Birds of Passage No More: Migration Decision Making among Filipino Immigrants in Hawaii
| Author | F. ARNOLD |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2435.1987.tb00124.x |
| Published date | 01 March 1987 |
| Date | 01 March 1987 |
Birds
of
Passage
No
More:
Migration Decision Making among
Filipino Immigrants in Hawaii
F.
ARNOLD*
‘They are wanderers to the wide world and often
yearn toward the far direction whence they have
come. Why even birds who
fly
away from their
native places still hasten to go back Can ever a
man feel really happy condemned to live away
from where he was
born?
(Handlin, 1951
:
259-60)
‘The tragedy ofour life in America
...
is that it has
been predicated
on
wishful thinking
--
‘I
want to
go home.’ We have been sentimental rather than
realistic. ‘Why should
I
plan, why should
I
take
life seriously here, when this is only an interlude
in my life?
I
am going home. It is there, where
I
am going to take root.’
...
Birds of passage, Mr.
President, do not plan. They drift aimlessly.’
(Letter from J.C. Dienisie, a member
’
of Manuel Quezon’s World War I1
exile government, to Manuel Quezon,
March
7,
1944.
Cited in Melendy, 1974: 257)
In recent years, a larger number of immigrants to the United States have come from the
Philippines than any other country except Mexico (Arnold, Minocha, and Fawcett, 1987).
Research
on
Filipino immigrants, however$ relatively scarce. Filipinos are a particularly
important immigrant group in Hawaii, where
14
percent
of
the population consists
of
persons
of
Filipino origin (EWPI and Operation Manong, 1985). The vast majority of
Filipino immigrants in Hawaii come from the Ilocos region of the Philippines, a resource
*East-West Population Institute, East-West Center, Honolulu, Hawaii
41
poor area with a long history of heavy outmigration. The current study focuses on Ilocano
immigrants in Hawaii and explores the determinants of their future migration intentions.
The study
is
part of a larger research effort, the Philippine Migration Study, that examines
migration decision making in the framework of a comprehensive internal and interna-
tional migration system.
Although economic factors are often thought to predominate in migration decisions
(Kols, 1983; Todaro, 1980), non-economic factors can
be
of central importance and they
often provide the primary motivation for moving (Speare, Kobrin, and Kingkade, 1982;
Lansing and Mueller, 1967
;
Hess-Biber, 198 1
;
Roseman and Oldakowski, 1984; Piore,
1979). The current study examines a wide range of social, psychological and economic
factors that are hypothesized to affect migration decisions. The analysis utilizes a value-
expectancy model which highlights the most important goals
or
values in a person’s life
and measures the extent to which each value might
be
attained in alternative locations (for
a more complete discussion of the model, see De Jong and Fawcett, 198
1
;
Adler, 1979
;
Chemers, Ayman, and Werner, 1978; and Abad and Cariiio, 1981). The study also
includes several other correlates of migration intentions such as adjustment problems, ties
to the area of origin, previous migration history, and sociodemographic factors.
The analysis distinguishes intended return migrants from those who intend to move to a
new location. Past migration studies have often ignored the role of previous moves in the
migration decision making process. Yet most moves in the United States are repeat moves
rather than primary
(or
first-time) moves. The Panel Study of Income Dynamics found
that, between 1968 and 1975, 26 percent of the moves in the United States were return
moves, 45 percent were onward moves to a new location, and only 29 percent were
primary moves (DaVanzo, 1983 :9 1). Relatively few studies have looked specifically at
migration decision making among individuals who have moved previously and these
studies are often restricted to rural-urban migrants within a single country (Banejee,
1982).
The determinants of migration decisions for potential repeat movers may
be
different
from those for potential primary movers
for
a number of reasons. Previous migrants have
more options since they can move to a new location where they have never resided
or
return to a previous place of residence about which they have accurate knowledge and
where they may have built up substantial location-specific capital’. The previous act of
moving also serves to familiarize a migrant with moving processes in general and is likely
to affect migration decisions because the information costs of a subsequent move may
be
lower (DaVanzo, 1983). Different factors may be involved in a migrant’s evaluation of
alternative locations and even among return migrants several different groups may be
distinguished depending on the reason for moving and the stage in the migrant’s life cycle.
Cerase (1974), for example, has distinguished four different kinds of return migration
among returnees from the United States to Southern Italy
--
namely, returns of failure,
returns of conservatism, returns of retirement, and returns of innovation.
A substantial proportion of immigrants from the Philippines and other parts of Asia in
the early part of the twentieth century came to the United States in the expectation that
their trip was a temporary sojourn and they would eventually return to their former
homeland (Sharma, 1980). Although these expectations were not always fulfilled, their
yearnings to return home remained strong and they continued to
be
‘birds of passage’ in
the United States. This paper explores the extent to which recent Ilocano immigrants in
Hawaii expect to stay in Hawaii, to return to their former home,
or
to move on to a new
location. The factors that enter this migration decision making process are explored in a
multivariate framework using both binomial and multinomial logit analysis.
42
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