Cause of Migration, the Experience of Migration
The study of migration is often seen exclusively as an effect of macro phenomenon that takes into consideration only structural analyses. In my studies of migration and my interaction with labor migrants, refugees and deported Latin American citizens, I observed that there are indeed significant political and economic push and pull factors. Yet, within each narrative story there is the personalized decision to act on such factors. The approach to the study of migration with a rational choice approach is too reliant on the classical liberalism that humanity only seeks its own “self advancement”. Here, I rely more on a more ethnographic approach in tracing how Jose de Asis responds to structural changes and relies on agency and his social connections to navigate life as an immigrant in Guam and Arizona.
1. Myths: Migration is Caused by Lack of Economic Development and Migrants Move Solely for More Wages
Douglas Massey elaborates common misconceptions on migration in Five Myths About Migration. After the Second World War, the Philippines gained its full independence in 1946, but it was also physically destroyed. The need to rebuild in a newly ordered world triggered increased industrial development where a reliance on an agricultural economy decreased and economics became market-driven. This structural development served as a significant source of displacement. Wages were low and purchasing power was weak in the Philippines and there were no financial institutions in which people can take out lines of credit. It was not that wages were comparatively low, but it was not a living wage. Mr. De Asis accepted a contract with the Navy to send home a “living wage”. In moving to Arizona, it was a family connection that brought him here. (Massey, Five Myths About Immigration, p. 1-5).
3. Labor Capitalism and the Dignity of Work
Miriam Davidson, in Lives on the Line, shows how neoliberal economics values profit maximization through cheap, exploitative labor. This is similar to the ways in which the military recruited Filipino laborers and how Filipinos were paid in Guam. Mr. De Asis did not make as much money as Chamorros or Americans. The military even made it known that they hired Filipinos because labor was cheap. Importing Filipinos from Visaiyas cut military budget costs, but it embraced an ill-dignified view of the value of Filipino work.
5. A Transnational Identity: Chamorro, Filipino, American
In Crossing the Boulevard, Warren Lehrer and Judith Sloan show how spaces like schools become centers of cultural mixing. In regions such as Agat and Dededo where the Filipino populations were high, children and adults interacted with both Americans and Chamorros. Department of Defense schools were not established at this time so Americans, Chamorros, and Filipino children often went to the same school. As Mr. De Asis mentioned, there were confrontations with discrimination, but his kids also made friendships that fostered understanding. The next generations showed the influence of Chamorro, Filipino and American cultures on their lives. Additionally, Michael, Joseph and Sylvia became more assimilated an American way of life living in the states.
2. Military Interests create Linkages with the Philippines
In Why Migration?, Saskia Sassen shows that countries often form connective bridges as seen in the U.S’s military involvements in Asia. The Philippines was a territory of the United States from 1899 to 1934 with the signing of the Tydings McDuffie Act. Also, the Philippines was a major battleground in World War II, and bonds of affinity to the American liberators ingrained forever in the minds of Filipinos freed from the Japanese. The military served as an effective bridge to the United States. Here it was more direct since the United States recruited Filipino laborers through a separate agreement with the government of the Philippines. (Sassen, Why Migration, p.16)
4. The "Mexicans" of Guam
In In and Out of Morrocco by David McMurry, the notion that Morocaans are the “Mexicans” of Europe sets up a prevailing theme of how identity serves as the basis of social exclusion. In Guam, a similar view of Filipinos as the “Mexican” of Guam can be taken in its historical context. A senator for the Guam legislature, James T. Sablan expressed constantly the fear that Chamorros would become minorities in their own land (Campell, Filipino Migration). These apprehensions translated into discrimination and occasional outbursts of violence as Mr. De Asis explained.
Works Cited
Davidson, Miriam. Lives on the Line: Dispatches from the US-Mexico Border. U Arizona P 2000
Lehrer, Warren & Sloan, Judith. Crossing the BLVD: Strangers, Neighbors, Aliens in a New America.
Massey, Douglas S. Five Myths About Immigration: Common Misconceptions Underlying US Border-Enforcement Policy Immig Policy Ctr, 2005.
McMurray, David. In and Out of Morocco: Smuggling and Migration in a Frontier Boomtown. U Minnesota P 2001
Sassen,Saskia. Why Migration? Report on the Americas 25(1)1992: 14-19.