Transmigrant is a term, greatly developed by the work of Nina Glick Schiller, which is used to describe mobile subjects that create and sustain multiple social relations that link together their societies of origin and residence.
[2] Traditionally, social scientists and researchers have understood migrants and immigrants to be persons that leave behind their native nation-state and experience the difficult processes of assimilation and incorporation into a foreign culture and society.
[2] "Non-migrants also adapt many of the values and practices of their migrant counterparts, engage in social relationships that span two settings, and participate in organizations that act across borders.
This conception also includes as citizens those who physically reside within the territories of multiple other states, but continue to engage politically, economically, socially and culturally in their countries of origin.
[6] However, it is important to note that cultural flows are not strictly “west to the rest” – in customizing, repurposing, and adapting ideas and identities from the host society to lives and social realities of the transmigrant, hegemony is actively contested.
The route through Mexico to the Guatemalan border at Ciudad Hidalgo is about 1,350 miles (2,170 km), virtually all two lane roads running through the centers of towns with heavy truck traffic during the day - a challenging journey even for an experienced transmigrante.