Cultural remittances
Encyclopedia
Cultural remittances are the ensembles of ideas, values, and expressive forms introduced into societies of origin by emigrants and their families as they return home, sometimes for the first time, temporary visits, or permanent resettlement. The term, which has been summarized as "product sent back", developed in the early 2000s, is also used to describe "the way that migrants own and build homes in the country of origin."

Monetary Remittances versus Cultural Remittances

Monetary remittances
Remittances
A remittance is a transfer of money by a foreign worker to his or her home country. Note that in 19th century usage a remittance man was someone exiled overseas and sent an allowance on condition that he not return home....

 are the transfer of many from migrant workers in a host country to a developing country through various financial institutions such as Western Union
Western Union
The Western Union Company is a financial services and communications company based in the United States. Its North American headquarters is in Englewood, Colorado. Up until 2006, Western Union was the best-known U.S...

, Banco Agricola, and Banco Cuscatlan that transfer monetary capital from the host country of the migrant worker to the home country. Monetary remittances from the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 to various countries in Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages  – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...

 often make up significant portions of the GDP of Latin American Countries. The impacts of monetary remittances differ from those of cultural remittances in that, monetary remittances mainly influence the economic sector
Economic sector
An economy may include several sectors , that evolved in successive phases.* The ancient economy was mainly based on subsistence farming....

 of the receiving country, although monetary remittances can also be introduced into communities through individuals or organizations that receive remittances in order to create basic infrastructures within the communities.

The term cultural remittances was created in the context of Caribbean migrants and the Caribbean diaspora but it the theoretical structure can be applied to various countries that experience return migration as well as visits from emigrants. The application of this term is not limited to the Caribbean experience or the Latin American experience of return migration.

Effects of Cultural Remittances

Cultural remittances are altered by the to and from movements of migratory patterns. They impact the experience and expressions of not only those in the diaspora, but also their family and friends who still reside in the homeland.

Cultural remittances are positive in that they have led to the expansion of kinship
Kinship
Kinship is a relationship between any entities that share a genealogical origin, through either biological, cultural, or historical descent. And descent groups, lineages, etc. are treated in their own subsections....

 bonds between the families that remain behind and their members who migrate. Through greater forms of telecommunication
Telecommunication
Telecommunication is the transmission of information over significant distances to communicate. In earlier times, telecommunications involved the use of visual signals, such as beacons, smoke signals, semaphore telegraphs, signal flags, and optical heliographs, or audio messages via coded...

s relationships between family members are easier to keep up and through this communications cultural remittances get easily transferred. According to Teófilo Altamirano Rua in Migration, Remittances, and Development In Times of Crisis, remittances are rooted in internal migration from the countryside to cities and vice versa. Their origin lies in the reciprocity, interchange and bonds of kinship that lie between family members. Kinship will grow stronger and affect the nation because practices of reciprocity will continue as a form of cultural remittances.

The return migrant also brings back with him the ability and incentive to challenge and change the society to which he returns because of his experiences. He brings back new ideas, work skills, artistic expression, and capital which help benefit the home nation. Not just in terms of money, but these new ideas will serve as a type of social change where there is progress toward the establishment of a self reliant society. Remittances, monetary and cultural, help support the nation in building a stronger economy and contribute education, housing and business development.

Music is also a cultural remittance. In Flores’ book The Diaspora Strikes Back, he notes that music has been largely affected by cultural remittances, there is a cultural collision between host and home land. With Flores’ main example: Salsa
Salsa music
Salsa music is a genre of music, generally defined as a modern style of playing Cuban Son, Son Montuno, and Guaracha with touches from other genres of music...

. Salsa has served as a cultural remittance in that it is a mixture of Afro-Cuban
Afro-Cuban
The term Afro-Cuban refers to Cubans of Sub Saharan African ancestry, and to historical or cultural elements in Cuba thought to emanate from this community...

 samplings with styles from Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...

, Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...

, Panama
Panama
Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...

, and other Afro Cuban references with the essence of the
Nuyorican
Nuyorican
Nuyorican is a portmanteau of the terms "New York" and "Puerto Rican" and refers to the members or culture of the Puerto Rican diaspora located in or around New York State especially the New York City metropolitan area, or of their descendants...

’s musical taste in jazz, soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...

, and rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...

. The Salsa sound is not only cross cultural but the lyrical implications refer to the complex diaspora the musician and his fans have gone through. Salsa was created in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, but as part of this circular migration
Circular migration
Circular migration in a global context is used as a triple win discourse promising gains for host countries, home countries and migrants themselves, promising accelerated economic growth, remittances, relative high wages and brain gain, by means of full circles of migration: immigrants should be...

 has reached back to the island, in this case Puerto Rico, establishing itself as a form of Puerto Rican authenticity while also being a marker of Nuyorican diasporic authenticity. “Salsa is the musical baggage, the stylistic remittance of the diaspora on its return to the Island.” As a cultural remittance, Salsa and other forms of music which have been transformed due to the constant flow of migrants, offers a free form of cultural expression where one can find national belonging, self-identity, or use music as a form of social resistance.

See also

  • Peggy Levitt
    Peggy Levitt
    Peggy Levitt is Chair and Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Wellesley College. Peggy specializes in religious transnationalism, the immigrant experience, the migration and development nexus, and economic, political and cultural globalization.- Biography :Peggy Levitt is an...

  • Remittances
    Remittances
    A remittance is a transfer of money by a foreign worker to his or her home country. Note that in 19th century usage a remittance man was someone exiled overseas and sent an allowance on condition that he not return home....

  • Gifting remittances
    Gifting remittances
    "Gifting remittances" describes a range of scholarly approaches relating remittances to anthropological literature on gift giving. The terms draws on Lisa Cliggett’s “gift remitting,” but is used to describe a wider body of work. Broadly speaking, remittances are the money, goods, services, and...

  • Chain migration
    Chain migration
    Chain migration has multiple meanings. It refers to the social process by which immigrants from a particular town follow others from that town to a particular city or neighborhood, whether in an immigrant receiving country or in a new, usually urban, location in the home country...

     (section Remittances
    Remittances
    A remittance is a transfer of money by a foreign worker to his or her home country. Note that in 19th century usage a remittance man was someone exiled overseas and sent an allowance on condition that he not return home....

    )
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