The literature on immigrants and locative media is scant, even though there is an extensive amount of research on how immigrants use mobile devices (Burrel &
Anderson, 2008; Wallis, 2013; Johnson, 2013; Chib, Malik, Aricat and Kadir, 2014;
Tazanu, 2015). There is also a line of research, which investigates how migrants relate to media. Ball-Rokeach, Katz and Matsaganis (2011), for example, provide a great resource about ethnic media, which are “local media, usually small, locally situated productions that serve a particular neighborhood”, usually for immigrants.
Immigrants with limited English language proficiency are more likely to connect with ethnic media outlets, as it may help them to find jobs and understand their rights (p.
60, 61).
In fact, these authors provide a distinction that is important to this work. First, they define a migrant “as any person who moves from one country to live in another one” (p. 52). There are different types of migrants. There are “temporary movers,”
traditionally called sojourners, such as students that go abroad for a “gap year” or very short term economic migrants, and “are not likely to feel that they really need to learn their new environment because they will be going home soon” (p. 52). For this reason, they tend to consume media related to their home country news and
events. On the other hand, immigrants are “permanent movers” and “are motivated to make conscious and unconscious changes in their behaviors, media connections, commitments and relationships” (p. 52). This distinction might have been blurred due to the advent of digital mobile media, because smartphone users are much more likely to be in contact with family, friends, and also events in their home country, and also communicate through social networking websites. This distinction between sojourners and immigrants, however, help us to define the lines of action of this dissertation, as the demographic group of this work falls under the delineation of
“immigrants.” Although the concern of this dissertation is not explicitly about immigration, it is important to recognize that the context of Latinos/as in Austin is imbued with struggles related to immigration life.
What is interesting for the purpose of this dissertation is that Matsaganis, Katz, Ball-Rokeach (2010) found that “residents reported higher levels of belonging to their community when newspaper told stories about that community in addition to home country news” (p. 59). The authors also distinguish two kinds of news and event consumption. Immigrants might consume news from their home countries to feel updated and feel connected with their home countries (connective function) or they might consume news about the place they currently live to learn more and settle in (orientation function).
As this dissertation is also investigating how people understand locality through locative storytelling, these concepts shed light on how people such as Latinos/as immigrants deal with media in general. While these authors consider that might be difficult for low-income residents to connect to each other through the Internet due to the fact that Internet penetration among immigrants in the U.S. is still low, they point out that residents in many communities belong to local organizations, such as “soccer leagues, church groups, and political associations”(p. 214). In this sense, Matsaganis, Katz & Ball-Rokeach (2010) point out that these organizations can be important places for residents to bond and share community news and solve problems. In their words, “community organizations help residents to invest in and integrate into their local community through activities and events that help promote the feelings and behaviors that express community belonging” (p. 214). Moreover, in their research in Los Angeles in a community of immigrants, these authors found that
“residents in communities with strong storytelling networks report more feelings and
behaviors of neighborhood belonging, higher collective efficacy, and more political participation” (p. 216). Interestingly enough, residents in the Chinese-origin community, which has the lowest level of geo-ethnic content in their local media, ranked home country news as most important and also reported the lowest level of belonging to their local community in Los Angeles. Although this is not directly related to locative storytelling, we can relate to it as past research has shown that locative storytelling enhances feeling of attachment to a certain place (Farman, 2014).
Background on the diaspora: A broad view of Latino immigration
Lucila Vargas (2009) also looked at the intersection of migration, media and Latinos/as. For her study, she focused on first-and-second-immigrant generation Latina teens that live in the “New Latino South,” one of the areas of the United States where Latina/o settlement is very recent. This author explains that the term
“Latino/a” “comes with many perils because it renders invisible some crucial intragroup differences” (p. 2), but as the author points out, it is important to remember that we use the term as all-inclusive category that identifies the rough 53 million of Hispanic/Spanish speakers in the United States, who are from or descendants of immigrants from Latin America and the Caribbean. Furthermore, Vargas (2009) states that along with national origin or descent, language usage has been a prevailing factor to investigate media use among Latinos/as, such as television viewing that is usually divided into two categories: Spanish-language television versus English-language television.
In terms of background on the diaspora, the author points out that the relationship between the United States and Latin America and the Caribbean has been a crucial aspect in the growth of the Latina/o population. Vargas (2009) supports her argument by citing a number of interrelated historical facts that contributed to Latino/a immigration into the United States, such as the annexation of half of the Mexican territory, in the 1850s. The author points out that in Texas, California, and New Mexico, Spanish and Mexican settlement preceded the arrival of Anglos. With the re-drawing of the border between Mexico and the United States, many Mexicans became US residents. In addition, the annexation of Puerto Rico, in 1917, contributed
to the fact that many Latinos/as became US citizens, and several began migrating to New York. Vargas (2009) continues by saying that during the post - World War II period this migration increased, and by 1960, Puerto Ricans were the second-largest Latina/o group after Mexican Americans.
Another factor that increased the Latino immigration into the US was a boost in the economy driven by international competition and technological innovation. “As the U.S. labor market started to change and by 1960 it developed a great need for ‘labor made cheap’” (Vargas, 2009, p. 19). As a result, by 1990, Latinas and Latinos were concentrated in the states close to the U.S.-Mexican border (Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Texas), and in certain areas of Florida, Illinois (For Latino immigration in Chicago see Cruz, 2007), New Jersey, New York, and the District of Columbia.