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Abstract

This qualitative study traces the development and activities of two organizations of Mexican migrants in Chicago: the Federation of Michoacan Clubs in Illinois (FEDECMI) and the Federation of United Zacatecan Clubs in Illinois (FCUZI). These federations are composed of hometown clubs, which are membership organizations formed by Mexican migrants who originate from the same town in Mexico. Originally, hometown clubs primarily centered their activities on executing development projects in their communities of origin. As they started to conglomerate into federations of clubs from the same home state in the 1990s, members of these organizations acquired a capacity to negotiate with local, state, and federal political actors both in the U.S. and Mexico. The study examines how the federations responded to the elimination of a Mexican federal program in 2019 that had served as a motivator for hometown clubs, and how this response was conditioned by the ties that the organizations have with local actors in Mexico and the U.S. While both federations have ties to important political actors in both countries, FEDECMI has had longstanding ties with a local Illinois migrant rights coalition, which has allowed the federation to adapt its organizational strategy and become a services center for migrants in Illinois. FCUZI, however, has largely kept the same activities since its founding, partly because it has mainly sustained strong connections with Mexican government officials.

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