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The interest on this work emerges out of the aspiration to explore the cultural production about the U.S-Mexican border on its broadest interdisciplinary context. The intention is to analyze contemporary aesthetic representations of the Mexican border space in recent Mexican and Mexican American narratives. In this analysis, subsequent to an exploration of stereotyped images of the “West” of the United State and the “North” of Mexico since the beginning of XIX century, our intent is to compare and contrast two main perspectives when representing Mexican border spaces in fictitious narratives. In the 1980’s Mexico sponsored, in a plan to promote cultural production along its border states, a new group of border artists ascend. This effort had its fruitful results and it offered a new perspective and point of view when producing Mexican border representations. Our goal is to emphasize the differences between border representation made by centralist Mexican writers and border writers. To accomplish the goal I the theories used are the proposed by Henri Lefebvre in his The Production of Space, Luz Aurora Pimentel in El espacio en la ficción, ficciones espaciales: la representación del espacio en los textos narratives, and Terry Eagleton in Ideology: An Introduction. Lefebvre and Pimentel discuss the aesthetic production of space as instruments to conceive and perceive the descriptors’ ideology and social values. In the first chapter there is a discussion of the different theories used in this project. The second chapter offers an overview of how border spaces have been represented in fictitious and historical texts produced by American and Mexican writers since the beginning of the XIX century. In the third, fourth and fifth chapters we analyze the representation of Mexican border space in “Malintzin de las maquilas” by Carlos Fuentes, Sueños de frontera by Paco Ignacio Taibo II, Santitos by María Amparo Escandón, El gran Preténder by Luis Humberto Crosthwaite, and Peregrinos de Aztlán by Miguel Méndez.

Insulin resistance (IR) and type 2 diabetes in Mexican American adolescents living along the United States (US)-Mexico border are linked to genetics, poverty, developmental characteristics, and psychological attributes. Understanding relationships among psychological attributes, health promoting behaviors (HPB) and IR markers addresses gaps in health promotion science that test relationships between lifestyle and biological outcomes.Hendricks' Perceptual Health Promotion Determinants Model provided theoretical underpinnings. The aims were to test the predictive ability of HPB and IR using psychological attributes (self-esteem, self-efficacy, and hope). Biological markers for IR included body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), and Homeostasis Mathematical Assessment Model for Insulin Resistance (HOMA-IR).Forty five Mexican American adolescents (62% female; 16.4 [&plusmn;1.27] mean years) participated. The majority (60%) were obese (BMI &ge; 95th percentile) with 40% overweight (BMI &ge; 85th percentile), 45% with WC &ge; 95th percentile, and 76% with HOMA-IR &ge; 3.16.With self-efficacy for physical activity, 38% (R<super>2<super> = 0.3771; F = 8.27, df = 3; p < 0.002) of variance in HPB was explained by hope. With self-efficacy for nutrition fats/sodium, 44% (R<super>2<super> = 0.4382; F = 10.66; df = 3; p < .0001) of variance in HPB was explained by self-efficacy for nutrition fats/sodium and hope. With self-efficacy for nutrition fruits/vegetables, 49% (R<super>2<super> = 0.4894; F = 13.10; df = 3; p <.0001) of variance in HPB was explained by self-efficacy for nutrition fruits/vegetables and hope.Additionally, with IR reflected as WC, 21% (R<super>2<super> = 0.2129; F = 2.71; df = 4; p = 0.0437) of variance was explained by self-esteem and self-efficacy for physical activity. With IR reflected as HOMA-IR, 22% (R<super>2<super> = 0.2214; F = 2.84; df = 4; p = 0.0364) of variance was explained by self-efficacy for physical activity and 23% (R<super>2<super> = 0.2254; F = 2.91; df = 4; p = 0.0333) of variance was explained by self-efficacy for nutrition fruits/vegetables. Evidence supports using hope and self-efficacy to test interventions to increase HPB and decrease IR in adolescents residing along the US-Mexico border region.

The present study consisted of two parts: (1) The examination of whether demographic differences in utilization of multiple forms of health services existed among Non-Hispanic Whites, Mexican-, Cuban-, and Puerto Rican-American adolescents. (2) The examination of whether the Andersen model, revised for Latino adolescents, fit equally well for Mexican-, Cuban-, and Puerto Rican-Americans. Data for this study were drawn from the first two waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health), a nationally representative sample of 7th through 12th-grade students in the United States collected between 1994 and 1996.Logistic regression analyses indicated that there were significant differences in routine physical exams based on ethnicity. Mexican-American adolescents were less likely than Non-Hispanic White, Cuban-American, and Puerto Rican-American adolescents to receive routine physical exams. Finding based both on the logistic regressions and on the latent mean comparisons suggested that Cuban- and Puerto Rican-American adolescents are more likely to utilize health services than Mexican-American adolescents. Cuban-American adolescents were also less likely to indicate the need for medical services, whereas Mexican-American adolescents were more likely to state that they needed medical services but were unable to receive them.The results of multi-group confirmatory factor analyses provide mixed evidence toward the indication that the revised Andersen's conceptual model is an appropriate overall framework to utilize with Mexican-, Cuban-, and Puerto Rican-American adolescents. Based on the structural equation model findings, it appears that the major link between need and use of health care services is not supported in the three Latino subgroups. The Andersen model only partially addressed health care needs among the adolescent Latino subgroups. Although there are connections from the main predisposing predictors (including Latino adolescent-specific characteristics) to enabling resources and need, these indirect associations do not necessarily predict use of health services with Mexican-, Cuban-, and Puerto Rican-American adolescents. Clearly there is a great need for health care services among Latino adolescents, particularly given their health disparities in adolescent risk behavior; however current models need further revision, such as including key cultural factors and social context, to predict use of health care services.

The sociocultural model of eating disorders suggests that awareness of a thin physical ideal directly affects internalization of that ideal, which in turn, directly affects body dissatisfaction. The current study evaluated the general accuracy of the sociocultural model and examined the potential for ethnicity to protect against eating disorder symptomatology by moderating the relationships between awareness and internalization and between internalization and body dissatisfaction. Spanish (n = 100), Mexican American (n = 100), and Euro-American (n = 100) female participants completed various questionnaires measuring sociocultural attitudes towards appearance and body dissatisfaction. Analysis of covariance with tests of homogeneity of slope and path analysis using maximum likelihood with robust standard errors tested the two relationships by ethnic group. Results supported the sociocultural model: there was strong evidence for the mediational effect of internalization on the relationship between awareness and body dissatisfaction. Furthermore, ethnicity moderated the relationships such that both relationships were significantly stronger for Euro-American women than for Mexican American or Spanish women. Within the Mexican American group level of acculturation also moderated these relationships. Taken together, the results of this study highlight how ethnicity can protect against the development of eating disorder symptoms. Denouncing the thin ideal, minimizing appearance as an indicator of female value, and emphasizing personal traits other than appearance as determinants of worth are important in protecting against the development of body dissatisfaction and more severe eating pathology.