Migration is not a new process in Mexico. One could argue, without transnational movement the country could hot have been created nor exist in its current form. And while we understand general trends in migration, particularly in terms of Mexico’s mestizo population, there are many questions left to uncover concerning the place of migration among the country’s rural, indigenous population. This paper is a preliminary effort to define migration’s place in indigenous Mexican society. There are three key issues that drive the discussion; first, to evaluate theories of migration, particularly in their analysis of indigenous communities, moving away from stereotypic models of the Indian that assume an idealized communalism as a core defining feature without debate; second, to begin to test the assumption that migration, by definition, is a force that leads to a collapse of community, here defined as a group of individuals unified through shared experiences, histories, traditions and common space; and third, to demarcate the parameters of indigenous migration, developing a general picture of movement that is comparable to research in mestizo communities.