Conclusions Although there are many obstacles to participation in organized community-building activities, such as restricted English skills, and limited time off work or away from childcare responsibilities, I do not want to focus on these impediments. Regardless of barriers, Latino's in Somerville are working to improve their communities both through organized programs and in less visible ways, all the time. For example, one on my narrators sews clothes for people, which I would not have discovered had I not been prompted to ask about it specifically by others in the community.
Just as Maria Tejada did not tell me in our formal interview that she volunteers her time to teach CCD classes at The Little Flower school, many Latinos do not think of the generous acts they perform on a daily basis as “community-building” efforts. Only in casual conversation, walking with Maria Tejada after attending Mass at St Benedicts one Sunday, did she tell me about how she and her husband bring used clothes back to El Salvador for those who are in need. Her husband, Orlando Tejada, will soon be flying home to El Salvador for seven days, and she was pleased because this trip they had a lot of clothing to donate. This is an example of community-building even though we may not think of El Salvador as still within the “community” of a woman who has lived in the States for more than a decade. However, she and her husband have both been back to El Salvador several times since they left, and both have family members still living in Central America. As stated by Peggy Levitt in Transnational Villagers , many people assume
“that migrants will eventually transfer their loyalty and community membership from the countries they leave behind to the ones that receive them. But increasing numbers of migrants continue to participate in the political and economic lives of their homelands, even as they are incorporated into their host societies. Instead of loosening their connections and trading one membership for another, some individuals are keeping their feet in both worlds.”
The Tejadas' continual donations to El Salvador are only one example among many of the connections immigrants keep to their homelands while they build community in the States. As Levitt summarizes, “assimilation and transnational practices are not incompatible.” This means that Latinos can adapt to new “American” lives in Somerville while maintaining connections across nations ( transnation- al) to the worlds they arrive from. The soccer players who keep up with their Central American hometown teams while playing with their “minds in El Salvador” are further examples of Latinos maintaining a sense of transnational community. In researching how Latino immigrants define and build community it is important to keep in mind that their senses of “community” likely include peoples and communities abroad.
Levitt, Transnational Villagers, 3.
Levitt, Transnational Villagers, 5. |
Bibliography
Brannigan, Bridgid, Kennedy, Seán, and Miranda, Annery. “Latino Cultural Expressions in Cambridge.” Urban Borderlands Project, Spring 2002.
Cohen, Joel. Interview with Roberto Velasquez . Urban Borderlands Oral History Project. October 1, 2003.
Cohen, Joel. Interview with Lucas A. Santos. Urban Borderlands Oral History Project. October 12, 2003.
Levitt, Peggy. Transnational Villagers . University of California Press, 2001.
Lynch, Barbara Deutsch. “The Garden and the Sea: US Latino Environmental Discourses and mainstream Environmentalism.” Social Problems, Vol. 40, No. 1, February 1993.
Repak, Terry A. Waiting on Washington: Central American Workers in the Nation's Capital . Temple University Press, 1995.
Online Reference
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IV. K. Knight, 2003 http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04215b.htm |
