Arnold Dashefsky - Americans Abroad: A Comparative Study of Emigrants from the United States

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In 1992, Arnold Dashefsky, Jan DeAmicis, the late Bernard Lazerwitz, and Ephraim Tabory publishedAmericans Abroad: A Comparative Study of Emigrants from the United States. From its focus on emigration to its application of multiple levels of analysis, to its ingenious means of acquisition of data, to its investigation of case studies, the project was highly original, creative, and persuasive.Americans Abroadplayed a major role in helping social scientists to abandon the erroneous assumption that the study of US border-crossing involves only the investigation of entry. Furthermore, the book encouraged scholars of migration to transcend the limitations associated with demography and neoclassical economics that up to that time had been the dominant frames for the exploration of human movement. Recognized as an inspired work by scholars and reviewers at the time of its publication, the freshness and value of its contribution becomes clearer when viewed from the present.

Looking back, we can clearly understand how momentous the early 1990s were for the expansion and diversification of the forms of international migration as well as the advancement of its scholarly analysis. These years witnessed watershed events, such as the end of the Cold War (and with it the flight of millions of refugees from Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union), the increase of undocumented immigration, the Gulf War (the first of a series of migration-producing events in the Middle East that continue to the present), and the extensive politicization of migration policy, a topic that had been quietly handled through bipartisan consensus since the end of World War II.

Sharing the vision and goals of the authors ofAmericans Abroad, an international and interdisciplinary collection of scholars working in the early 1990s generated a wide range of innovative concepts for understanding international migration. These emphasized both the power of changing social forces and the relevance of subjective and collective reactions thereto. Questioning accepted and unidirectional formulations of mid-century social science, such as assimilation, nationality, and citizenship, these innovators offered alternatives that were more fluid, context-based, and less culturally specific, including diasporas, transnationalism, and deterritorialized networks. Critiquing methodological nationalism (the assumption that the nation-state is the most basic and natural location of human identity), they developed new and multipart ways of conceiving of human movement and belonging.

Arnold Dashefsky, lead author ofAmericans Abroad, has kept abreast of ongoing patterns in human migration as well as the theories, concepts, methods, and data sources that leading scholars use to frame these processes. Drawing on this awareness of human movement in the contemporary scene, he has collaborated with Karen A. Woodrow-Lafield to produce a second edition. Woodrow-Lafield is an expert in census analysis, emigration, and Latin American migrationthe world region that provides the plurality of US migrants and is also the destination of the largest number of US emigrants. Her skills complement those of Professor Dashefsky and, as such, are of significant value in the current volume.

The second edition updates the original study, adding cutting-edge data and state-of-the-art theoretical and conceptual tools that provide readers with the means of understanding American emigration in light of the more than two and a half decades of migration and social, political, and economic change that have transpired since the publication of the first. Given the recent arrival of many US migrants and the enduring ties many retain with their countries of origin, this volume offers a rich characterization of the behaviors and outlooks of those who see themselves as emigrants and immigrants in the United States and, at the same time, as engaged with other bases of identity.

Drawing upon their exhaustive search for data about emigrants from government agencies, international organizations, voluntary associations, and nation states, the authors are able to share significant insights into the way emigrants are defined, treated, and sometimes ignored by a broad range of social institutions.

The second edition ofAmericans Abroadaddresses the contemporary status of American emigrationmany aspects of which are products of the time when the volumes first edition was being produced. Utilizing both contemporary data and advanced tools for understanding human behavior, it is a must-read that will allow scholars and students of migration, policymakers, and an interested public to comprehend the increasingly complex and diverse nature of American emigration.