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This chapter discusses Mexican migration to the USA in at least three dimensions: a historical one, with more than 120 years of migration to the USA and the fact that Mexico lost territories that have been the states of California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico and Texas and partial territories of Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas and Oklahoma since 1848; a geographical one, as Mexico shares a 3100 km (1926 mile) border with the USA; that said, the economic differences between the regions (North America and Latin America) make this border one of the most transited borders in the world; and finally, modern Mexican migration to the USA has a strong social-economic background: Mexican people migrate to the USA for economic reasons, but there is also social capital involved in being a migrant and how this is perceived in their home places. This chapter aims to understand how migrants display their status to their places of origin and what the role of digital technologies is in processes of re-adaptation. The analysis focuses on the content of messages in "transnational virtual spaces' and explores the social meaning(s) of cross-border practices through social networks, with attention paid to their effects on migrants and non-migrants living in the country of origin. The empirical part analyses four MySpace profiles maintained by members of the transnational community; it thus provides a critical observation of a public online forum where people living in both countries usually write and post content that reflects the daily life of Mexican migrants.

DOI: 10.1057/978-1-137-50456-2_10

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