Grounding Immigrant Generations in History: Cuban Americans and Their Transnational Ties
Open Access
- 1 September 2002
- journal article
- Published by SAGE Publications in International Migration Review
- Vol. 36 (3) , 799-837
- https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-7379.2002.tb00105.x
Abstract
The two paradigms for analyzing immigrant experiences, “assimilationist” and “transnationalist,” leave unanalyzed important differences in immigrant adaptation rooted in different historical generational experiences. This article analyzes the importance of a historically grounded generational frame of analysis. It captures differences in views and involvements between two cohorts of first generation émigrés. Empirically, the study focuses on different Cuban-American cohort crossborder ties. The first cohort, comprised of émigrés who left between 1959 and 1979 primarily for political reasons, publicly oppose travel to Cuba because they believe it helps sustain a regime they wish to bring to heel. The second cohort, who emigrated largely for economic reasons, is enmeshed in transnational ties that, paradoxically, are unwittingly doing more to transform Cuba than first wave isolationism. The cohort comparison is based on interviews with émigrés in Union City, New Jersey and Miami, Florida. The analysis of effects of transnational ties rests on interviews in Cuba as well.Keywords
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