As Foner (1997) has shown for immigrants in New York, both today and at the turn of the twentieth century, modern-day transnationalism is not altogether new but instead has a long history. Russian Jews and Italians maintained family, economic, political and cultural links to their home societies at the same time as they developed ties within their host land. Expecting to return home one day, they sent their savings and remittances homeward and kept up their ethnic allegiances. A transnational social space already existed but it may have been harder than it is now to maintain contacts across the ocean. Today technological changes have made it possible for immigrants to maintain closer and more frequent contact with their home societies. International business operations in the new global economy are much more common. Telephones, emails and internet-based telecom allow immigrants to keep in close touch with the family members, friends and business partners they left behind in the home country. With greater US tolerance for ethnic pluralism and multiculturalism, maintaining multiple identities and loyalties is now seen as a normal feature of immigrant life. Nowadays, too, a much higher proportion of these immigrants (e.g. Indians and Chinese) arrive with advanced education, professional skills and sometimes substantial amounts of financial capital that facilitate these transnational connections (Foner 1997: 362-369).