The purpose of this introductory chapter is to make clear the intent of the entire study. First of all, no attempt is made at claiming any distinction for originality, as the information contained herein is gathered from books, magazines, newspapers, conversations with experienced business men and labor men, and some from personal observation. The present unemployment situation causes many people to question our government's policy of leaving our "gates" open to Mexican immigration. Many are the figures that we hear quoted in an effort to bolster personal views on this problem. Dr. Manual Gamio urges a limitation placed on Mexican immigration. Dr. Paul Taylor sees no reason for such a step. Both of these men have studied the problem thoroughly, yet they arrive at opposite conclusions. The former is a Mexican and feels that his suggestions would benefit both countries and their peoples. Individual and cursory investigations seem to be in accord with his advice. Dr. Taylor advises us that time will correct the present condition and apparently we need not attempt to alleviate the problem. Aside from the employment issue, it is argued that the Mexican presents a socio-racial economic problem. The question involved herein is one of adaptation. Naturally he is not accustomed to our mode of living and upon entering this country he % faces a world entirely unknown to his past experiences. He soon finds himself at the mercy of those people more advanced than himself; often he falls into the hands of unscrupulous contractors. Aside flora my personal opinion, I must offer the suggestion that "'big business" seems to favor unrestricted Mexican immigration. Even farmers in this valley advocate restriction. Therefore, this study will involve an unbiased treatment of the subject (to the best of my knowledge) and the conclusions offered shall be based on the facts contained herein.

Each year, hundreds of thousands of farm workers emigrate from Mexico. to cultivate and harvest crops on American farms and return to Mexico at the end of the harvest season. These men are permitted to enter the United States under the auspices of the Mexican farm labor program established by the federal government. The migration of these farm laborers has involved "...one of the most significant population movements in the Western Hemisphere in the last twenty-five years".

In the United States, many, including those who are native-born and those who settle here, faithfully espouse the American Dream. Commonly, higher education is seen as the main pathway to achieve this and success more broadly. However, not much discussion or consideration is given to the processes by which immigrants and their children must adjust and settle into a new country, community, and schooling system in order to achieve entrance into institutions of higher education. Several factors influence the difficulties that immigrant and their descendants will experience, as well as the pathways of mobility available to them. Perhaps one of the most important factors affecting immigrants’ circumstances is the local context in which they are received. The primary goal of this dissertation is to uncover the factors facilitating Mexican students’ transition into higher education as well as how local context affects this process and their broader treatment in southeastern Pennsylvania and New York City. This dissertation addresses two main research questions: What factors and mechanisms facilitate Mexican students’ transition into higher education, and how does local context influence this process. The first question seeks to identify the resources and difficulties that Mexican students encounter in their educational trajectory in order to analyze how these students and their parents are being received in their communities of settlement and how this affects their mobility. The second question aims to specify the extent to which local circumstances influence not just educational attainment and mobility, but also discrimination and racialization. While much, namely assimilation, research has examined this group’s mobility and integration, it has not adequately theorized the effect of location on mobility and integration. Additionally, assimilation research prioritizes mobility and integration over discrimination and racialization. While research on Mexican’s discrimination and racialization is not as prevalent, it also does not focus on how location affects these dynamics. Taking existing scholarship’s inadequacies into account and since most research on US Mexicans is focused on those living in the southwest, it is crucial to investigate the mobility, integration, discrimination, and racialization that Mexicans experience in locations outside of the southwest. Given that this project is concerned with understanding young Mexican’ experiences with education and settlement, qualitative inquiry is employed because it provides an opportunity to intricately observe social life. Sixty individuals, thirty-five are 1.5- and second-generation Mexicans from southeastern Pennsylvania, and twenty-five are second-generation and undocumented individuals from New York City, were interviewed for this study. All Pennsylvania respondents attended the same university and all New York respondents attended the same college. Criteria to participate in this research included having parents who migrated to the United States from Mexico, attended high school in Pennsylvania or New York, and being enrolled in the selected college in each state. The latter two criteria are efforts to make sure that participants have spent a significant amount of time living or a significant phase of their lives—especially high school and the transition to college—in the states under investigation in order to gauge the coming of age and higher education experiences of young Mexicans in these new destinations Chapters two, three, and four encompass the empirical sections of this dissertation. Chapter two examines participants’ communities and schools in Southeastern Pennsylvania and New York City as well as their families’ characteristics. Such an examination demonstrates how students’ local circumstances have a tremendous impact on their (educational) mobility because this context is where other significant factors such as family, school, community, and social networks exert their influence. Moreover, local contexts as well as populations are shown to affect the types of resources and constraints that respondents encountered along their educational pathways. Time of migration and arrival by participants’ families in their respective communities also plays a vital role in respondents’ educational attainment. Participants’ transitions into young adulthood are also shaped by their local contexts. This chapter provides vital insights given its location-based analytical lens of educational attainment and young adulthood. Chapter three analyzes the ways in which respondents are racialized as Mexicans and immigrants. Here respondents’ experiences in their respective high schools, university, college, and southeastern Pennsylvania and New York City are looked at. As well as local context, local populations also influence the ways in which respondents experience racialization as well as various forms of discrimination and microaggressions. Respondents’ encounters with these race-based forms of denigration illuminate the multiple ways in which Mexican students’ transition from high school to higher education and beyond can be made more difficult, blocked, and ultimately stopped. Although respondents are educationally successful, this has not translated into structural assimilation. This chapter contributes toward the building of a context-based theory of integration and racialization. Chapter four addresses the main question behind this project: what factors and mechanisms facilitate students’ transition from high school to college. Across both locations, students’ entrance into institutions of higher education is aided by the presence of multiple factors working in different combinations for each student; mainly relationships with mentors, friends, and family as well as participation in programs geared specifically to help marginalized students gain entrance into higher education. Local context influences the amount and density of resources that students have at their disposal toward their entrance into college. Such factors are significant because of the ways in which they counteract or buffer some of the constraints, difficulties, and racialization that students encounter in their pursuit of higher education. For Pennsylvania students especially, it appears to be more useful to consider the theory of cumulative causation or self-perpetuation of international migration—where each instance of migration generates more social capital and consequently a higher likelihood of additional migration in sending communities—and not just assimilation perspectives to understand how Mexican higher education attainment occurs. / Sociology

Approved for public release, distribution is unlimited / The authors examine the history of immigrant military service in the United States, explore the motivations of noncitizen enlistees, and analyze the military performance of noncitizens relative to that of citizen enlistees. Information sources include a comprehensive review of literature, focused interviews with a small sample of noncitizen enlistees, and cohort data files of enlisted personnel who entered the military from 1990 through 1998. The history of noncitizen service corresponds roughly to the nation's history of immigration and naturalization policy, with military service having offered immigrants economic benefits, as well as a path toward assimilation. Service by noncitizens has also provided the country a way to meet its military manpower needs. The results of statistical analyses suggest noncitizens have lower predicted rates of first-term attrition, and higher estimated rates of retention beyond the first term and promotion to E-4. The authors conclude that noncitizens provide a valuable source of manpower, and fulfill important roles as influencers for the next generation. Thus, it may be worthwhile to provide noncitizens more information about enlistment opportunities, and to implement unique reenlistment incentives including expedited green-card status for family members. Future research should examine specific ethnic categories of interest within the population of noncitizens. / First Lieutenant, Turkish Army / Lieutenant Commander, United States Navy

Mexican immigrant students are entering American schools in great numbers. Many of them come to high schools with a good educational background, but there is little knowledge about them and about the factors that contribute to their incorporation into social life in the United States. While the drop out rate of Mexican-American students in high school has remained the highest among all ethnic groups, recent immigrants are pressuring schools to meet their needs immediately. Failure to respond adequately to their needs may result in an increase in the already high drop out rate and a perpetuation of the cycle of poverty among the Mexican-American population. The purpose of this study was to examine the factors that contribute to the incorporation of Mexican immigrant high school students to United States society. The design of the study is a qualitative multiple case study with a phenomenological perspective. Five Mexican immigrant high school students were selected according to specific criteria. Data was collected through in-depth, open-ended interviews, observations, and documentation. Special consideration were given to the role played by the high school in promoting the academic success of Mexican immigrant students and the contribution of native culture to the process of incorporation into United States society. This study makes contributions to knowledge about Mexican immigrant high school students that can help educators improve the services needed by this fast growing segment of the population. / text

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Full text release at OhioLINK's ETD Center delayed at author's request

Être Noir au Mexique c’est avant tout ne pas exister. Ne pas exister pour la Nation : aucune reconnaissance officielle dans le cadre de la pluriculturalité de l’État-nation actée constitutionnellement depuis 2001. Ne pas exister aussi pour les Mexicains eux-mêmes qui ne savent pas qu’ils ont des compatriotes noirs. Et pourtant les Afro-mexicains sont bien présents, sur les côtes de Veracruz, mais surtout sur la côte pacifique, et plus précisément sur la Costa Chica entre les États de Guerrero et Oaxaca. Présents physiquement mais aussi culturellement. Ce qui caractérise la situation des Afro-mexicains est cette tension entre invisibilité et visibilité. L’objectif de cette thèse est de questionner cette tension à travers un corpus de chanson (cumbia et chilena) issu de la tradition populaire afro-mexicaine de la Costa Chica. Chansons qui s’accompagnent toujours de danse et d’une certaine pratique orale spécifique. Plus précisément, on se demandera en quoi la musique-danse-oralité peut-elle être considérée comme une forme de langage de la culture afro-mexicaine, c’est-à-dire dans quelle mesure la musique-danse-oralité des Afro-mexicains est-elle une représentation (une sorte de miroir) de leur identité culturelle ? Ou encore, peut-on analyser la musique-danse-oralité chez les Afro-mexicains comme un espace-temps d’épanouissement (conscient, inconscient ?) de leur culture dans un pays dominé par l’idéologie du métissage. Idéologie excluante, car construite comme un unique dialogue entre Blancs et Indigènes ? / In Mexico, Black people are deprived of a real existence. The Nation ignores their existence. They have no official status within the framework of the pluriculturality of the nation which was constitutionally enacted in 2001. Mexican people also ignore them because they do not know that they have black fellow citizens. Yet Afro-Mexican people do exist on the Coast of Veracruz, and mainly on the Pacific Coast, and more precisely on Costa Chica between the states of Guerrero and Oaxaca. Not only do they exist physically-speaking but they also do culturally-speaking. What characterizes the situation of Afro-Mexican people is this duality between invisibility and visibility. The aim of this doctorate is to deal with that duality through a corpus of songs (cumbia and chilena) from the Afro-Mexican popular songs of Costa Chica. These songs always include dances and a specific oral practice. The question is to know how music, dance and orality can be regarded as a form of language of Afro-Mexican culture, that is to say to what extent Afro-Mexican music, dance and orality is a representation –a kind of mirror –of their cultural identity. Or, in other words, can Afro-Mexican music, dance and orality be analysed as a pattern within space and time that enables the fulfillment –either conscious or unconscious- of their culture in a country dominated by the ideology of melting pot ? That ideology excludes some people because it is based upon a dialogue between White people and indigenous people only.

Studies suggest that knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about domestic violence influence the behaviors of Mexican men. However, few interventions have targeted men in efforts to provide domestic violence awareness and health education to a relevant at-risk community that is also challenged by low literacy. Mexican immigrant men, particularly those less acculturated to the dominant U.S. culture, are significantly less likely to access services and more likely to remain isolated and removed from their communities and, more importantly, from their families. The purpose of this study was to explore and examine how cultural beliefs and behaviors influence the potential of domestic violence from the perspective of the Mexican origin, male immigrant. The research drew on existing community academic partnerships to collaboratively develop a pilot intervention that uses popular education techniques and a Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) framework. The specific aims were: 1) to use the principles and practices of CBPR to ensure that the issues addressed and results obtained are relevant to Latinos in Multnomah County, 2) to identify the beliefs, attitudes, and culture about domestic violence and male health for a population of men who are immigrants and of Mexican origin, 3) to develop and prioritize intervention strategies that are community defined, 4) to implement and evaluate a four week pilot project that utilizes community defined, literacy independent curriculum and popular education techniques to address male and family wellness and the prevention of domestic violence. Nine men participated in this study who reported inadequate or marginal functional literacy at approximately a 4.5 grade level. The findings also revealed a strong consensus among the participants' that there is confusion surrounding what constitutes domestic violence and/or what behaviors and social barriers place them at risk for health conditions. In summary, we found that the domestic violence in the Latino communities cannot be approached as a single issue; it needs to be embraced from a wellness perspective and the impact of domestic violence and health knowledge is navigated by experiences of one's past and present. Combining the tools of CBPR with the tools of popular education may allow researchers to address the Latino male's concerns with literacy while also examining other, less immediately visible, concerns. When you take the focus off such a delicate subject such as domestic violence and reframe the issue in terms of holistic health, you will then find a more cooperative and less defensive population to work with.

Why at the present time do we need added sources of labor beyond that available within the country? One faction would cry, "We don't!" Another would say, "We decry the importation of labor, but there simply aren't United States citizens in sufficient numbers to get these jobs done." A third group would probably answer, "Why worry about it? These laborers will come across the border, legally or illegally; we may as well avail ourselves of their services." Perhaps we should let a fourth group speak: "We must see that you do not misuse these people."

In The Song of the Lark (1915), Willa Cather does something extraordinary by presenting a well-rounded and likeable Mexican character. This is quite different from her contemporaries’ stereotypical depictions of minorities. To include immigrants in a modern novel was avant-garde and radical subject matter; and presenting a realistic, likeable Mexican character was unheard of because the colonized and immigrants were largely ignored in American literature, or deliberately overlooked. When they were included, persistent demeaning views and unflattering Mexican stereotypes were the norm. This paper seeks to explain how positively Cather depicts Mexican characters, decades before Civil Rights. Cather includes the plight of Mexicans in her novel and gives voice to those that were silenced and ignored. Even though she was a bestselling author and considered one of the best American writers of the era, she has not been properly credited for how progressive she was in her treatment of minorities. It is well documented that Cather used juxtaposition and absences in her writing to convey meaning; I build on these absences to add in rhetorical silence and connect her use of silence to the academic conversation about speech in post-colonial analyses. By contextualizing her writings within the period, I demonstrate how progressive her novels are. Even though most depictions of minorities at the turn of the century were stereotypical, Cather diverges from the racism, which makes her decades ahead of her contemporaries in including good immigrants and minorities in American literature.