CHAPTER 9 TRANSNATIONALISM AND THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF MESOAMERICA 373acts against them and loneliness. Nevertheless, many have been able to create and
share strong local communities and achieve great respect from their neighbors. Mi-
grants throughout the United States have found that they must deal with new patterns
of social inequality and prestige as they work to satisfy basic needs such as housing,
schooling, and health. The impact of these inequalities depend upon their alliances
with various help organizations and social services, their positions in the larger econ-
omy, and their lack of understanding U.S. institutional practices. In the process of
creating new communities, migrants also strengthen transnational ties with their
home communities and countries.
Monetary and Cultural Remittances
Migrating to the United States has also helped people improve conditions in the
sending communities by means of monetary remittances. Mesoamerican peoples
rely on the remittances of those who migrated, and their home countries’ economies
count on the influx of those rather significant funds. Mexican estimates suggest that
anywhere between two to six billion dollars are sent annually to Mexico by migrants
living in the Unites States. In several countries, remittances are considered to be a
preponderant share of the entire national economy. The money sent home con-
tributes to family basic expenditures, community development, funding the educa-
tion of children, and construction of new homes.
Migrants in the United States operate across borders by sending funds but also
by traveling often to fulfill family and community obligations. In this way, migrants
contribute to the transformation of their native communities, and in the process
they constitute a new layer of prestige in the towns of origin. Circular migration, or
temporary return migrants, adds a complex layer of new problems and drama to the
not-so-quiet lives of sending communities. Much more than money circulates, and the
impact of transnational ties is greater than can be described here. For example, cul-
tural preferences are slowly changing: new foods, music, travel patterns, and dress
styles, among many other changes, are taking place. New values, business practices,
and economic ideologies are being created and operate in the context of this mas-
sive diaspora.
The process is not just an “Americanization” of Mesoamerica. Rather, it involves
a clearer sense by migrants of their position in the world system and their subordi-
nation at individual and collective levels. Many of the new ideas are communicated
to others in sending communities, including new forms of resistance. In addition,
changing local hierarchies are being established between those who have left or live
”outside” and those who remain on the “inside.” Ideological changes extend to views
about politics, gender relations, sexual orientations, as well as racial and ethnic iden-
tifications. A complex web of social, cultural, and economic “remittances” are trans-
forming Mesoamerica as transnational ties permeate the full range of the diaspora.
Development and Underdevelopment
The geographic area that corresponds to ancient Mesoamerica has suffered from the
effects of underdevelopment as much as, and often more so than, other countries in