Human agency in international migration: The maintenance of transnational social fields by Yucatecan migrants in a Southwestern city

This essay shows how an ethnographic approach can improve upon the existing literature on transnational migration. Data comes from a community of Yuca tecans living in a city in the United States. An analysis of how particular households reacted to changes in U.S. law shows how migrants are influence d by factors besides the economic. Migrants have the power to make their ow n decisions and neither laws nor the economy can determine the options they take.