Ecuadorian Immigrants And Symbolic Nationalism In Chicago

Abstract

Focusing on the activities of social and civic organizations of Ecuadorian immigrants in Chicago, this paper argues that immigrants use symbolic nationalism mainly to negotiate their adaptation and integration into the host country. Distinct and diverging modes of nationalism articulated among immigrant communities of a common national origin reveal underlying class, race, ethnic, and regional divisions that are both reproduced and reinvented in a new setting. This coexistence of multiple and fragmented national identities complicates existing representations of immigrants as being “focused on the sending country” or “caught between two worlds.”