Peggy Levitt
The top part of the avenue leading from the Dominican city of Baní to the village of Miraflores is bordered by thick, leafy mimosa trees. Throughout the year, they are covered by orange blossoms and blanket the street with a delicious shade. On the way out of town, the sidewalks are busy with women shopping and children returning home from school. The streets grow quiet as the beauty parlors, small grocery stores (colmados), and lawyers’ offices closest to the town square gradually give way to residential neighborhoods. On one corner is Mayor Carlos Peña’s feed store, where he and his coworkers from the Partido Revolucionario Dominicano (PRD) meet to talk about politics every late afternoon. Farther down the street, members of the Partido Reformista Social Cristiano (PRSC) also sit in front of their party’s headquarters, drinking sweet cups of coffee and discussing the current election campaign. At the edge of town, the buildings end abruptly in overgrown fields. The avenue goes silent except for a lone motorcycle driver. The countryside is overwhelmingly beautiful.
A few hundred yards ahead, two sights unexpectedly interrupt this peaceful landscape. On the right side of the road, four partially complete mansions stand behind large iron gates. Their crumbling marble pillars and large cracked windows, so out of character with the rest of the scene, mock onlookers from the street. A little farther down the avenue, at the edge of a large, uncultivated field, a billboard proclaims, “Viaje a Boston con Sierra Travel” – Travel to Boston with Sierra Travel. Telephone numbers in Boston and Baní, coincidentally beginning with the same exchange, are hidden by grasses so tall they almost cover the sign completely.
A small restaurant, its rusting metal chairs and tables glinting brightly in the sun, announces the entrance to Miraflores. Turning off the road into this village of close to four thousand residents reveals further discontinuities. While some of the homes resemble miniature, finished versions of the empty mansions along the avenue, one out of five families still lives in a small, two‐room wooden house. Four in ten use outdoor privies. Though the electricity goes off nightly for weeks at a stretch, nearly every household has a television, VCR, or compact‐disc player. And although it takes months to get a phone installed in Santo Domingo, the Dominican capital, Mirafloreños can get phone service in their homes almost immediately after they request it.
What explains these sharp contrasts? Who is responsible for these half‐finished homes that differ so completely in style and scale from the other houses in the area? Who is the audience for the billboards in the middle of fields that advertise international plane flights? How is it that people who must collect rainwater in barrels so they can wash when the water supply goes off are watching the latest videos in the comfort of their living rooms?
Transnational migration is at the root of these contradictions. The billboard speaks to the nearly two‐thirds of Mirafloreño families who have relatives in the greater Boston metropolitan area. These migrants pay for the home improvements and buy the appliances. They create such a lucrative market for long‐distance phone service that CODETEL (the Dominican phone company) installs phone lines in Miraflores almost immediately after they are requested. And some built the dream palaces on the avenue, which they completed only halfway before their money dried up.
Mirafloreños began migrating to Boston, Massachusetts, in the late 1960s. Most settled in and around Jamaica Plain, traditionally a white‐ethnic neighborhood until Latinos and young white professionals replaced those who began leaving the city in the 1960s. Over the years, migrants from the Dominican Republic and the friends and family they left behind have sustained such strong, frequent contacts with one another it is as if village life takes place in two settings. Fashion, food, and forms of speech, as well as appliances and home decorating styles, attest to these strong connections. In Miraflores, villagers often dress in T‐shirts emblazoned with the names of businesses in Massachusetts, although they do not know what these words or logos mean. They proudly serve their visitors coffee with Cremora and juice made from Tang. The local colmados stock SpaghettiOs and Frosted Flakes. Many of the benches in the Miraflores park are inscribed with the names of villagers who moved to Boston years ago. And almost everyone, including older community members who can count on their fingers how many times they have visited Santo Domingo, can talk about “La Mozart” or “La Centre” – Mozart Street Park and Centre Street, two focal points of the Dominican community in Jamaica Plain.
In Boston, Mirafloreños have re‐created their premigration lives to the extent that their new physical and cultural environment allows. Particularly during the early years of settlement, but even today, a large number of migrants lived within the same twenty‐block radius. There are several streets where people from Miraflores live in almost every triple‐decker house. Community members leave their apartment doors open so that the flow between households is as easy and uninhibited as it is in Miraflores. They decorate their refrigerators with the same plastic fruit magnets they used in Miraflores, and they put the same sets of ceramic animal families on the shelves of their living rooms. Women continue to hang curtains around the door frames; these provide privacy without keeping in the heat in the Dominican Republic but are merely decorative in Boston. Because someone is always traveling between Boston and the island, there is a continuous, circular flow of goods, news, and information. As a result, when someone is ill, cheating on his or her spouse, or finally granted a visa, the news spreads as quickly in Jamaica Plain as it does on the streets of Miraflores.
Many Americans expect migrants like Mirafloreños to sever their ties to their homeland as they become assimilated into the United States. They assume that migrants will eventually transfer their loyalty and community membership from the countries they leave behind to the ones that receive them. But increasing numbers of migrants continue to participate in the political and economic lives of their homelands, even as they are incorporated into their host societies. Instead of loosening their connections and trading one membership for another, some individuals are keeping their feet in both worlds. They use political, religious, and civic arenas to forge social relations, earn their livelihoods, and exercise their rights across borders. […]
Miraflores is just one type of transnational community, which I call a transnational village. Transnational villages have several unique characteristics. First, actual migration is not required to be a member. Migrants’ continued participation in their home communities transforms the sending‐community context to such an extent that nonmigrants also adapt many of the values and practices of their migrant counterparts, engage in social relationships that span two settings, and participate in organizations that act across borders. This is not to say that those who migrate and those who remain behind live in an imagined, third, transnational space. Instead, they are all firmly rooted in a particular place and time, though their daily lives often depend upon people, money, ideas, and resources located in another setting.
A second characteristic of transnational villages is that they emerge and endure partially because of social remittances. Social remittances are the ideas, behaviors, and social capital that flow from receiving to sending communities. They are the tools with which ordinary individuals create global culture at the local level. They help individuals embedded in a particular context and accustomed to a particular set of identities and practices to imagine a new cartography, encouraging them to try on new gender roles, experiment with new ideas about politics, and adopt new organizing strategies. Once this process has begun, daily life in the village is changed to such an extent, and migrants and nonmigrants often become so dependent on one another, that transnational villages are likely to endure.
A third feature distinguishing transnational villages is that they create and are created by organizations that themselves come to act across borders. These political, religious, and civic organizations arise or are reorganized to meet the needs of their newly transnational members, enabling migrants to continue to participate in both settings and encouraging community perpetuation. This also means that migrants have multiple channels through which to pursue transnational belonging. Dual citizenship is just one way to be a transnational actor. Religious, civic, and political groups allow migrants to express and act upon dual allegiances.
Migrants organize groups across borders in several ways. They may establish hometown associations, like the Miraflores Development Committee, with chapters in the sending community and in the areas where migrant residents cluster. They may form receiving‐country divisions of national political parties. Or, as in the case of the Catholic Church, they may extend an already established international institution to incorporate new connections resulting from relations between migrants and nonmigrants. […]
Mirafloreños living in Boston […] began getting together informally during the mid‐1970s. At first these gatherings were primarily social events until someone suggested that the group organize activities to better the community.
Our meetings were a place we could feel at home because at work and on the street we were still having a hard time getting adjusted. Then Pepe had the idea to try to do something for Miraflores. We had a big meeting on Mozart Street, where he was living. One of the people wrote a letter back saying we wanted to work with the Movimiento and help them. The idea to build the park originated in Boston. And after that we were always doing something. We would finish a project and the group would stop meeting. But then someone would come up with a different idea and we would get going once again.(Carlos, 42, return migrant, Miraflores)
All Mirafloreños are automatically members of the MDC, regardless of their place of residence. Each chapter has its own leadership and organizational structure. In 1994 seven directores (leaders) in Miraflores and eight leaders in Boston ran the organization. In addition to their weekly meetings, the group periodically organized larger meetings when a new project was starting or when committee members felt they needed additional help. The MDC in Miraflores organized community‐wide asambleas (assemblies) about once a year to elect new leadership. Community‐wide meetings also took place when a particularly difficult problem arose or a decision had to be made requiring a broader consensus. Members in Boston communicated their views by phone before these events, though they did not actually vote. Migrants chose their leaders separately, by informal agreement. When members of either chapter visited Boston or Miraflores, they were expected to attend the meetings held during their visits. As Rosita, a thirty‐two‐year‐old nonmigrant, described it:
Last summer, I went to visit my sister in Boston for two months. While I was there, I used to go to the comité meetings every Sunday night. People expected me to do this. And it helped. I could tell the people in Boston what was going on in Miraflores, and when I got home I was able to give the other members of the committee a better idea about what was going on.
When migrant leaders returned to the village to live, the community expected them to assume a leadership role in the MDC. “We are just waiting for Marcial to get settled,” said Alfredo about a new returnee. “He’s been back only five months, but when he’s ready, we are counting on him to be very active with us.”
The MDC does not receive technical assistance or financial support regularly from the Dominican government. It does not belong to a national or international nongovernmental organization (NGO) network. Independence has its advantages and disadvantages. Clearly these kinds of relationships can produce needed resources and enhance migrants’ influence. In the Mexican case, however, while the government’s Program for Mexican Communities Abroad extended resources and invited greater participation among immigrants, it also formalized and standardized many of these activities under the direction of the Mexican government. Some argue that these transnational activities reproduce long‐standing inequities because those already in power and an emerging migrant elite monopolize their benefits. Though migrant leaders’ increased social status and economic weight earns them substantive citizenship rights they did not enjoy as residents of Mexico, it is at nonmigrants’ expense.
The MDC is, however, operating in an environment that is favorable to NGOs. In the past two decades, international development agendas have devoted significant resources toward strengthening civil society and building institutions. The United States Agency for International Development supported such programs in the Dominican Republic as a way to circumvent government corruption and encourage the growth of alternative political forums. Organizations have also been created that directly address migrants’ concerns. The Fundación para la Defensa de Dominicanos Residentes en el Exterior (Foundation for the Defense of Dominicans Living Abroad), a group formed primarily by return migrants, works to improve the image of Dominicanos Ausentes because they are so often associated with the drug trade and prostitution.
For twenty‐five years various incarnations of the MDC have strategized, raised funds, and implemented projects across borders. These activities produced significant improvements in village life. Monies raised by the MDC purchased more than 80 percent of the land that the communal facilities were built on. The MDC also constructed the community center, health clinic, park, cemetery, and bridges over the irrigation canals that traverse Miraflores. In 1993, in addition to renovating the school and health clinic, the MDC also funded physicians’ salaries and medical supplies.
Some combination of community and state resources generally supports these projects. The MDC funds at least some portion of all its projects, by either paying for the entire project or leveraging monies it raises to secure matching funds from the government. Fund‐raising generally took two forms. The groups in Boston and on the island organized large fund‐raising events, such as dances and fairs, which often took place simultaneously. The radio telethon in Boston, for example, during which Mirafloreños called in to pledge donations to the MDC, was broadcast at the same time in Miraflores. The Boston group held its big dinner dance during the village’s fiestas patronales (patron saint celebration), which was also the most important fund‐raising time for the MDC on the island. In Boston committee members also recruited villagers to contribute a $10 cuota, or donation, to the MDC each week. They visited their contributors every weekend to collect money, exchange news, and offer updates on the committee’s progress. During this study, anywhere from 40 to 150 community members contributed money on a regular basis.
The MDC’s contributions to community development in Miraflores, however, go far beyond physical improvements and fund‐raising. The committee fosters positive change in the community in several other ways. First, the MDC solidified and expanded upon the informal solidarity that was such an integral part of Mirafloreño community life. Despite their regular exchanges of labor, food, child care, and clothing, attempts to formalize this social capital and use it systematically had generally failed. [...] respondents recalled a number of [...] incidents in which they felt they had been taken advantage of. It was simply a fact of life, many said, that when funds are raised, someone pockets something for themselves.
I remember I was living in Boston and they came around asking for donations. They wanted to build a sewing workshop where they could teach women in the village how to sew and they could earn some extra income. I said I would donate the machines but not money. I was not going to give money and have it stolen another time. I never heard back from them. And now, look around you, do you see anyone making dresses anywhere?(Rolando, 46, return migrant, Miraflores)
As a result, the community was very suspicious of its leadership and had difficulty working together as a formal group. There were few community members considered honest enough to be leaders. After all, in a world where everyone must struggle to make ends meet, why wouldn’t someone take advantage of an opportunity that presented itself? Don Miguel went so far as to say, “If you don’t want to be called a thief, then you shouldn’t belong to any organization.” Added Juline, a sixty‐seven‐year‐old nonmigrant:
It is very curious because we are a very generous people. We give to each other all the time. But any time someone tries to get us to work together as a group on some joint project, we all get suspicious of one another. We accuse each other of cheating and stealing or of trying to get something for ourselves. The people are right in this. There are too many instances where people cheated their fellow community members. That makes it very hard to trust someone who is not part of your family.
In the MDC’s case, however, both the social remittances migrants introduced and the clear rewards resulting from the MDC’s efforts helped convince a critical mass of Mirafloreños that community organization could work. In the same way that migrants encouraged calls for a different kind of politics, they also contributed to demands for an MDC that was more accountable to its members. Some of the management and administrative techniques they introduced made this possible. Furthermore, increasing numbers became convinced once the MDC established a successful track record of completing projects that clearly made a difference in the community. The committee’s activities stood in sharp contrast to the corruption and inefficiencies pervading Dominican life. While these examples could not counteract years of disillusionment with the state, they did provide models of success that could be emulated.
We still do not trust one another. And every time we start a new project, you know by the end that someone will be the bad guy. But we also have seen that if we work together, we can succeed. People see that we are finishing the funeral home. We’re finishing the baseball stadium. These are clear examples that people see and say to themselves, we can do this. We can make things better around here without someone profiting for themselves.(Laura, 58, nonmigrant, Miraflores)
A second way that the MDC promoted community development was by fostering organizational growth. The community took on more projects, addressing a wider variety of concerns, because of the large sums migrants raised in Boston. As a result, greater numbers of migrants and nonmigrants participated in a more diverse set of activities, which in turn required a wide variety of skills.
In 1993, for example, committee leaders restructured the MDC in Miraflores to be able to manage its activities more effectively. They created health, education, and sports subcommittees supervised by an overarching coordinating committee. Someone uninterested in sports could work on health. A person worried about schools could go to the education subcommittee’s meetings without having to sit through the entire meeting of the MDC. This made it easier and more attractive for Mirafloreños to focus their time and energies. Leaders estimated that participation in some kind of group rose from about 10 to 20 percent of all community members. More people also participated in Boston. Though the Boston chapter continued to meet as a whole, rather than dividing around specific activities, leaders felt that more migrants either attended meetings or kept informed about the group’s activities because the MDC addressed a wider set of concerns.
Participation taught some respondents a new set of skills. Maribel, a twenty‐six‐year‐old nonmigrant, said she learned some basic accounting and that this helped her manage her finances better at home. Mayra, a thirty‐four‐year‐old nonmigrant, improved her social skills:
I gained a lot more confidence about speaking in front of a group. It used to be that I hardly ever went out, let alone got up in front of people and said what I had to say. But little by little, after going to meetings, I started feeling more comfortable. We were working together and it began to feel like a team. And one day, I finally raised my hand and said something. After that, they couldn’t keep me quiet.
The creation of subcommittees particularly encouraged women to participate. As the MDC became more prominent and respected for its accomplishments, community members became more open to the idea that mujeres serias could be active in its work. Decentralizing the organization created “windows of opportunity” where women could assume more responsibility and have more say. Though in general men continued to dominate the organization and women took on traditionally female roles, their participation increased.
Women have always participated in the church. It is considered okay for even a woman who is married to go to mass and to attend meetings of the parish council. But very few women were active in the MDC. It wasn’t considered proper. Now, though, that they have the health committee and the education committee – these are things that people feel it is okay for women to be involved in. They will not accuse a woman of going to a meeting to flirt with men. They will say she is there because she cares about her children.(Pedro, 58, return migrant, Miraflores) […]
Finally, the efforts of MDC members in Boston and Miraflores enhanced villagers’ ability to make demands of the Dominican state. In some areas, such as health care, the community was able to provide for itself what the government did not provide for them. Before the PRD government (1978–86) built rural health clinics throughout the country, it was the MDC that financed health care provision in Miraflores. In other cases, the community leveraged the monies it raised to secure additional funds. Leaders convinced municipal authorities in Baní, for example, to match the $10,000 they collected to build the community’s park.
Migrant support also ultimately enabled the MDC to pressure the government to provide for them. The committee raised approximately $50,000 to construct its aqueduct. Members planned to finance and implement the entire project on their own because they were tired of waiting for the government to do it for them. After the MDC raised enough money to begin work, committee members visited provincial water supply authorities to get the permits they needed. When months passed and no permits arrived, they began making weekly trips to Santo Domingo to complain at the National Palace. Though each time officials assured them that the permits were on their way, they never materialized. Finally, after several months, the MDC learned that President Balaguer was coming to Baní to inaugurate another public‐works project and they arranged to meet with him.
We found out that Balaguer would be coming to Baní, so we asked the Reformistas in town to arrange a meeting for us. As the MDC president, I went as the representative of the entire group. I said, Dr. Balaguer, our village goes without water for days at a time. We want to build an aqueduct, and with the help of those who are living in Boston we have raised the money to do so. We have been asking the provincial water authorities for months to give us the permits we need, but there is always some excuse. We would like you to help us. And the old man looked at me and he said, “You can tell your community members to keep their money. I will build your aqueduct.”(Ramón, 48, nonmigrant, Miraflores) […]