C APÍTULO 2: F LORENCIO DOS V ILARES : VIDA , REPERTORIO Y TÉCNICA
2.2 Análisis de transcripciones y grabaciones recogidas en los cancioneros
Chain migration and family reunion, which also exert influence on the individual migrant and on the whole migratory process, were on the other side of the coin. It should be noted, however, that the 1967 migration agreement marked a crucial point in the history of Turkish immigration not only determining the overall pattern of migration but also, with its own echo effect, affecting the initial and successive steps of the settlement pattern and ethnic adaptation process of Turkish migrants in Australia.
Although this pattern is classified and elaborated, and its causes discussed, in the following pages, as a first step it is possible to distinguish roughly the quite distinctive characteristics of three successive periods of Turkish immigration, which form an observable pattern. From 1968 to 1974, the period in which the large proportion of migrants entered Australia, most of the migrants in the sample were village-born, young couples with limited formal education. In the last seven-year period of the movement the composition changed completely. The characteristic socio-demographic feature of these recent immigrants was that most were city-born, and relatively younger than the earliest migrants, and there were many single men and women of higher education status. As already noted, between these earliest and latest periods of arrivals, the years from 1975 to 1980 represented a transition period which not only was dominated by the characteristics of the first period, but also carried the seeds of the last period. Some characteristics of all these three periods are historically overlapping, yet the specific structural context of these periods and their interrelations with the whole period differ sharply. The combination of all these characteristics is the main justification for a study of typology relating to the pattern of Turkish immigration to Australia: by comparing and contrasting the samples of the three periods, it may be possible to arrive at comprehensive insights concerning the different aspects of the migratory movement.
4.3. Mode of the Migration - Why Do They Migrate and How?
W h y did you migrate to...?’ Relying on the answers to that question many migration studies have tried to explore reasons behind the migratory movements. Much of the empirical research and attempts at theory-building in this tradition relate to the issue of whether push or pull factors predominate in migration. The emphasis in the push-pull studies has tended to be on the
reasons given by migrants for leaving home (or by non-migrants for staying at home) and on the socio-economic costs and benefits of migration for individual migrants. These accounts of migration are, however, of poor explanatory value in relation to the comprehensive dynamics behind the migratory process as a whole (Morokvasic, 1983:28; Ramazanoglu, 1985:161-166). Concerning the crucial problems with the list of push and pull factors on the origin of migration, Portes makes the following comments:
Push-pull theories of immigration...do not transcend their limitations, since they also concentrate on individual processes. Obviously, individuals migrate for many reasons — to escape famine and political oppression, to attain wealth and status, to give better life chances to their children, and so forth. Nothing is easier than to compile a list of such motivations and present them as a theory of migration. This kind of analysis leaves unanswered the fundamental question of why, despite personal idiosyncrasies and varied motivations, population movements of known magnitude and direction occur with predictable regularity over extended periods of time (Portes, 1 9 8 1 :280).
Taking the pull and push factors into consideration and focusing on their positions in relation to the various specific migratory contexts, we might well ask some specific questions such as: why did some Turkish emigrants come to Australia while many were going to Western European countries? Or why did migratory movement from Turkey accelerate at one time and virtually cease later? In order to answer these questions within the context of Turkish immigration to Australia, it is necessary to look not only at the reasons given by the migrants, but also at the broader structural dimensions of the migration which give rise to the patterned flows from Turkey. In the following pages, therefore, the mode of the movement is examined taking into account both the list of reasons for migration, and the structural dimension of the migratory process.
4.3.1. Pre-Migration Residential Backgrounds
It is clear from the life histories of interviewed respondents that when they were born, most of their families, like most Turks, still resided in either villages or small towns. When they reached age 8 to 18 years, however, the rural transformation (discussed in Chapter 2) had already affected their lives, pushing many to larger urban areas. Although 46 per cent of our sample were born in cities, over 55 per cent had spent a large proportion of their lives between ages 8 and 18 in urban areas. As the enormous exodus from rural to urban areas continued, the proportion of migrants who had lived in cities before emigration was around 82 per cent. As mentioned earlier, at the time when Turkish emigration to Western Europe, and then to
Australia, started, this exodus was already in process. It is within this context that the Turkish case provides a useful and interesting framework in which to investigate the articulation of internal and international migration.
The collected life histories of immigrants also correspond to the direction of internal migration in Turkey showing the trends from small cities to metropolitan areas, and from underdeveloped regions to developed ones. Furthermore, the transition from internal to international migration is clearly reflected by the life-history profile. While the big cities, such as Istanbul, Ankara, Izmir, and Adana, attracted most of the migrants not only from villages and towns but also from small cities (for example, migration from Corum province to the capital city, Ankara), consequently the underdeveloped regions, such as Eastern Turkey, were experiencing high levels of out migration (see Table 4.2). As this population movement crossed the national boundaries, thousands of Turkish citizens were starting to migrate abroad: 7 per cent of the sampled immigrants, for instance, had already been abroad to sell their labour before coming to Australia Two of the respondents had come to Australia directly from Saudi Arabia three from England, two from Holland, seven from West Germany, and four from Austria
Where the province of residence was considered, there were indicators that a large proportion of the respondents had lived in the six provinces (see Figure 4.1 and Figure 4.2): Adana Ankara Corum, Istanbul, Izmir, and Samsun. The four largest cities in Turkey, Istanbul, Ankara Izmir, and Adana were the last residence of 57 per cent of the migrants interviewed in Melbourne. However, only 31 per cent of the sampled migrants were born in one of these cities; hence, it can be argued that for many emigrants, the metropolitan areas were most likely transit residential stops before going abroad.