english

S P E C I A L F E AT U R E : S o u t h A m e r i c a n I m m i g r a n t s i n t h e U S

I N T R O D U C T I O N : L O S Q U E L L E G A R O N : 5 0 Y E A R S O F S O U T H A M E R I C A N I M M I G R AT I O N ( 1 9 5 0 – 2 0 0 0 ) – A N O V E R V I E W

S u z a n n e O b o l e r University of Illinois at Chicago, IL

There is MEChA for Chicana/o students and various Caribbean Latino

clubs too, but nothing where we could fit in. As a U.S. Bolivian from New

York City, I have always been mistaken for Puerto Rican or Dominican. I

met several other people from New York City and Los Angeles who went

through the same thing growing up.

Why are we never included in books or classes on Hispanics/Latinos in

the United States?’’ Why do we only read about Mexicans, Puerto Ricans,

Cubans, Dominicans and even Central Americans-–but never about South

Americans? Can’t South Americans be Latinos too?

These are some of the concerns and questions I have heard over the years

from second-generation college age South American students, whether of

Colombian, Ecuadorian, Peruvian, Bolivian, or Chilean descent, both in my

own classes and on campuses I have visited around the country. And in my

classes, usually, it is the students themselves who begin to try to address

them, with comments such as ‘‘I know we can’t cover ‘everybody’ in one

semester, buty’’

The implications of the students’ questions, of course, go beyond the

period of time available in a given semester to study the histories, cultures,

characteristics, and policy issues of all the national-origin populations

grouped under the official label ‘‘Hispanic’’. Among other things, their

concerns point, above all, to the extent to which the very concept of

Latino Studies 2005, 3, (42–52) �c 2005 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd 1476-3435/05 $30.00 www.palgrave-journals.com/lst

Latinismo1 appears increasingly to be embraced by sectors of the populations

from the nine Spanish-speaking South American nations.2

Moreover, the calls for inclusion of South Americans in discussions on US

Latinos, exemplified by the student comments above, like the rise in inclusion of

South Americans in recent books and articles on the Latino experience in the

United States, raise two related questions. The first is why South Americans

have not been included in either the discussions or the debates on Latinos in the

United States before – why they have been ‘‘missed’’ in discussions, and indeed,

why they have not included themselves more forcefully in the debates on the

contemporary meanings and value of Latinismo? The second is why, and on

what grounds (if at all), should South Americans be included in these

discussions now, in this first decade of the 21st century: why and on what

grounds is it relevant that they are both demanding inclusion and beginning to

be included in recent publications on Latinos in the US?

Equally important is the need to mark the possibilities and the obstacles that

Latinos confront in the process of constructing an effective political alliance–

Latinismo – among people of Latin American descent, or Latinos, in the struggle

for full citizenship in the United States – also a key rationale for this journal.

Along these lines, a few years ago, I began to research South American

immigration to the United States since the 1960s. I sought to map out the

migration process of South American immigrants, a subject long excluded from

studies on Latino/as in the United States in the post-war period, in terms of their

changing relationship, or lack thereof, to Latinismo. This introduction to our

special feature on South Americans reflects some of my work in that direction,

and aims primarily to provide some historical contextualization for the articles

published in this issue.

Like the Los Que Llegaron conference, my research has been guided by two

specific questions: (1) Why is it that although substantial numbers of South

Americans have been living in the United States since at least the late 1950s,

unlike other Latin Americans, particularly Cubans, their experience has been

largely neglected in the scholarly literature on Latinos in the United States? And,

the second, its counterpoint: why have South Americans long chosen to remain

aloof from the rest of the Latino population?3

I mention the Cubans in particular because, since the 1960s, Cuban and

South American immigrants seem to share similar demographic characteristics

in terms of their numerical representation in this country, the fact that their

cohort has included a significant number of skilled professionals who were

largely middle and upper class. Given their similarities in size and socio-

economic status, particularly from the 1960s to the early 1990s, US foreign

policy rather than demographic considerations is undoubtedly a key factor

through which to explain the first question above, concerning the relatively

early inclusion of Cubans – but not of South Americans – in the literature and

debates on US Latinos. After all, in contrast to immigrants from other parts of

1 Felix Padilla first

coined the term Lati-

nismo to describe the

situational pan-ethnic

consciousness of

Puerto Ricans and

Mexican Americans

in their struggle for

political inclusion in

Chicago (cf. Felix Pa-

dilla, 1985).

2 The nine countries

are Colombia, Vene-

zuela, Ecuador, Peru,

Bolivia, Paraguay,

Uruguay, Chile, and

Argentina.

3 Like the Cubans,

the presence of South

Americans in the US

is not a recent phe-

nomenon. The first

South Americans

came to this country

in the late 18th cen-

tury, before the Latin

American wars for

Independence. But

the most significant

number began to set-

L o s Q u e L l e g a r o n

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ S u z a n n e O b o l e r 4 3

the world, foreign policy priorities in the hemisphere have always been the

distinguishing mark of Latin American immigration to the US (Mitchell, 1992).

Hence, I challenge the notion that the immigration and integration of people

of Latin American descent in US society can be analyzed as an exclusively

domestic concern (Dolce, 1976; Sayad, 2004). Instead, I suggest that

geopolitical determinants are essential for understanding the peculiar status

that South Americans occupy in the dynamics of citizenship and/or discrimina-

tion in contemporary US society. The relative absence until now of South

Americans from the literature and discussions on US Latinos is contingent on

the idea that foreign policy considerations are playing a significant role in the

timing, the extent, and the manner of inclusion of South Americans as members

of the ‘‘Hispanic community’’ today (Mitchell, 1992, 7). In what follows, I

briefly present the larger context of South American migration in the post-war

period. I also address, even if rather impressionistically, some of the issues

shaping the particular immigration experiences of South Americans in the

course of roughly three periods:

(1) the exodus of middle and upper class professionals, known as the ‘‘brain

drain’’(1960–1975), and the settlement in the US of the first significant wave

of Colombians, displaced as a result of the 1960s Alliance for Progress

modernization programs;

(2) the forced migration and political exile of groups fleeing the state terror

created by the continent’s dictators (1970s–mid-1980s), as exemplified by

the Chilean exiles of the period; and finally

(3) the emergence of a more recent, largely generational phenomenon

represented by the new economic exiles (1980–1990s), which I exemplify

by discussing the case of Peruvians and, to a lesser extent, Ecuadoreans.

The decision by South Americans to ‘‘become Latinos,’’ that is, to actively

participate in US Latino struggles for rights has changed over time. It is

contingent as much on the extent to which individual immigrants develop the

grounds for establishing political solidarity with other groups as it is on the

kinds of commitment that they ultimately actually make to their new society.

That includes, for example, how each immigrant cohort addresses the dilemma

of stay or return.

T h e p o s t - w a r i m m i g r a t i o n c o n t e x t

There is no doubt that the nine Spanish-speaking South American countries

were among the first Latin American ‘‘casualties’’ of the US cold war response to

the social and political upheaval created by the Cuban Revolution. The

Revolution led the United States to dramatically shift, at least for a time, its

relations with the hemisphere’s other countries. As early as May 1961, then-

President Kennedy was addressing the fears of ‘‘another Cuba’’ and the issues

tle in the United

States in the post-war

period. Between 1951

and 1977, for exam-

ple, 476,967 South

Americans were ad-

mitted as immigrants

to the United States.

This number is

roughly similar to the

544,600 Cubans who

entered the country in

those years.

My second point has

to do with the size of

the migration today.

Size, of course, can

always become a sig-

nificant factor in de-

termining the chances

for inclusion and so-

cial visibility of a gi-

ven group – both in

the debates and in the

daily life of a society.

According to the

1990 census, as a

group, South Ameri-

can immigrants leg-

ally in the United

States are roughly si-

milar to the number

of Cubans. There

were 1,035,602 South

Americans, account-

ing for 4.7% of the

US Latino popula-

tion. The number of

Cubans was only

slightly higher in the

same census

(1,043,932).

latino studies - 3:1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

44

that the success of the Cuban Revolution raised for US National Security

throughout the Americas, by signing into law his multi-million dollar ‘‘Alliance

for Progress’’ loan program. Prior to the Alliance program, US policy was

largely based on haphazard and minimal lending practices and many false

promises made to individual Latin American countries. This had led, for

example, to very high levels of frustration and popular unrest, epitomized by the

hostility that met Nixon during his 1958 South American tour.

Although it was initially conceived solely as a development program, the

Alliance for Progress soon became subsumed under a ‘‘national security

doctrine.’’ This doctrine, in turn, was later adapted by the South American

military regimes who took power during the 1970s and 1980s, with the support

of the elites in their respective societies.4 During the early 1960s, the dominant

sectors of Latin America were quick to translate that ill-starred US initiative in

South America into a personal cornucopia. As then-President Romulo

Betancourt of Venezuela cynically put it: ‘‘We must help the poor, in order to

save the rich’’ (1990, 172).

Kennedy adapted what Irving Louis Horowitz in 1969 called ‘‘the myth of the

middle-class salvation’’ to the Latin American context, in an attempt to emulate

the economic successes of the New Deal. The experiment was a total failure,

since, as Frank Niess (1990, 178) bluntly put it:

The planned reforms were neither in the interest of the Latin American elites

because they undermined their very basis of existence, nor of the Americans

because they undermined their economic and political interests. The business

community wanted political stability to make profits, and the government

wanted social peace to keep out communism.

Moreover, the United States – rather than its South American partners – was

ultimately the chief beneficiary of the Alliance.

In these past four decades, the processes unleashed at that time are

increasingly ensuring that national governments are unable to control their

own economies (Brecher, 1998, 185–194). The very concept of territorial

sovereignty and of any institutional mechanisms through which even the

possibility of democratic societies grounded in citizenship can be forged, is

clearly under attack.

T h e ‘ ‘ B r a i n D r a i n ’ ’ ( 1 9 6 0 s – 1 9 7 0 s )

The Brain Drain is a topic of quintessential importance for the history and

mythology of Latino–Latin American relations in the US, which space

constraint only allows me to briefly hint at here. As in the case of the Alliance,

the US was the chief beneficiary of the Brain Drain, since, as Charles Kidd noted

at the time (1980), in effect, the Latin American countries helped to meet ‘‘the

demand for physicians that the United States by inaction, had failed to provide

4 The militarization

of the US/Mexico

border today is per-

haps the latest echo of

the man-made politi-

cal hurricane un-

leashed at that time.

In fact, it is clear, as

Timothy Dunn’s

(1996) cogent argu-

ment suggests that

low-intensity conflict

[has now] ‘‘come

home.’’

L o s Q u e L l e g a r o n

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ S u z a n n e O b o l e r 4 5

fory The dollar value of this manpower approximately equaled the cost of all

US medical assistance to Latin America.’’

The broader structural context, the distorted, unequal and unbalanced

development programs implemented in the early 1960s, played a highly

important role in creating a significant migration of what was still a relatively

small professional sectors – doctors, nurses, academics, scientists, and engineers

around the continent. The exodus also increasingly included internal migrants

who had got lost in the shuffle as the machinery introduced into agriculture

modernized the rural areas where they lived. Thousands of peasants and small

farmers were forced off the land and into cities that were totally under-prepared

to take them in terms of housing, employment, and social services. As a result,

many particularly young people from these urban middle and lower middle

classes decided to emigrate to the US.

Obviously, like any other immigrant group, both the individual reasons for

leaving their respective homelands and the responses to living abroad have

varied among South Americans. There are professionals, for instance, who,

forced to leave their homelands, experienced bitterness, anger, and resentment,

leading some to rethink their sense of national belonging. One Colombian

professional who left at that time, responded to a survey by saying:

The concept of the brain drain is complete nonsense, since it implies that you

could be doing useful work at your home country’s institutions. This is a

complete fallacyyWhat is the point of going back if these conditions can

never be met by one of their universities? To slowly die of professional

starvation for the sake of national pride? (McKee, 1983, 497).

For others, however, particularly women at the time, immigration could be

experienced in more positive terms. As one Venezuelan woman scientist put it in

that same survey: ‘‘An independent, career-oriented woman is still seen as an

oddity and at best is tolerated by societyyIn the case of Latin American women

scientists, I have little doubt that the roles assigned to women in these societies

play a major part in the brain drain’’ (McKee, 1983, 493).

What is important is that regardless of the actual experience in the US or of the

actual reason for migrating, the studies of this first post-war South American

migration show that most were unambiguously committed to eventually returning

to their home country. Writing about her 1970s study of Colombianos, for

example, Elsa Chaney noted that ‘‘there wasn’t a single person in the group’’ she

interviewed ‘‘who thought that Colombians might be more interested in local [i.e.

New York] events than they were in those occurring in Colombia.’’ One

immigrant stated that ‘‘Colombians know more about the sports, politics and

gossip in Colombia than similar events here in the United States.’’

And so, on the basis of this kind of commonplace experience, Chaney came to

define the immigrants as ‘‘aliens by choice’’ (1976, 121–124) – that is, as people

who saw their migration as a temporary condition and who would probably not

latino studies - 3:1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

46

have chosen to leave their homeland were it not for the sense of futility about

the lack of future prospects in their home society, the greed of their elites, the

failure of a development plan ostensibly and at least partially aimed at curbing

the rising tide of poverty and despair, and also the rising protests, motivated by

the hope that the Cuban Revolution came to represent for the entire continent.

They all, however, knew that this was temporary and eventually they would all

just go back.

1 9 7 0 s – m i d - 1 9 8 0 s

The rising tide of protest and social unrest throughout South America in the late

1960s led to what James Cockroft (1996, 23) has called ‘‘The long dark night of

state terror’’ – that is the toppling of civilian governments and the establishment

of military dictatorship under the banner of law and order and with the not so

covert ‘‘blessing’’ of the United States. Progress, modernization, and democracy

were eviscerated on the altar of National Security. By 1969, Celso Furtado was

writing, prophetically as it turned out, that the existing national states would

increasingly play a secondary role, and that the ‘‘idea of nationality as the

principal political force in Latin America’’ would become obsolete: ‘‘If most of

the state’s substantive functions in controlling the economic and social

development process were taken away,’’ Furtado wrote, ‘‘then the current

political ferment characterizing many Latin American countries would in all

probability tend to diminish and government could then function principally on

the ‘technical level’.’’ He concluded that ‘‘the government of men’’ would be

replaced by ‘‘the administration of things’’ (1969, 71–72).

And that is exactly what happenedy.

All over South America, it became clear that the Kennedy-sponsored myth of

‘‘salvation by the middle classes’’ had been replaced by the equally mythical, but

infinitely more bloody, salvation by the sword. The reign of fear and terror of

the military juntas, and the decisive annihilation of all opposition, particularly

in the Southern Cone countries, set a new precedent in South American politics

and forms of repression.5 The regimes were determined to stifle the drive to

economic and political democratization. They suspended the political rights of

thousands of citizens throughout the continent, including the right of defense in

a court of law, destroying the very concept of due process. As Furtado had

predicted, for the next twenty-odd years, ‘‘the government of men’’ was indeed

irrevocably dismantled throughout South America. And, in the name of national

security, it was increasingly replaced by ‘‘the administration of things.’’

Chile’s experience under the military is particularly poignant because,

throughout the continent, the initial impact of Salvador Allende’s democratic

election in 1970 was seen by friends and foes alike as somewhat reminiscent of

the early years of the Cuban Revolution. The democratic alternative to social

change that Allende’s peaceful road to socialism came to represent was

5 Paraguay: 1954–

1989; Brazil: 1964–

1985; Chile: 1973–

1990; Uruguay:

1973–1984; and Ar-

gentina: 1976–1983.

The extent to which

these various military

regimes coordinated

their efforts is best

represented in ‘‘Op-

eration Condor’’ – ‘‘a

state-terror plan de-

veloped jointly by the

L o s Q u e L l e g a r o n

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ S u z a n n e O b o l e r 4 7

something that, in the words of James Cockcroft (1996, 46), ‘‘the U.S.

government and business interests would not tolerate.’’ As ‘‘the centerpiece of

the military’s strategy for gaining and retaining control of the country,’’ the

Pinochet government implemented a deliberate policy of mass exile, which was

also designed to counter the international outcry against the atrocities of the

regime and to play down the involvement of the C. I. A. (Wright and Oñate,

1998, 8).

Given the anti-Communism of the McCarran Walter Act of 1952 (Eastmond

1997, 8, 45),6 it is not surprising that only 4,000 exiles from the Chilean junta,

and very few from any of the other Southern Cone countries, were actually

admitted to this country. Again, in direct contrast to the South American

immigrants of the late 1950s and 1960s, who, regardless of their nationalities,

social status and class, or time of arrival, ultimately chose when, where, and

how to leave their home in their search to improve their life chances, the

southern cone political exiles neither chose the time of departure nor the

country in which they were ultimately forced to remake their lives. So that once

in the United States, in ways and for reasons very different from those of the

Colombians, for example, the exiles resisted integration into the host society.

After all, as Marion Eastmond put it in her study of the Chilean exiles, ‘‘Why

learn the language of los imperialistas?’’

In fact, as Macarena Gómez-Barris notes in her article in this issue, the exiles

were very conscious of their political status. They were neither anxious to share

the aspirations of economic immigrants nor were they willing to adhere in any

way to the age-old immigrant myth of the American Dream and its corresponding

way of life. Moreover, the exiles were forced to rely on the goodwill of US private

citizens or religious organizations, since the federal government did not provide

any official assistance or programs such as the Cuban Adjustment Act, for

example, created for the Cubans during the early 1960s.

In direct contrast to the Colombian or Peruvian immigrants’ associations at

that time, political organization was an essential source of survival and

community for the exiles. As one Chilean exile explained, in contrast to the

economic immigrants’ sense of displacement, for him, ‘‘Exile, is not the

temporary situation of banishment [or] the expectations of a quick returnybut

rather the longing for the certainties of life in one’s homeland, the mundane

comfortsythe sense of roots, the longing for the life that could have been

(Wright and Oñate, 1998, 118–120).

The acute awareness that they are not living ‘‘a life in the place it was meant

to be’’ seems to be one of the key factors distinguishing the South American

refugees from their economic immigrant counterparts. Eventually, most of the

exiles did take on jobs and learn English. Some even experienced a certain

upward mobility within the framework of the American Dream. Yet, the focus

of all their activities included those they had left behind in Chile, rather than

anything in this country. Contact between the exiles and other Latinos was, for

heads of military in-

telligence of Chile,

Argentina, Paraguay,

Uruguay, and Brazil

in the mid-1970s to

assist in the detention

or assassination of

dissidents wherever

they went into exile

(Cockcroft, 1996,

370). Cockcroft

notes, for example,

that in Argentina,

‘‘Some 14,000 politi-

cal refugees from Bo-

livia, Brazil, Chile,

Uruguay, and Para-

guay were hunted

down and thrown in

jail or killed in torture

chambers. Bolivia’s

and Chile’s former

‘constitutionalist’

army commanders,

Generals Torres and

Prats, were assassi-

nated in Argentina.

Uruguayan congress-

men and Paraguayan

dissidents fleeing

their military dicta-

torships were kid-

napped and killed.

Argentine dissenters

were given similar

welcomes by neigh-

boring dictatorships’’

(569).

6 The McCarran-

Walter Act, passed in

1952 at the height of

the Cold War, ‘‘com-

bined the traditional

motivation of immi-

gration restriction

which was to preserve

the racial and cultural

heritage of the nation,

with the Cold War

fear of subversive

foreigners.’’ As such,

the bill was ‘‘filled

latino studies - 3:1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

48

many years, quite purposefully limited. Still, I want to stress that, particularly in

their early years, in California, several Chicano organizations did provide a

major institutional bridge between the exiles and the broader society’s

institutions. Clearly, more research is needed about this, but the exiles did

feel some affinity with the aims of the Chicano struggles, primarily because they

saw them as nationalist, anti-colonial struggles. Moreover, as the 1970s gave

way to the 1980’s imposition of neoliberal policies throughout the hemisphere,

the exile community began to transcend its narrow national and, to a certain

extent, class focus, and to transform it into a broader hemispheric sense of

political solidarity (Eastmond, 1997, 83–84).

1 9 8 0 s – 1 9 9 0 s

During the early 1980s, and with the notable exceptions of Chile and Paraguay,

most of the continent’s governments and societies had begun a gradual process

of transition to a restricted democratization under the watchful US paternalistic

gaze. However, the neoliberal economic policies imposed by the International

Monetary Fund, led to massive unemployment, a drastic reduction of wages,

and huge increases in the price of staples everywhere. The net result by the end

of the 1980s was that the cost of living increased so far beyond people’s buying

power that countless South Americans were immediately thrown below the

poverty line.

Politically, the old problems had not disappeared. Asked why there was no

visible protest or opposition, the Peruvian analyst, Mirko Lauer’s responses

again reflect the 1990s context of the continent as a whole. ‘‘First,’’ he said

‘‘because there is a lot of poverty and the majority of the population has gotten

used to poverty as a natural state. People are happy if there is no hyperinflation’’

and second, he pointed out, because ‘‘No one has rights – and therefore no one

demands their rights’’ (1995).

In the case of Peru, the 12-year Civil War against the Shining Path effectively

destroyed the country’s political and institutional life. Furthermore, as Lauer (1991,

6–7) suggested, within the larger context of globalization, Peru was reduced to the

‘‘category of the excluded,’’ thus turning all 21 million Peruvians into ‘‘the Indians

of the 21st century.’’ It is hardly surprising then that anyone who could find a way

of leaving the country began to do so on an individual basis, particularly after the

mid-1980s. Indeed, the title of a New York Times article describing the Peruvian

and South American exodus says it all: ‘‘Starting Over, the Ex-Peruvian Way.’’ This

title best captures my argument in this last part of my essay: that is, the

abandonment of the national project by the South American elites. For a growing

number of people, one of the consequences of this abandonment is incredible

despair and the utter loss of a sense of national belonging.

It is important to note that by the end of the 1990s, abandoning the homeland

was no longer limited to those who could afford it; rather it came to be seen as a

with hundreds of

safeguards against

unfit aliens’’ (Dolce,

1976, 222–223).

L o s Q u e L l e g a r o n

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ S u z a n n e O b o l e r 4 9

logical solution by anyone and everyone who could find the means for doing so:

‘‘You can put me on the list of those leaving,’’ said Esteban Garcı́a, a 24-year-old

book salesman who now drives a taxi. ‘‘What has my country given me? What

can it give me? If I stay, all I’m doing is making the rich richer!’’(Riding:1989,

A4) In other words, while some people throughout the continent continued to

debate justice and development in the post-dictatorship years, Esteban Garcı́a’s

observation left at least one thing clear: by the end of the 1980s, the infamous

statement quoted above, by ex-President Betancourt – ‘‘We have to help the

poor to save the rich’’ had been revived and recast in full popular sarcasm.

T h e u n d e r s i d e o f ‘ ‘ t h e n e w w o r l d o r d e r ’ ’ : v a n i s h i n g h o m e

Rootlessness, undoubtedly, is and threatens to remain the defining feature of the

new world order, affecting South Americans both at home and abroad. One

informant told Ecuadorean scholar, Patricio Carpio Benalcázar, that among

those that remain at home, ‘‘leavingyis a goal, a certainty which everyone has’’

– a statement which is repeatedly heard in other parts of South America (Carpio

Benalcázar, 1992, 86; my emphasis). As the Peruvian anthropologist Hortensia

Muñoz, recently concluded, ‘‘Just living with the possibility of emigrating makes

people question their sense of belonging to the national community’’ (2000).

Undoubtedly, the idea of non-return, of permanent abandonment of one’s

homeland, can also be challenged – especially in the continuously evolving

context of ‘‘globalization.’’ For example, the current Colombian Ambassador to

the United States, Luis Alberto Moreno-Mejia, who was born in Philadelphia,

and held two passports until 1998, reported that he was forced to give up his US

citizenship, in order to become Ambassador and serve Colombia – ostensibly,

‘‘his country.’’ In the context of perfect ‘‘technical’’ solutions to the complex

issues of citizenship,7 the need to address the question, ‘‘What does it mean to be

a citizen in the new world order?’’ is increasingly impossible to ignore. It is clear

that the elites’ traditional class privileges – rather than the rights and

responsibilities entailed in belonging to a community of social equals – drive

their understanding of citizenship, allowing them to take full advantage of the

new conveniences (e.g. dual citizenship) according to their needs of the moment,

and hence to derive the benefits of ‘‘belonging’’ to two societies. (I don’t think I

need to add that ‘‘citizenship as a convenience’’ is contingent as always on

privilege and, hence, not for everyone.)

S o m e c o n c l u d i n g r e m a r k s

Given this sketch of the post-World War II trajectory of South Americans in

the United States, it is apparent that despite their small numbers relative to

other US Latino groups, the immigration experience of South Americans is

significant. For, as the variety of issues presented in the articles in this special

7 More recently, the

‘‘convenience of citi-

zenship’’ cannot be

missed, emerging as it

did, as a possible

‘‘solution’’ proposed

by four congressmen,

to the problem of

how to keep the

6-year-old Cuban

refugee boy, Elian

Gonzalez from being

returned to his father

in Cuba. As The Wa-

shington Post jour-

nalist, Karen de

Young (2000), ex-

plained: ‘‘As a citizen,

Elian would no long-

latino studies - 3:1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

50

feature exemplify, it can be generalized as an eloquent testimony to the character

of the revolutionary process of globalization engulfing the planet today (Bauman,

1998; Brecher, 1998). In its present phase, the consequences of this process can be

defined in terms of the apparent dissolution of national sovereignties. Indeed, as

the Plan Colombia plainly suggests, this is and clearly continues to be related to

the vicissitudes of US foreign policy, together with the kinds of choices and

decisions that the South American elites have made over the past 50 years, in

terms of their commitment to their respective country’s national projects.

At the same time, taken to their logical conclusion, interviews and testimonies

of contemporary South American immigrants portray an image of their

homelands as having been reduced to not much more than statistical

populations, held together within geographical confines primarily by the force

of habit, by their financial limitations, and by the vicissitudes of red tape in

processing immigration requests.

As we enter the middle of the first decade of the 21st century, it is the decline

of citizenship and the concomitant depolitization of migration – rather than the

construction of the self determination of democratic states – that is one of the

most visible consequences of the new world order. That these processes lead to

increasing the importance of ethnicity as informing both individual strategies

for social mobility and the political discourse is not a major surprise. But at the

same time, the meaning and strategic employment of ethnic labeling is changing

in the present context of the global restructuring of ‘‘post-modern’’ society.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the fate of the immigrants once they find

themselves in the United States. Like other Latinos, South Americans too

become subsumed under the term Hispanic – a label that in effect turns all

Latinos into administrative statistical categories. From this point of view, it may

appear paradoxical to spend so much effort in what can ultimately be

understood as a process of trading membership in one statistical category (in the

homeland) for another (in the United States, as Hispanics).

Ultimately, then, while the process of negotiating differences along social and

racial lines undoubtedly contributes toward further undermining national

specificity, beyond any sense of cultural nostalgia or linguistic solidarity, it is the

decision to make this country their home, the possibility of achieving an

acceptable social insertion, and the consequent political needs and benefits that

the construction of this ‘‘common future’’ provide, which will ensure that South

Americans join the struggles that are specific to US Latinos for citizenship –

both through defining themselves and simultaneously being included by others

under the ethnic identity of Latinos in the United States.

R e f e r e n c e s

Bauman, Zygmunt. 1998. Globalization: The Human Consequences. New York: Columbia University Press.

er be a foreigner

without legal status in

this country, and the

Immigration and

Naturalization Ser-

vice, which has or-

dered him home to

Cuba, would have no

more say over his

fate.’’

L o s Q u e L l e g a r o n

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Latino Studies (2005) 3, 42–52. doi:10.1057/palgrave.lst.8600133

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