According to Larry Levine, my Cultural History prof last semester, coming to America to make good money and then go back home to the old country is a venerable tradition. According to Levine, something like 40% of immigrants in the late 19th - early 20th century became emigrants.
According to George Sanchez, who is a history prof at Stanford, in his book Becoming Mexican American, one reason that Mexicans stay in the US instead of working for a time and returning to their village is the fact that the borders have been tightened up. They are afraid they can't come back if they go home, so they stay. They used to go back and forth.
A lot of people go back and forth. They don't intend to stay, they just like working here or going to school here, but they'd rather live where they came from.
I can understand the impulse. I have entertained the idea of living someplace cheaper when I retire, e.g, Central America, or the Caribbean, because I prefer warm climates. But I'll always be American, and I will never be assimilated. |
