Rethinking Heterolocalism: the Case of Place-Making Among Albanian-Americans ______
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Macalester College DigitalCommons@Macalester College Geography Honors Projects Geography Department Spring 5-1-2014 Rethinking Heterolocalism: The aC se of Place- Making among Albanian-Americans Merita Bushi Macalester College, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/geography_honors Part of the Human Geography Commons Recommended Citation Bushi, Merita, "Rethinking Heterolocalism: The asC e of Place-Making among Albanian-Americans" (2014). Geography Honors Projects. Paper 40. http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/geography_honors/40 This Honors Project - Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Geography Department at DigitalCommons@Macalester College. It has been accepted for inclusion in Geography Honors Projects by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Macalester College. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Rethinking Heterolocalism: The Case of Place-Making among Albanian-Americans __________________________________________________________ Merita Bushi Spring 2014 Honors Thesis Defended on April 18, 2014 Advisor: Dan Trudeau Department of Geography Macalester College St. Paul, MN Abstract The theory of heterolocalism explores how immigrants connect to their new setting without clustering among co-ethnics. This research explores the role that Albanian-American organizations in Chicago and New York have in immigrant place-making and building a sense of community through semi-structured interviews and participant observation. The focus on institutions shifts the discourse from individual behaviors to networks. The Albanian case study is used to argue that segmented heterolocalism is more nuanced and thus describes the sociospatial behavior of immigrants in a way that resonates more closely with immigrants and incorporates their sense of community in a place. Keywords: Assimilation, Heterolocalism, Place-making, Immigration, Albanian-American Acknowledgements I would like to thank those who helped me throughout this research process. First and foremost, I would like to thank my thesis advisor, Dan Trudeau, for his invaluable advice and support throughout the year. Without him, I wouldn't have grown nearly as much through this experience or produced such a polished final product. Next, I would also like to thank David Lanegran and Dianna Shandy for taking the time to serve on my honors committee and engage with my work. I would also like to thank Holly Barcus for being my academic advisor and for encouraging me to pursue this honors project when it was just a small idea. I would like to also thank all of the interview participants for their willingness to tell me about their work and experience, welcome me into the community, share their materials and resources, and their enthusiasm for my research. It was a pleasure to learn about the Albanian communities across the country with your help. Finally I would like to thank my family, friends, fellow Geography Department peers, and staff at Macalester who expressed curiosity and appreciation for my research and helped me get through stressful times. CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 1 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ................................................................................... 7 A. Assimilation ......................................................................................................................... 8 i. Origins of assimilation studies ...................................................................................... 8 ii. Critiques of Assimilation Theory ............................................................................... 15 iii. Variables in assimilation ............................................................................................. 21 B. Place Identity .................................................................................................................... 23 i. Place-making and a sense of belonging ...................................................................... 23 ii. Transnationalism ......................................................................................................... 26 C. Heterolocalism .................................................................................................................. 31 i. Origins of Heterolocalism............................................................................................ 31 ii. Different Takes on Heterolocalism ............................................................................. 34 iii. Nature of Social Interactions for Heterolocal Groups .............................................. 36 D. Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 39 CHAPTER 3: BACKGROUND ................................................................................................ 42 A. Migration from Albania and Kosovo .............................................................................. 43 B. Context in the Diaspora ................................................................................................... 47 C. Context in the United States ............................................................................................ 52 CHAPTER 4: METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................ 63 A. Conceptual Framework ................................................................................................... 64 B. Case Study Selection ........................................................................................................ 66 C. The Research Design ........................................................................................................ 70 i. Positionality .................................................................................................................. 70 ii. Interviews...................................................................................................................... 72 iii. Participant Observation .............................................................................................. 75 iv. Content analysis ........................................................................................................... 75 CHAPTER 5: ANALYSIS ......................................................................................................... 77 A. Emerging themes .............................................................................................................. 78 i. Changing public image ................................................................................................ 78 ii. The importance of language ........................................................................................ 82 iii. Regionalization of community .................................................................................... 84 iv. Hierarchy effect ............................................................................................................ 88 v. Community space ......................................................................................................... 94 B. Main conclusions and relevance to Research Questions ............................................... 98 i. Research question 1: How do ethnic institutions facilitate place-making and maintain a sense of community within Albanian-American communities? .............. 98 ii. Research question 2: How effective is heterolocalism in describing the sociospatial behavior of the Albanian communities? ..................................................................... 100 CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSIONS .............................................................................................. 105 APPENDIX ................................................................................................................................ 110 WORKS CITED........................................................................................................................ 111 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION As a child, I was an early and eager reader. Not only did I have a passion for delving into the world of children's book stories but on a practical level, my mom took me to the library after school every day. My parents had moved to the United States from Eastern Europe only a few years before I was born. I didn't realize it at the time but my mom's motives were not only good parenting skills, but to improve her English skills as well—to discover new words as I did. As I grew older, I couldn't help but compare the different trajectory that my parents had taken as compared to the immigrant parents of my friends. Once I was old enough to read the scholarly literature on this topic, the answer seemed simple: varying levels of assimilation. Assimilation theory—the view that immigrants adjust to become more similar to the host society—is so embedded in the literature and in our understanding of immigration, that it is a common lens through which to study immigrants' behaviors, even for non-academics. There is also a large part of the literature that critiques the details of assimilation theory. However, I present an argument that critiques the use of assimilation theory to study immigrants and that instead focuses on the use of a theory called heterolocalism. The origin of this research stemmed from the comparison of experiences between my