A Phase-Specific Analysis of Guatemalan Migration to the United States

• In Event: 242 - Section on International Migration Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 03. Migration and the State

Abstract

In the context of increasing Guatemalan turmoil caused by civil war and economic decline, the late 1970s witnessed the beginning of large-scale Guatemalan migration to the United States that continues into the twenty-first century. Across time, the number of Guatemalan migrants in this flow has fluctuated with changing conditions in Guatemala and the United States. In this paper we offer the concept of migration phases as a useful analytical tool to examine social developments in Guatemala and the United States associated with the numerical fluctuations in this migration. Our thesis is that the understanding of large-scale migratory flows is enriched when lengthy migration patterns of several decades or longer are examined according to temporal phases demarked by migrant flow fluctuations linked to social developments at points of origin and destination. Our more general thesis is that, while migration flows may appear on the surface to be uniform because of unchanging national or ethnic composition and constant movement, in reality, migratory movements are significantly differentiated by changing experiences among migrants and by varying causes of expulsion and attraction at points of origin and destination.
In this paper, we delineate five phases of Guatemalan migration to the United States from the late 1970s to the present and elaborate on the fifth, most recent phase, which commenced approximately in 2004. We elaborate on this recent phase to demonstrate the dramatically changed context of US-bound Guatemalan migration at the points of origin and destination, and to illustrate the analytical usefulness of migration phases.

Authors

• Nestor P. Rodriguez, University of Texas-Austin

• Susanne Jonas, University of California-Santa Cruz