Binational Migration Perspectives: Mexico, Latin America, and the USA

Abstract

Our understanding of the migration processes can be substantially improved by examining the “contexts of premigration experiences” including the environmental conditions that motivated migration and personal preparedness to facilitate the physical transition as well as the “contexts of reception” such as structural factors and social resistance to migrants encountered in local areas of resettlement. This section of the volume connects the worlds of migrating and non-migrating people of Mexican heritage in the U.S. and Mexico, and examines selected issues accompanying consequences of resettlement and rebuilding lives and lifestyles. The chapters reflect major domains of transnational research in aging: impacts of migration and social adjustment, processes of support in families and social networks, and the impact of changing demography and residential status for foreign-born migrants in the U.S. The studies presented in this section benefit from a higher quantity and quality of cross-sectional and longitudinal survey data to study migratory patterns and regional variation in resettlement, differences in societal integration, and the connection of these patterns with health and healthcare.