This thesis paper researches the impact of illegal immigration on U.S. social services. The study focuses on information gathered from a group of illegal Mexican immigrants who have lived and worked in the U.S. The sample of illegal Mexican immigrants was attracted to the U.S. primarily for economic reasons. The U.S. economic system has directly and indirectly attracted Mexican workers into America for over a 100 years. The U.S. economy has directly attracted Mexican workers through recruitment practices employed by several U.S. business sectors. Indirectly, the powerful U.S. economy has historically attracted Mexicans north because the U.S.'s economy offers more economic opportunities than the Mexican economy. Illegal Mexican immigrants' presence in the U.S. economy has led to the increased use of U.S. social services and as a result of this extra use, a burden has been put on several social service institutions. To what extent this burden affects the U.S. economy is still not clear because illegal immigrants pay U.S. taxes that may compensate the system for this extra use.

<p> According to the scholarly literature, civic engagement practices inclusive of historically marginalized groups are critical to promote justice and contribute to the health of American democracy. Empirical studies meanwhile reveal a grim report of participation from low-income families and/or persons living in ethnically/racially diverse communities in decisions that affect their lives and livelihoods. Scholars have called for further research to address the gap in understanding how barriers to participation are created and reproduced in the day to day experience in marginalized communities, and what if anything can be done to transcend barriers and boundaries to broad based civic engagement. </p><p> By focusing on a high profile civic engagement effort in one low-income, multiethnic urban community, this research provides a context rich, textured account that sheds new light on these important questions. Drawing on four years of ethnographic research, this study finds that social and spatial boundary work intended to build diverse community engagement for an <i>inclusive </i> initiative ultimately created an <i>exclusive</i> process that kept most stakeholders out. This manuscript explains how these boundaries were created, how people gave them objective reality, and what their consequences were. The study also raises two fundamental needs for the future of civic engagement theory and practice: to change practices which are ineffective and often counterproductive of civic engagement objectives, and, to define an approach leading to meaningful participation. In response to these needs and associated tensions, this manuscript offers an integrated framework providing insights into how to create robust opportunities for civic engagement efforts in low-income and multiethnic communities.</p>

<p>This critical rhetorical critique interrogates rhetorics of memory in negotiations of national identity, especially as they address race and colonialism. We need to rethink race in more complex ways that disrupt homogenous conceptions of who belongs in the U.S., instead embracing the possibilities offered in those liminal spaces of racial national identities, such as (Native)American. Doing so requires acknowledging the reverberations of past rhetorics in contemporary sense-making and how those echoes vary across communities. In exploring how we (mis)remember race and colonization in relation to nation, my concern lies in exposing some of the persistent rhetorical strategies that impede social justice efforts by marginalized communities, as well as the resistive rhetorics these communities respond with. </p><p> Pursuing this project, I rely on investigating rhetorical mnemonic strategies of race, nation, and colonialism in everyday discourses about the relationship(s) between a Euro-American community in Lawrence, Kansas and a pan-Indian community associated with Haskell Indian Nations University (HINU) to reveal how we negotiate national identities in relation to the past and to one another. At its core, this ideological critique of rhetorics of race, nation, memory and colonialism is an investigation of identity negotiation among two representative communities in disparate positions of power, their places constituted across several centuries of racist discourses that we too-often continue to rely on. In examining historic Assimilation Era discourses from Haskell Indian Boarding School as well as recent discourses produced by the Lawrence, Kansas, and HINU communities about a local land controversy, I interrogate the role of memory in contemporary negotiations of identity and reveal ways the normative assumptions of U.S. citizenship are profoundly raced. I also propose the idea of &ldquo;enabling uncertainty&rdquo; as a perspective that explicitly troubles narrow and limiting conceptions of racial identities, highlighting the idea through discussion of the complex ways (Native)Americans navigate the interstices between Native and American identities. </p>

<p>Body image refers to how a person perceives herself physically. A woman's perception of her physical appearance and her adherence to a cultural ideal of beauty informs her body image. Several determinants shape the development of body image, including sociocultural, psychological, and interpersonal factors, as well as adolescent physique and maturation, history of abuse, and certain types of media exposure (e.g., fashion magazines and a variety of television programming). </p><p> Much scholarly critique has argued that popular media perpetuate a "thin ideal" to viewers. Consumers receive distorted information. Heavy media consumers, through sheer volume of exposure, may be more aware of and likely to internalize the societal ideal, which could lead to disturbed body image and eating disorders. Substantial body image and media effects research focuses on print images, while television images are far less studied. Furthermore, Caucasian females are studied more frequently than members of other ethnic groups, such as Latinas (Hispanic females). Existing research examining Latinas tends to aggregate ethnic sub-groups (e.g. Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, etc.) into one homogenous group despite differences in national origin. The present study addresses a paucity of research focusing on ethnicity and ethnic sub-group identification related to body image across disciplines. </p><p> A sample comprising 305 self-identified Latinas completed an online survey about television consumption and body image. Television consumption was not predictive of social comparison; however, television consumption did predict awareness of the Eurocentric idealized thin body type. Moreover, sociocultural pressure from friends and family predicted awareness of the idealized thin. Awareness of the idealized thin was positively associated with social comparison, and internalization was positively associated with social comparison. Likewise, social comparison was positively associated with body dissatisfaction and with drive for thinness. The results lend further support for the sociocultural paradigm of body image disturbance. Limitations of the present work are posed along with suggestions for future research. </p>

<p> This thesis explores how the Haliwa-Saponi Indians Halifax and Warren County, North Carolina, challenged the Jim Crow black-white racial classification system between the 1940s and 1960s. To seek political autonomy the Indians worked with and against the dominant strategies of the civil rights movement. The Indians strategically developed Indian-only political and social institutions such as the Haliwa Indian Club, Haliwa Indian School, and Mount Bethel Indian Baptist Church by collaborating with Indians and whites alike. Internal political disagreement led to this diversity of political strategies after 1954, when school desegregation became an issue throughout the nation. One faction of Meadows Indians embraced a racial identity as "colored" and worked within the existing black-white political and institutional system, while another group eschewed the "colored" designation and, when necessary, asserted a separate political identity as Indians; as such, they empowered themselves to take advantage of the segregated status quo.</p>

<p> Racial disparities have been, and continue to be, a major obstacle facing post-secondary educational institutions throughout the United States. In response to the call for institutional and external accountability by stakeholders interested in higher education, the aim of this dissertation is to provide an historical analysis of race and diversity at the University of Colorado Boulder (UCB). UCB was chosen as the focus for the current study because it is the flagship public university in the state of Colorado and is recognized as such by the Colorado Commission on Higher Education (CCHE). In order to relay the history of UCB accurately, a wide variety of sources are utilized, some published and others unpublished, including information obtained from the university's archives. Data collected in this study provide evidence of the lower college admission, retention, and graduation rates of minority (African American and Hispanic) students when compared to White and Asian students at the University of Colorado Boulder. Factors that contribute to the success of minority students on college campuses in general provide a starting point from which efforts being made to rectify the racial disparities present today at UCB can be assessed and analyzed in hopes of creating a campus environment to which minority students are attracted, admitted, retained, and graduated. As the higher education community of scholars continues to embrace the crucial role of diversity on college campuses and as the use of race-conscious educational policy continues to be threatened, this study highlights the role universities play in the larger debate. As UCB has historically struggled to attract, retain, and graduate students of color, I expect that a thorough examination of the data included here will inspire educational stakeholders to find new ways to provide new opportunities for educational advancement for minorities and seek to erase all evidence of a racial achievement gap into the future.</p>

<p> This study examined sociocultural predictors of mental health treatment utilization among a combined clinical and community sample of Black older adults experiencing depression, anxiety and/ or traumatic events. A secondary analysis of a cross-sectional study that investigated the prevalence of depression and the factors associated with it among African Americans, and Caribbean Blacks over the age of 55 living in New York City using binominal logistic regression analyses. The current study investigated how the sociocultural factors of ethnicity, mental health beliefs, ethnic identity, spirituality, and religiosity predicted utilization of formal and informal mental health treatment services. The findings highlight the significance of ethnicity, depression, mental health beliefs and spirituality as predictors of utilization of mental health services. Caribbean Black older adults underutilized mental health treatment services of any type. The current study suggests that attitudes and beliefs about mental illness and health practices is a factor that should been taken into account by clinicians when assessing, diagnosing, treating and trying to maintain adherence to services of older Black adults. </p>

<p> The purpose of the study was to obtain a better understanding of childhood eating habits and their association with race and gender. With this understanding, a sustainable intervention program that includes proper nutrition will help resolve the obesity issue that is affecting families throughout the nation. </p><p> The study collected the nutritional data on a total of 8,945 children that were surveyed by California Health Interview Survey (CHIS). The children varied in race, sex, family income, and education. The age range was 6 to 12.</p><p> The sources analyzed indicate that childhood obesity is increasing in alarming numbers throughout the United States. And that it can be directly attributed to nutrition and lack of physical exercise.</p>

<p> Hawai`i's ranching community grew out of indigenous attempts to manage European livestock introduced by explorers and merchants in the late 1700s. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the ranch workforce became increasingly multiethnic with the inclusion of Asian contract laborers and their descendants. This dissertation examines the origins and development of the ranching community to understand the underlying social forces that encouraged the incorporation of immigrants into its ranks. Hawai`i has long been considered a "social laboratory" for studying interethnic relations, and models of assimilation, acculturation, and creolization have been used to describe its multicultural population, but these models inadequately characterize and explain Hawai`i's ranching community. Rather than apply these models uncritically to describe the community's ethnogenesis, this dissertation proposes that a metaphor derived from the Hawaiian concept of <i>pili</i>, roughly "connection" in English, provides a contextualized explanatory framework appropriate to its Hawaiian linguistic, geographic, and cultural origins. <i>Pili </i> describes the ethnogenesis of the ranching community as the formation and reinforcement of kin- and kin-like connections among existing community members and newcomers. Using documentary and archaeological evidence of a century of ranching at Laumai`a on Hawai`i Island, I frame this process as one informed by tensions between two modes of capitalism used on the ranch: on the one hand, an indigenized capitalism that included Hawaiian genealogical and social connections in its management strategies, and on the other, an EuroAmerican form that emphasized profit and efficiency over human connection. These strategies structured the negotiations of identity among ranch workers that transformed transnationals into community members who contributed to a hybrid culture that, paradoxically, remains uniquely Hawaiian.</p>

<p> The purpose of this qualitative case study was to explore and describe the perceptions of breast-health screening among Chinese Canadian immigrant females, aged 30 to 69 and barriers that prevented them from having breast-health screening. Fifteen in-depth interviews and two focus groups of six Chinese Canadian immigrant women were conducted. The study was aided by NVivo 9 software in coding process, six themes were identified. The findings revealed Chinese Canadian immigrant women were influenced by the Chinese cultural beliefs and practices rather than practicing screening for prevention of diseases. Majority of the participants were aware of the impact of breast cancer, benefits of screening but not aware of the screening program. The findings provided policymakers, health care leaders, and officials of public health units evidence-based information to address low participation rates in breast-health screening among Chinese Canadian immigrant females. Recommended strategies to promote breast-health screening included culturally sensitive linguistic educational programs, recommendations by physicians, extension of the operating hours of breast-health screening clinics, and community-based outreach educational program.</p>