantages (Flores-Yeffal 2013, 2017). The high levels of labor market isolation and residential segregation that nurture the formation of MTNs also narrow the range of information available to network members. To the extent that social networks are isolated and comprise people with the same characteristics, they are less likely to yield valuable information about jobs and other economic opportunities (Granovetter 1973). Undocumented migrants, especially, are fearful and tend not to reach out to others so that their networks, while strong, typically lead to a rather narrow range of resources. Although MTN members may learn about employment opportunities, the jobs they get are dangerous, poorly paid, and offer no benefits and very few opportunities for advancement.
In addition, members of MTNs virtually, by definition, comprise only other Spanish-speakers. Those well-embedded in such networks do not need English to speak to neighbors, coworkers, supervisors, shopkeepers, and others they interact with on a daily basis, giving them few incentives to learn it. During my fieldwork, I asked migrants why they had not learned much English, MTN members said they could not attend school because they had long workdays and extended workweeks, which provided them with few opportunities to practice the language (Flores-Yeffal 2013).
In sum, because undocumented immigrants do not have access to legal visas, and must somehow survive in the shadows of undocumented status, they tend to limit their social interactions to people within MTNs; this, in turn, prevents them from learning English, thereby creating serious barriers to integration into U.S. society. Well-developed migrant networks, however, tend to channel migrants to places where other Mexican immigrants are already concentrated (McConnell and LecLere 2002), in which migrants are less likely to learn English (Jasso and Rosenzweig 1990).
Research shows that Mexicans who acquire English-language proficiency gain access to other forms of human capital, promoting their broader integration into U.S. society (Espinosa and Massey 1997). Other factors that promote immigrant integration include being married, having children present in the United States, living in diverse neighborhoods, and working outside of the secondary labor market and ethnic enclaves (Rumbaut 2015; de Graauw and Bloemraad 2017). In the 20 years since Espinosa and Massey’s (1997) earlier study of English-language acquisition, the MMP has compiled new data from thirty-six additional communities, added new variables to the dataset, and broadened the sample to include more regions and a larger number of urban areas (Hernandez-Leon 2008).
Data and Methods
The current analysis is based on the Mexican Migration Project’s MMP161 dataset, drawing primarily on the MIG file, which contains information collected from household heads with questions asking about the circumstances of their most recent trip to the United States, with selected additional indicators taken from the MMP’s household-level and community-level data files. To take full advantage of variables added to the dataset since 1999, communities one through seventy-two were excluded from the analysis, leaving those surveyed from 1999 through 2016. From this dataset, undocumented household heads were selected for analysis. English language proficiency was assessed using a dummy variable that equaled 1 if respondents said they spoke English and understood it somewhat, or that they spoke English and understood it well; and 0 otherwise. This variable was then regressed on a set of independent variables derived from prior research using a logit model with fixed community effects.
Collective efficacy was assessed using two indicators. The first was defined from a question asking respondents whether they belonged to a social organization during their most recent trip to the United States, coding the variable as 1 if the answer was yes and 0 if no. Although there are potentially many kinds of social organizations, the most relevant to this analysis are hometown associations (HTAs)—voluntary organizations created by U.S. migrants that are intended to maintain contact with, and offer support to, Mexican communities of origin (Orozco and Rouse 2007; Bada 2014).
Although the existence of HTAs in Mexico goes back to the 1940s (FitzGerald 2008), they proliferated especially during the 1980s and 1990s when mass migration led to the formation of well-developed transnational social fields within which goods, capital, information, and people regularly circulated back and forth across the border (Goldring 2002; Smith 2006). During this time, HTAs increasingly became involved in promoting economic development in the sending communities to which they were connected, with migrants working collectively to raise funds to upgrade infrastructure and improve circumstances in their hometowns (Orozco and Rouse 2007). These collective efforts were given a considerable boost when the Mexican government established its “three-for-one” policy. The 3 x 1 program sought to leverage funds raised by migrants for local development purposes by matching them dollar for dollar with money provided by state and federal authorities, thereby tripling the amounts available to participating sending communities (Duquette-Rury 2014; Lopez 2015).
A second, related indicator was drawn from a community inventory filled out by project fieldworkers for each community in the MMP sample. One item on the inventory schedule asked whether, at any time prior to the survey date, U.S. migrants in the community had joined together to undertake “collective remittances,” voluntarily agreeing to pool money from U.S. earnings to finance some public good or benefit in their hometown, such as constructing a sewage system, bringing in electricity, building a church, renovating a plaza, or adding a paved connection to the nearest highway. This variable was coded 1 if any such project had ever been funded collectively by U.S. migrants, and 0 otherwise.
When both of these conditions prevailed—when a migrant belonged to a U.S.-based social organization and originated in a community where collective remittances were indicated—a high degree of collective efficacy was presumed to exist, indicating the existence of a well-developed MTN among migrants from the community. When both of these indictors are included in the model, along with a multiplicative term capturing the interaction between them, the sign on the resulting interaction term is hypothesized to be significant and negative, in line with the hypothesis that MTNs, and the collective efficacy they produce, hinder the acquisition of English proficiency by isolating migrants socially within homogeneous Spanish-speaking networks.
In addition to these key variables, the article’s explanatory model includes a variety of other variables, which serve both as controls and predictors potentially of independent interest. Descriptive statistics for all independent and dependent variables are presented in Table 1. According to the definition of proficiency described above, 23 percent of all respondents spoke English proficiently at the time of their last trip, 9 percent belonged to a social organization, and 67 percent originated in a community where collective remittances historically had been organized. The relationship between the latter two variables and English proficiency was assessed holding constant the influence of demographic characteristics such as gender, age, and marital status at the time of the latest U.S. trip, as well as human capital measures such as education, the number of U.S. trips, and cumulative months of prior U.S. experience, along with a categorical coding of occupational status in Mexico consisting of six designations ranging from agricultural to highly skilled workers.
Descriptive Statistics for Selected Variables Used in the Analysis of English Language Proficiency of Undocumented Households in the Mexican Migration Project (n = 2799)
The respondent’s socioeconomic situation at the time of the trip was measured using a series of dummy variables indicating whether the household owned a business, land, or a home, and whether the home contained a washing machine. Other indicators assessed the productive capacity of the household by measuring the number of sons and daughters in the household who were in the labor force, and also the number who were internal migrants within Mexico. The model also controls for selected characteristics on the first U.S. trip, including the respondent’s age and marital status at the time of departure, whether he or she received lodging from a paisano upon arrival, and whether crossing into the United States was achieved with the help of a paid crossing guide, colloquially known as a coyote. Additional variables of interest include the categorical coding of the U.S. occupation held during the trip, the period in which the trip was made, and the place of arrival classified into one of nine metropolitan areas plus a residual “other” category.
Finally, the logistic regression model sought to assess how characteristics of the last U.S. trip influenced the likelihood of achieving English proficiency, including whether the migrant was interviewed in the United States as a settled migrant, held a U.S. bank account, paid U.S. income taxes, had one or more children in U.S. schools, and reported having access to a credit card. As with the first U.S. trip, a set of dichotomous variables also indicated the period in which the last U.S. trip was undertaken. The final variables included in the explanatory measure the degree to which the respondent had access to social capital through ties to siblings, friends, uncles, and parents present in the United States; whether they reported knowing Asians, Chicanos, blacks, and whites during their time in the United States; and whether they belonged to a sports club.
The Determinants of English Proficiency
Table 2 presents estimates for two logistic regression equations estimated to predict whether undocumented household heads were proficient in English at the time of their latest trip to the United States. Model 1 examines the effect of membership in a U.S. social organization on English proficiency and model 2 adds in whether collective remittances had been reported for the community, along with the interaction between social organization membership and collective remittances. Model 1 shows that membership in a social organization by itself has no significant effect, but once collective remittances and the interaction term are included (model 2), the positive main effect of social organization membership becomes significant (p<0.05). Although the main effect of collective remittances is weakly negative and not significant, the interaction term is strongly negative and statistically significant (p<0.05), in keeping with expectations. In other words, for those migrants where membership in a social organization coincides with a tradition of collective remittances, undocumented migrants are less likely to report English language proficiency. As hypothesized, when migrants are embedded within an MTN in communities characterized by a high degree of collective efficacy, the likelihood of achieving English proficiency is reduced. Proficiency is also strongly and negatively predicted by crossing with a coyote on the first trip, which is consistent with the respondent being integrated within an MTN, as coyotes tend to be located and contracted via ties to migrant friends and relatives from the community who have had prior U.S. experience (Singer and Massey 1998).
Fixed Effects Logistic Regression Estimates Predicting English Language Proficiency among Undocumented Heads in the Mexican Migration Project
p < 0.001. **p < 0.01. *p < 0.05. +p < 0.10.
A perusal of other effects in model 2 indicates that English proficiency is also strongly and positively predicted by greater human capital, as indicated by the highly significant effects of education and months of U.S. experience. Unsurprisingly, English proficiency is also greater for settled migrants interviewed in the United States and among those with access to social capital through ties to siblings and fathers who live in the United States, and among those who report having social relations with non-Hispanic whites. Although the period during which the last trip was taken has no effect on the likelihood of achieving English proficiency, the period when the first trip was undertaken displays a significant pattern in which English proficiency at the time of first migration rises steadily over time, possibly indicating a greater prevalence of middle-class urban dwellers in more recent departure cohorts (see Garip 2016).
Discussion
This study provides empirical evidence that the accumulation of human capital in the form of education and migratory experience, as well as the accretion of social capital through ties to U.S. residents, promote English language proficiency. At the same time, however, the results also suggest that being embedded within MTNs discourages the acquisition of English fluency by socially isolating migrants within homogenous networks that yield great collective efficacy but provide few opportunities for contact with the larger English-speaking population of the United States. To the extent that anti-immigration enforcement has intensified in recent years, as evidenced by the sharp increase in immigrant detentions and removals (Golash-Boza 2015), and the surge in nativist and xenophobic rhetoric (Flores-Yeffal, Vidales, and Martinez 2017), undocumented Mexican migrants can be expected to retreat further into MTNs, which, in turn, will retard their integration into U.S. society by slowing down the acquisition of English language proficiency.
Future research should explore why having close family members at the place of destination may help with assimilation. Interestingly, having the mother at the place of destination does not have the same effect that having the father does, which may mean that the father could have greater influence on the children than the mother despite the MTNs. Also, the results that the sibling’s presence is important to learn English is also very interesting and deserves further exploration. In addition, undocumented household heads who have been able to interact with non-Hispanic whites are much more likely to report English fluency compared to those who have not. These results suggest that policy-makers should find solutions and alternatives for undocumented immigrants so they can interact more often with gringos (Americans) and become more integrated into the United States. The results provide empirical evidence that being part of MTNs can have very negative consequences for these undocumented immigrants.
Therefore, it is important to emphasize the importance for considering an immigration reform that can award legalization or a path to citizenship to the almost 11 million undocumented immigrants who are in the United States. If they were able to regularize their immigration status, they would be able to detach themselves from those MTNs and integrate into American society as the Europeans once did at the turn of the twentieth century. The Europeans were able to integrate into suburbs because they were in the United States legally, but today’s immigrants are unable to do the same because of the current dysfunctional and broken immigration system in the United States.
Footnotes
Nadia Y. Flores-Yeffal is an assistant professor of sociology at Texas Tech University. She is the author of Migration-Trust Networks: Social Cohesion in Mexican US-Bound Emigration (Texas A&M University Press 2013). Her recent work examines the causes, social processes, and consequences of undocumented migration to the United States and El Salvador.