2
of new transnational political formation among émigrés on traditional conceptions of citizenship
(Guarnizo 1997b; Ong 1999). As more émigrés and, perhaps, their children begin to maintain
political ties in both the United States and the country of origin/ancestry, traditional country-
bound notions of citizenship may have to be recast (Soysal 1994; Bosniak 2001).
2
This burst of scholarship highlights what might be a weakness in existing study of
immigrant political adaptation and naturalization propensities among immigrants in the United
States. While certainly not a new phenomenon, the volume of contemporary immigration and
the relative ease of international communication and transportation make it much easier for
immigrants to be transnational. The transnational scholarship shows that some subset of
immigrants (approximately 20 percent, by my estimate) establish social and connections to their
sending countries after emigration (DeSipio et al. 2003).
The primary focus of this scholarship has been on the impact on the sending community
or country and, as a result, there has been little effort to theorize about the impact on the politics
and society of the receiving country. This ongoing connection may well dampen interest in
political participation in the United States and/or naturalization for those immigrants who
maintain these connections. At the same time, the sustained connection to the sending country
maintained by some might well highlight the political opportunities in the United States or the
political meanings of naturalization of others and act as either a spur (for those who see relative
weaknesses in political opportunities in the sending country) or a disincentive (for those who see
relative opportunities in the home country).
2
This emerging scholarship of immigrant transnational politics does have some recurring weaknesses, however.
First, there is no effort to assess the overall frequency of transnational politics among immigrants. Second, the
scholarship of transnational political often assumes, often uncritically, that such transnational political activity is
durable over time and offers immigrants resources that they can use to shape not just the politics of their sending
communities/countries, but also their communities in the United States. Finally, most analyses focus only on a
single sending community or a single country of origin. As a result, it is more difficulty to identify general patterns
in the exercise of or significance of transnational political activity among immigrants.
Convention