Content area
Full Text
Fragmented Ties: Salvadoran Immigrant Networks in America. By Cecilia Menjivar. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. xviii, 301 pp. Cloth, $48.00, ISBN 0-520-22210-5. Paper, $19.95, ISBN 0-520-22211-3.)
One of the most important recent developments in migration scholarship is the increased attention given to immigrant networks. Studies of immigrants consistently identify social ties to other immigrants as playing an instrumental role in the migration and settlement process. For recently arrived immigrants, informal networks of family and friends in the place of destination provide financial, emotional, and social support that eases the process of immigrant adaptation and integration into the host society.
In Fragmented Ties, Cecilia Menjivar presents a portrait of immigrant networks that is often at odds with the "overly romanticized notions of immigrant unity and solidarity" implicit in many...