The Paradox of Social Links: Indigenous Migrants at rhe Crisis of the Real Estate Market in California, United States

Abstract

The paper focuses on the analysis of the economic and social resources used by Mixtec migrants in California, USA, to deal with the real estate crisis in 2006. It also talks about the role that social networks play in the cases of foreclosure experienced in an extended family; showing that social networks that at one moment provided support to migrants and their families to leave the community of origin and establish at the destination place, in another moment can limit the resources to deal with a foreclosure. Finally, it is argued that a micro analysis of social networks and the characteristics of their links, together with the macro perspective, allow exposing the paradoxes of social networks.