Chapter 5: Migrantes Indígenas Purépechas: Educación Bilingüe México-Estados Unidos¹

International migration between Mexico and the United States has a long and dynamic history, which has had different stages, as migration routes have changed throughout the years. Initially, the major states receiving immigration from Mexico were California, Arizona, and Texas. More recently, new routes have brought immigrants to states in the center and southeast of the United States (as identified by Wortham, Murillo, & Hamann, [2002]). This newer migration is identified as the “New Latino Diaspora” (NLD).

North Carolina is among the states receiving the new wave of Latino immigration (Murillo, 2002; Urrieta, Kolano, & O. Jo, [this volume]), Villenas, 2002). The important number of Latinos present in North Carolina makes it an interesting research site for this study. Considerable numbers of Purépechas, an indigenous group from Mexico, have migrated to parts of North Carolina, concentrating in the Appalachian Mountains.