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Changes in immigration flows and policy in the last three decades are linked to differences in the level and types of economic growth in Venezuela. This provides an historical context within which to locate the post-1973 rise in immigrant entries and policy changes which have led to a definition of immigration as the import of foreign workers. These changes were generated by the unusually high economic growth rates made possible by the increase in the international price of oil, Venezuela's major export.

It is the contention of this article that the incidence and types of voluntary associations in immigrant communities can be employed as an indicator of the differential weight of cultural-ideological and structural factors in the articulation of such communities with the receiving society. It is also held in this paper that the relative similarity of cultural-ideological variables in the Colombian and Dominican communities, revealed by the attribution of a common "Hispanic" identity, tends to have less weight in this articulation than the structural differences between their places of origin and the disparity between place of origin and destination.