Beyond specific definitions of where the border begins and ends, what is becoming clear is that, with increased global mobility and human migration, the impacts traditionally found only along the border are now felt well beyond the international line. No one group better represents the blurring of the border than America’s growing Mexican transnational community.

The Mexican transnational community in the United States has become a powerful economic force. Collectively, this community sent over US$13 billion a year home to families and relatives in villages and towns across Mexico in 200317 and is having a profound economic impact on migrant sending communities south of the border, helping to create employment and providing disposal income in otherwise impoverished regions of Mexico.

With a growing desire among the transnational community to become engaged in supporting community development oriented projects in their communities of origin, Mexican Hometown Associations have sprung up that bring together immigrants who hail from the same village. Today, there are over 1,500 hometown associations (HTA) located across the United States including organizations in San Diego County. 18 In San Diego, the Oaxaqueño community is represented by a budding grass roots organization called Coalición de Comunidades Indígenas Oaxaqueños (Community Coalition of Indigenous Oaxaqueño) or COCIO. COCIO now numbers over 200 members with representation from Oceanside, Carlsbad, San Marcos and Vista.

While Oaxaqueños now represent the largest group of new migrants to San Diego County, today the Mexican migrant community is actually quite diverse. According to an analysis of the Mexican Matricula Consular data by the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), North American Integration and Development (NAID) Center, just over 50% of San Diego County’s newly arrived Mexican migrants came from just 5 of Mexico’s 31 states.

Without question, the transnational migrant community is unique in that its residents maintain strong ties to their native communities in Mexico but their degree of physical interaction with their hometowns is highly dependent on one’s immigration status. Those transnational migrants with green cards and permanent residency come and go across the border freely, visiting family and friends in their communities of origin as often as their budgets and employment schedules permit. Many use their earnings in the United States to buy land and build homes in their communities of origin with a vision of eventually retiring in Mexico. In this sense, many of San Diego’s migrant workers are saving their hard-earned cash to buy a piece of the quintessential American dream but back home in Mexico. Though many transnational migrants continue to work in San Diego’s service and agriculture sector for very low pay, those with legal status in the United States have been able to secure higher paying jobs in other sectors of the economy.

Those transnational migrants without proper documentation face many challenges including occupational workplace hazards, employer abuses, and health risks arising from their living circumstances in either overcrowded housing or migrant worker camps. The human suffering of the region’s transnational community is, by and large, overlooked by most San Diego residents. Yet these impacts nevertheless touch us all either directly or indirectly, as San Diego has come to rely so heavily on migrant labor for child care, landscaping, construction, food service and agriculture.