- Between weeks 8 and 14, each student should provide a weekly reflection (500 words) on the data you have collected to date.
- What data did you collect?
- What is your initial impression of the data?
- How have the data you have collected this week changed/progressed your thinking about your research project?
- What challenges did you encounter while collecting the data?
- What are your next steps?
This week I focused on how Salvadorans’ identities in the United States are shaped by their legal status and how the Salvadoran government has created an accepted transnational identity for those abroad. The two works I read through this week are “Legal Violence: Immigration Law and the Lives of Central American Immigrants” by Cecilia Menjivar and “’Departamento 15’: Cultural Narratives of Salvadoran Transnational Migration” by Ana Patricia Rodriguez. Menjivar’s work talks about a “new axis of stratification” that is anchored in legality and how that often leads to segmented assimilation in many Central American immigrants. She uses Bourdieu’s idea of symbolic violence to understand how this new axis of stratification came to be and why it has persisted. The connection to Bourdieu’s symbolic violence really caught my attention and I think I want to incorporate this normalization theory more into my analysis of Salvadoran identity.
Rodriguez’s work focused on the transnational identity created by the Salvadoran government which is “Departamento 15.” In El Salvador, there are 14 “departamentos,” also known as states, so the idea of having a fifteenth state creates the notion that those abroad especially in the US are still connected and a part of their home country. This transnational narrative was created because the Salvadoran government realized how much it benefitted from having Salvadorans abroad. Salvadorans around the world send a significant amount of remittances that account for a large portion of El Salvador’s economy. Also, in many ways, this is the Salvadoran government’s attempt to ‘amend’ ties with those that had to flee the country because of the violence they experienced. Rodriguez also introduces the idea of Salvadoran immigrants being “rerooted” instead of “uprooted” because of the created transnational identity. It will be interesting to connect the “rerooted” idea to assimilation further on in my research.
The data I collected has helped me verbalize a lot of the ideas and thoughts I have had about Salvadoran identity in the US. Although these terms and ideas are important, it will still be important to consider what these words actually mean within a larger context of other information I may come across. Also, the readings really demonstrated how much identity narratives change and vary across individuals which served as a good reminder. It was a bit difficult to find information on Salvadoran transnational identity but using some of the terms I found this week I can try other searches. My next steps would be to continue finding one more source regarding transnational identity before focusing more directly on assimilation and how that varies across different Salvadorans in the US.