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21 Int'l Migration Rev. 4 (1987)

handle is hein.journals/imgratv21 and id is 1 raw text is: Undocumented Central Americans in Houston: Diverse Populations ' Nestor P. Rodriguez University of Houston Fleeing political conflict and/or economic decline, large numbers of undocumented Central Americans have been coming to the United States since the late 1970s. Many of these migrants have settled in urban areas of the country that have large Hispanic concentrations. It is estimated that about 100,000 have settled in Houston. Interviews and observations indicate that this Central American population, composed principally of Salvadorans, Guatemalans, and Hondurans, constitutes a new diverse Latino immigrant experience in the city. Following political and economic instability in Central America in the late 1970s, large waves of migrations have characterized the region. Millions of Central Americans have migrated internally or to Mexico (U.S. General Accounting Office, 1984; Aguayo, 1985; Jamail and Stolp, 1985). Several hundred thousand have also migrated, without papers, to the United States (Hamilton and Chinchilla, 1984; Ruggles and Fix, 1985; Penalosa, 1986), especially to urban centers with large Hispanic populations. In Houston, a city with over 300,000 native Hispanics, and an undocumented Mexican population estimated at over 80,000 for the early 1980s (Bean, et al., 1982), immigrant-aid agency directors, social workers and other observers familiar with Latino immigration estimated the number of undocumented Central Americans at over 100,000 in 1986.2 This article describes preliminary findings of an on-going study, launched in the summer of 1985, that has sought to identify the different undocu- mented Central American populations in Houston and to explore their aspects of settlement, work, and motivations for emigrating. I This research has been supported by funding from the Inter-University Program for Latino Research and the Center for Public Policy at the University of Houston. Research support was also received from Leonel Castillo and the staff at Houston International University. The author is indebted to eirht interviewers. especially to Sergio Armando Savon. Maria D. Jimenez and Alfredo Santos, and to Harley L. Browning, William Simon, Paulo Hidalgo and Harriett Romo for their comments on an earlier version of this paper. 2 Other estimates for the 1985 Central American population in Houston are 80,000 Salvadorans, by Ruggles and Fix (1985); 80,000 Salvadorans and 5,000-10,000 Guatemalans, by the Coalition for a New Foreign and Military Policy and the Commission on U.S.-Central American Relations (1985); and 100,000, by Jamail and Stolp (1985). In a report originally published in 1984, Fernando Penalosa states that the Salvadoran community in Houston may have already reached 100,000 (1986:29). 4 IMR Volume xxi, No. 1

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