What Drives Diasporas & Development? Hybrid Identity at its Best
BY JENNIFER M. BRINKERHOFF
The big dilemma this summer was who to root for in the World Cup Games. Like the famous “cricket test” in Britain (cited by Amartya Sen in his new book, Identity and Violence), choosing a team is supposed to be an indication of one’s identity and loyalty. But does that mean that the world’s diaspora members must choose an exclusive identity and loyalty?
In fact, diasporas’ increasing participation in homeland development is a strong indication of why tolerance for hybrid identities is good for international development, global peace, and security. For toolong, the emphasis in public opinion, research, and associated public policies has been on the potential negative influences of diasporas on the homeland, and an assumption that diasporas’ loyalty is singular or at least zero-sum. Today, we can point to empirical evidence that diasporas may be strongly motivated to contribute constructively to the homeland and to promote liberal values in the process.
According to the World Bank, remittances have been increasing rapidly and now outpace official development assistance: estimated at $70 billion per year in 2004, $125 billion in 2005, and $167 billion in 2006. More sophisticated understandings of skilled migration are now emerging, countering the assumption that skilled migration always results in brain drain. The government of the People’s Republic of China, for example, is championing temporary return to “serve the motherland” and offers economic and policy incentives to encourage knowledge exchange with universities and business development opportunities. India’s IT industry success attests to the benefits of transnational networks that often involve only temporary return.
While diaspora philanthropy is often viewed as insignificantly small in scope and economic value and amateurishly implemented, small scale giving adds up. A recent Asian Development Bank-sponsored study found that Filipino diaspora remittances of approximately $218 million were sent through the formal banking system in 2003 as gifts and donations (not including remittances to families), representing a 5-year high. Some of these efforts are evolving into professional, registered nonprofits that may compete with more established development NGOs for government grants. The Virginia-based diaspora nonprofit, Coptic Orphans, is a $1.5 million operation and has served 10,500 children in Egypt through a variety of programs.
Diasporas are also economically investing in their homelands, with increasing scale and significance. Again, India’s information technology success story is a widely cited case, where diaspora members have networked with their returned counterparts, contributing an estimated 16% of total foreign investment. Transnational entrepreneurs who market to diasporas are also on the rise. The online companyThamel.com targets the Nepali diaspora, enabling them to purchase locally produced gifts for their families in Nepal, with Thamel.com providing quality control and small business development services to local businesses.
Beyond remittances, if diasporas have been noticed on the development scene, it likely has been for their role in the aftermath of conflict. In Afghanistan, Iraq, Liberia, and beyond, diasporas are fueling reconstruction through direct investment, repatriation, and human capital. Among the better known examples are two former World Bank staff: Ashraf Ghani, who left the Bank to become Afghanistan’s Minister of Finance (and who is now the President of Kabul University), and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the President of Liberia (and first woman elected president in Africa). Many other diaspora members may repatriate in the aftermath of conflict, either for humanitarian or identity aims, as entrepreneurs, or both. Some return with an intention to stay, others plan to make shorter term contributions, and still others develop networks that they can support from abroad.
Diasporas are often interested in short term opportunities to serve, and that interest is piqued when the homeland is emerging from conflict. Another Virginia-based diaspora organization, Afghans4Tomorrow (A4T), creates opportunities for diaspora members to serve for short periods of time. They have also assisted in the recruitment of skilled diaspora members to staff development industry projects. They request that these recruited individuals provide volunteer service to A4T’s projects in addition to their formal jobs in Afghanistan.
Less noticeable, perhaps, is the role diasporas play in sustaining livelihoods in failed states and early recovery. For example, the Somali diaspora is widely credited for maintaining entire payment systems in Somaliland, contributing an estimated $2 billion annually. The diaspora is also investing economically. In the absence of a working state there are few regulatory impediments to entrepreneurs. With the diaspora targeted as both investor and client, several Somali airlines have been established, some have built their own airports, and all without public funding.
Beyond this direct engagement, diasporas have continued to be active advocates on behalf of their homeland. In his landmark book, Marketing the American Creed Abroad (1999), Yossi Shain argues that by embracing liberal values and seeking their application to the homeland, diasporas’ influence on US foreign policy has helped to safeguard American values abroad, essentially acting as a “moral compass” to keep US foreign policy true to its ideals. Indeed, from humanitarian relief to security interventions, diasporas have been active contributors to US engagement abroad, which may even strengthen the governance of homeland states, keeping them accountable to policy implementation generally, and with respect to human rights. The US Copts Association, for example, networks with Copts in Egypt and their diaspora family members to uncover discrimination and human rights abuses. Depending on the violation, it may lobby the US Congress for action or it may more quietly confront Egyptian policymakers in Egypt.
But what does all of this have to do with the World Cup? Identity and associated loyalties are multi-dimensional. Immigrants neither wholly accept their adopted-country culture nor do they automatically embrace their traditional ethnic culture to the exclusion of other influences. It is not a question of zero-sum conflict among features of one identity versus the other. Many of the diaspora activities described above draw from the best that both homelands — ancestral and adopted — have to offer, to imbue actions with values, thinking, and skills resulting from the creolized mélange that defines them. Following are some examples.
In addition to identity affinity, many of these initiatives begin with a realization of relative wealth and comfort. Why was Afghans4Tomorrow created? According to one of its founders:
Love of our country, Afghanistan. For every Afghan, I can tell you, that has been an issue since the day we left the country. We consider that our home, just like we consider the US our home. We feel very connected to the people left behind…Part of our religion gives us the responsibility or duty to give back to the needy or the poor…Just the responsibility to help people out because we were fortunate enough to not have to go through what they went through.
Similarly, when confronted with the depth of poverty in the Copt community in Egypt, Nermien Riad, founder of Coptic Orphans, thought to herself:
I knew very well that if it hadn’t been for my father getting a visa to the United States, I could have easily been one of these too…God was the one that brought us here. We can never say “Oh, I worked hard. I made a lot of money.” I did nothing. And so, having gotten that opportunity, shame on me if I were to forget these people that are worse off.
In the case of US diasporas, in particular, these individuals and organizations approach homeland challenges with an American “can do!” attitude. Riad applied her American thinking and her training as an engineer to create a professional organization with the courage to work within the system but question inefficiencies and injustices too: “The American thinking is ‘I see an injustice, therefore I’m going to do something about it.’ Whereas in Egypt, the Egyptian thinking is more, ‘I see an injustice. That’s the way life is.’”
Michael Meunier, the founder of the US Copts Association, seeks to address this attitude through his work:
We try to educate the people in Egypt…We have a strong message that these are your rights, and you should stand up and take them, because rights are not to be taken for granted. And just make sure when you take them, you take them in a peaceful manner…If you have something that you cannot handle, send it to us and we’ll try to handle it.
The application of the American experience and values is particularly noticeable within digital diasporas, or diasporas organized on the Internet. These discussion forums provide a venue for diasporas to continuously negotiate what their identity means to them, as well as consider the status and future of the homeland. For example, on Somalinet members specifically discussed “What are American Values? ” One respondent offered: “On the whole America is ahead on the individuals rights and freedoms, so instead of knocking it we should be using the possibilities that are opened to those of us who got the chance to live there” [sic]. In considering the future of Somalia, one member relied on John F. Kennedy’s famous statement, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” This member went on to encourage hard work, as opposed to looting and welfare, reminiscent of the Protestant work ethic.
These are but a few examples of hybrid identity at its best. They suggest that the role of diasporas in development will continue and grow. And with the accumulation of examples such as these, both diaspora members and policymakers are likely to take notice and further develop and professionalize their engagement with development and each other. These diaspora members are clearly rooting for both teams.
Jennifer M. Brinkerhoff (jbrink@gwu.edu) is associate professor of public administration and international affairs at The George Washington University (http://www.gwu.edu/) and organizer of the recent conference “The Role of Diasporas in Developing the Homeland,” funded by the Center for the Study of Globalization (http://gstudynet.com/gwcsg/ what/research/programs/diasporas.php).
Shifting Borders and Destinations:
New Locations of Mexican Settlement
BY DEBRA SHUTIKA
On the whole, Northern Virginia is not often associated with the U.S.-Mexico border. In the summer of 2005, however, it seemed as if the border had moved into the region’s backyard. In Herndon,
Virginia, a group of male Latino day laborers had been gathering at a local 7-Eleven each morning looking for work. Residents wanted the men to stop congregating in town, but when local community activists proposed to build a day labor center to formally resituate Latinos within Herndon, they met strong resistance from some in the community. Many of the same residents who were unhappy about the men waiting by the 7-Eleven were incensed by the proposal to use tax dollars to build an official day-labor center that would be located adjacent to a residential neighborhood. These residents argued that funding a day-labor center would officially encourage illegal immigration and feared that a town-supported center would encourage more undocumented workers to come to Herndon. As plans for the day labor center moved forward, a local chapter of the Minute Men, a civilian organization that usually patrols the U.S.-Mexico border, took up positions in Herndon to photograph workers and potential employers in an attempt to systematically discourage people from hiring day laborers.
Much of what transpired in Herndon was reminiscent of the events I have documented for the past decade in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. Since the mid-1980s, Kennett Square has transitioned from a majority Anglo-European farming village into a multiethnic community as Mexican families have steadily moved in and around the area. The issues at stake in Kennett Square ten years ago were nearly identical to those in Herndon: how the community would find a physical and cultural place for the rapidly growing number of Mexican families moving into the community, frustration with failed national immigration policies and the search for local alternatives, and anxiety about the changing local character and communal identity of a once majority Anglo-European farming village. Both communities demanded cheap local labor, but opposed sharing neighborhoods with Latinos filling those labor needs.
The events in Kennett Square and Herndon are part of a larger national trend in Mexican immigration that has occurred since the mid-1980s: Mexicans and Latinos settling permanently in communities outside the border region. At one time, the U.S.-Mexico borderlands were the familiar destination of Mexican immigration and immigration controversy. Throughout the 1980s, national headlines documented borderland community problems: the porous, yet militarized border, coyotes and drug smugglers, migrant deaths in the desert, and the siphoning of public funds by undocumented workers. Mexican immigration, once considered a localized problem, has moved beyond the borderlands and is now dispersed across the United States.
These demographic changes were in part the outcome of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA), a watershed in U.S. immigration history, which provided amnesty and legal residency for previously undocumented laborers throughout the U.S., the majority of whom were Mexican nationals. The legislation permanently altered Mexican migration and settlement patterns by providing formerly undocumented laborers the option of permanently settling in the U.S., and facilitated the establishment of Mexican communities outside the historic gateway states along the U.S.-Mexico borderlands as new destinations for Mexican immigrants.
IRCA was not the only event that has shaped new immigration and settlement patterns in the U.S. A housing boom and rapidly expanding suburban communities have increased labor needs in construction and landscaping and subsequently fueled Mexican settlement in Kennett Square from the mid-1990s onward. In other parts of the U.S., the demand for domestic assistance created a labor market for immigrant women and promoted a more diverse settlement pattern. Taken together, the resulting demographic shifts have not only disrupted American suburbia’s long-standing homogeneity, but have forced changing communities to reconsider notions of local identity.
My work in Kennett Square has focused on the meanings and interpretations of “community” in a context where the English-speaking majority contested Mexican communal membership and belonging. New destinations of Mexican settlement like Kennett Square have no prior history of Mexican presence and thus do not provide the longstanding social and political support networks that are common in the borderlands. These settlements are also unique in that the changes accompanying unexpected growth are often fraught with controversy as the very character of long term, local identity shifts with the population. In Kennett Square, the last ten years have been characterized by periods of active resistance to Mexican settlement that have alternated with a slow and sometimes reluctant integration of Mexican residents into the community fabric.
Kennett Square: the Mushroom Capital
Kennett Square is situated thirty miles Southwest of Philadelphia and has been home to the nation’s largest commercial mushroom industry for the last century. Despite its rural ambiance and farming community history, Kennett Square is a sophisticated town with upscale boutiques, restaurants, and its own symphony orchestra. The village is approximately one square mile and home to some 6,000 residents. Kennett Square, like surrounding Chester County, is known as a Republican Party stronghold. Founded as a Quaker settlement in 1855, Kennett also has a local reputation of being a more socially progressive community than its neighbors, a point frequently emphasized by local residents.
Since the late 1960s, Kennett Square and its surrounding county saw a slow but steady increase in the population of Mexican men who came to work in the mushroom industry. These single Mexican men first made their way to Kennett Square in significant numbers as Puerto Rican workers left mushrooming for industrial employment in nearby Wilmington, Delaware, and Philadelphia. The longer-term Kennett residents, the English-speaking majority, considered the migrant men visiting Kennett during the peak mushrooming months between October and March as an acceptable and desirable consequence of a thriving agribusiness. Between 1968 and 1990, the majority of laborers were men housed out of sight on farm property in trailers or barracks, where they worked, ate, and lived together. Many of these men worked in Kennett for years, sometimes a decade or more, but their families and lives remained in Mexico. Mexican workers were essential to the mushroom industry, but most migrants never considered Kennett Square “home.” Oral histories from the earliest migrants to Kennett emphasize that their lives were entirely work-centered, with long hours and poor working conditions a matter of course.
These seasonal migrants fit well into the hierarchical social structure of Kennett Square. In this sense, the local body politic has always situated the Mexican labor force in a liminal position in the community, a place in the community hierarchy that has been more or less rigidly fixed. Migrant workers were routinely excluded from community events like the annual Mushroom Festival. Although Mexicans “belonged” to fulfill a specific purpose, picking mushrooms, they were transients, not fully accepted members of the local community. Similarly, most of these men never intended to stay.
The passage of the IRCA in 1986, however, permanently altered the social and cultural landscape of Kennett Square. With a newly acquired amnesty and legal permanent residency, many seasonal migrants elected to settle in Kennett Square and the surrounding county, and shortly thereafter brought their wives and children. The Mexican settlement controversy began in Kennett, as it has more recently in Herndon, when families were reunited and more visible in the local community. By 1995, the Mexican population in Kennett Square was well established, but the English-speaking majority was unwilling to share their neighborhoods and public spaces with Mexican families. In 1995, for instance, English-speaking residents protested the redevelopment of dilapidated properties in town that would eventually house Mexican families. A year later, a local dance hall that had become a favorite gathering place for Mexican couples was closed and torn down, and a vacant field where Mexican men gathered in the evenings after work to play soccer was plowed under. In early 1997, a neighborhood association asked English-speaking residents to place yellow ribbons in their windows to protest Mexicans who were purchasing houses and moving into their neighborhood; the organization claimed their actions were not directed at Mexican families per se, but at the overcrowded housing conditions.
While the protests began as scattered events, the effort to keep Mexicans out of Kennett did not go unnoticed by Mexicans and many in the English-speaking community. Accusations of racism from within the English-speaking population spurred local dialogue about the town’s direction; for several years it appeared that Kennett Square would devolve into a divided community, but the English-speaking community’s progressive self-image, coupled with the need for a reliable mushroom industry workforce and a desire to reduce racist and reactionary actions has gradually (and sometimes reluctantly) moved Kennett Square toward accepting the local changes caused by Mexican settlement. Most recently, the town has approved a request to build low-income houses that will primarily benefit Mexican families and since 2001 has celebrated an annual Cinco de Mayo festival to acknowledge Mexican heritage. Mexicans are not yet fully accepted members of the community, but their numbers have grown to the point that social support networks are in place for Mexican families and overall, adjustment to life in Kennett is much easier than it was ten years ago.
Reflecting on the “borders” that erupted in Herndon last year and Kennett Square even earlier, it is clear that these towns are bound by common experience. Although we cannot predict where new destination communities will arise or what resulting local problems will spring, Kennett Square is an example of how a community can respond to newly evolving Mexican settlement. Its story provides insight into the connection between the demand for immigrant labor, the development of new immigrant settlements, and the integration of former migrants into members of local communities.
Debra Shutika (dshutika@gmu.edu) is assistant professor in the Department of English (http://english.gmu.edu). Citations have been removed due to space limitations, but are available from the author.
