Migración e identidad cultural

Abstract

This article explains how modern migrations from Latin America to the United States cause remarkable changes both in the political frame and in the ethnic composition of that nation. Latin American immigrants live a building-up process of a new culture and a new conscience. The migratory phenomenon has important social implications, including a wide range of aspects of individual and collective economic, demographic, political, cultural, psychological and civic life. That is the reason why it is important to analyze how these new communities get incorporated to those already established, and how immigrants manage to achieve a minimal social cohesion to avoid social disintegration or fragmentation, and also inequality in foreign and diverse contexts. Migration implies an extension of social relations radius, as well as the creation of all kinds of new human bonds. In the same way, diverse cultural expressions are seen as much more relevant both in the integration and conservation of original culture, and in the construction of a new identity and a new set of cultural images.