Co-Ethnic Migration and the Myth of Facilitated Incorporation: Argentine Immigrants in Rural Spain

• In Event: 130 - Section on Racial and Ethnic Minorities Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 06. Race, Ethnicity and Immigration

Abstract

Scholars contend that contemporary liberal principals are irreconcilable with immigration and citizenship law that discriminates by race, ethnicity, and national origins. Positive selection, in which states grant privileged access and membership to immigrants who share the native majority’s ethnicity, is more acceptable because of the underlying logic that co-ethnic newcomers readily integrate via their cultural capital. Drawing on the case of Aguaviva, Spain, home to both co-ethnic Argentines and to Romanians, I argue that the assumption behind the question of whether it is less reprehensible to prefer rather than to discriminate—that shared ethnicity facilitates incorporation—is faulty. Such similarity between immigrants and their hosts can counterintuitively limit labor market integration, the key to economic mobility, especially in destinations with other immigrant pools. Not similar enough to gain foothold into primary sector work reserved for natives, co-ethnics are also not different enough to secure entry into the secondary sector dominated by less desirable immigrants. Despite the preferential terms with which co-ethnics are welcomed into the receiving polity, this study demonstrates how and why ethnic similarity can problematically obstruct labor market integration.

Author

• Angela S. Garcia, University of California-San Diego