Title: Where is the village?
Description: This dissertation aims to understand African migrants' pathways to integration in the United States. In particular, it examines how they recreate the ties of community life--"the village"--to which they were accustomed in their home countries and which they see as central to building their lives in the U.S. The study has a 2 x 2 design in order to capitalize on the explanatory power of contextual variation. While focusing on African migrants, I examine how variation in context of reception and in institutional setting might contribute to differences in pathways to integration. One twosome originates in the kind of immigration destination--old vs. new--and one twosome originates in the kind of institution--school vs. religious congregation. The main conclusion of this study is that migrant integration would productively be reframed to include relational as well as structural processes. In these processes, schools and congregations are critical institutional spaces. These institutions mediate the ways in which migrants are able to build their lives in a new country, particularly through the relationships they foster. At their most effective, these relationships have instrumental benefits, and they cultivate in participants a sense of interconnectedness and belonging and a renegotiation of identity. These relationships not only play a role in integration but also in reinvigorating existing community spaces. The congregation in the new immigration destination under study holds important lessons for schools in providing pathways to migrant integration. It suggests a fundamental rethinking of the relationship between schools and community, particularly to students' families.

The assumption that migrants will--or should--"make it" on their own in the United States needs to be reassessed. "Making it" is not only a function of the individual traits and motivations of migrants but of the social, political, and economic contexts into which they migrate and the institutions with which they interact, including schools and congregations. This finding adds weight to the need to focus not only on immigration policy , decisions about how many migrants and from where, but also on integration policy , how migrants settle or build their lives in the United States.
Subjects: Immigrants, Social integration, Assimilation (Sociology), Emigration and immigration, Social aspects
Places: United States