300231 Latino Migrations to the United States: Changes and Continuities (S) (SoSe 2016)

Course Description and Objectives
Transnational processes such as economic globalization and human mobility in Latin American countries in the last three decades confront the social sciences with a series of theoretical and methodological challenges. This course seeks to go beyond international economic analyses focusing exclusively on macro level cross-border flows and understand what it means to study migrant flows in a variety of domains, including social, political and cultural processes and institutions. To this end, this course will discuss the recent literature on contemporary Mexican immigration to the United States and will review the main debates concerning immigrant flows from Latin America to the United States.
The readings for the course will focus on five main areas: a) theoretical work on the nature, causes, and consequences of migration; b) empirical studies, both quantitative and qualitative, that examine the size, composition, and characteristics of Mexican and Latin American flows to the United States; c) research on the history and current impact of state policies on immigration, d) transformations of sovereign institutions, human right frameworks, citizenship practices, and rural/urban loci, and e) regional, national, transnational, and organizational linkages among migrants and the construction of social and cultural remittances.
Course Learning Outcomes:
After completing this course, students will understand and be able to articulate: (1) the major theoretical frameworks on international migration, (2) the specific challenges faced by Latino immigrants living in the U.S., (3) past and current U.S. immigration policy, and (4) social and economic aspects of family remittances.

Bibliography

Bada, Xóchitl. 2014. Mexican Hometown Associations in Chicagoacán: From Local to Transnational Civic Engagement. Rutgers University Press.
Dreby, Joanna. 2010. Divided by Borders. Mexican Migrants and Their Children. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Durand, Jorge and Douglas S. Massey (Eds.) 2010. Continental Divides. International Migration in the Americas. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science” Volume 630, July 2010.
Newland, K. (ed) (2010) Diasporas. New Partners in Global Development Policy, Washington, D.C., Migration Policy Institute-USAID.
Voss, Kim and Irene Bloemraad. 2011. Rallying for Immigrant Rights: The Fight for Inclusion in 21st Century America. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Yoshikawa, Hirokazu. 2011. Immigrants Raising Citizens. Undocumented Parents and their Young Children New York: Russell Sage Foundation. 2011.