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Leisure and Transnational Networks of Temporary
Migrants to the U.S
In 2003, Drs. Monika Stodolska and Carla Santos conducted an interpretive
study that focused on the effects of transnational status on leisure behavior
of temporary migrants from Mexico.
Twenty one in-depth interviews with Mexican migrants temporarily residing
in Chicago and Champaign-Urbana, Illinois were conducted between August
and November of 2003. Findings suggested that factors such as specific
family status, unique work arrangements, economic, social and cultural
networks, and unique legal status, conditioned leisure of interviewed
Mexican migrants. Findings were analyzed in light of the theory of transnationalism
and the concept of transnational leisure defined as leisure that is maintained
by transnational migrants to foster their ties with their countries and
communities of origin was developed.
Moreover, our in-depth analysis of transnational activities maintained
by temporary migrant workers from Mexico helped to identify the degree
to which migrant workers engaged in social, cultural, economic, and political
transnational activities, and investigated how these activities are imbedded
in the context of their everyday life experiences. We established that
migrants were primarily involved in economic transnational activities,
such as sending financial remittances, and investing in land, business,
and properties in the home country. This affected their everyday life
in the U.S. by limiting their financial resources, which had an effect
on their living conditions and spending patterns. Migrants also engaged
in social transnational activities which involved maintaining social contacts
with friends and family abroad, socializing with people from the same
ethnic group and home visits. Cultural transnational activities that migrants
were involved in were primarily low cost, individual in nature, and home
based. They included listening to ethnic music, watching Spanish-language
TV, cooking national foods, and teaching children national language. Interestingly,
interviewed migrants tended to avoid any forms of political transnationalism.
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