ABSTRACT
Studies of diasporic bureaucracies, policies, and social rights among international migrants are emerging as a novel field for transnational scholarship. Within transnational studies, these bureaucracies, policies, and rights across international borders are dynamic topics rapidly changing with social media as well as raising interest across disciplines, groups, and institutions. In this chapter, we focus on the transnational Seguro Popular (SP) Research Project in New York City. That Mexican government officials working in a program only offering health services in Mexico would seek to promote use of this program by New York City residing-migrants and their Mexico-residing families reflects how transnationalized Mexican migrant life has often become, and how the Mexican government has sought to engage its diaspora on key issues in migrant life, including health. The initial research on how much Mexican immigrants knew about SP and how much they or their families used it led to the second project, which constitutes the main analytical work of this chapter. We seek to understand how Mexico’s efforts to reach out to its diaspora were understood or misunderstood by immigrants, and how it might do better.
