Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2005. / Supervisor: Martha Menchaca. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2005. / Supervisors: Colleen Fairbanks and Jo Worthy. Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1986. / Vita. Bibliography: leaves [244]-254.

No description available.

Non-insulin diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) is a major health problem affecting U.S. Mexicans. A population of Southwestern Arizona, near the U.S.-Mexico border, was studied to assess the biocultural environment in which disease develops, and to determine risk factors affecting the population. This geographic area is home to a high percentage of farmworkers of Mexican origin or ancestry. A global overview of macro- and micro-level issues was used to provide the context in which the population lives, and where the disease emerges and is maintained. The discussion of historical, economic, demographic, and social issues provide the background for the understanding of the natural and the social environments. Anthropological methods and techniques were used to assess and analyze numerous factors to determine the most useful for the identification of NIDDM risk. Methods used for data gathering included anthropometric measurements, survey instruments, ethnographic interviews, life history, and participant observation. Fifty-seven households participated in the study. A total of 212 subjects were measured; a sub-sample of 79 adults was also interviewed. The study identified 17 diabetics (12 females, 5 males). Prevalence of NIDDM for the sampled population was calculated at 8.2 percent. The rate was higher among females than among males. Diabetics were older than 45 years of age, were in poor health, had more than one source of income, and depended on social safety net assistance; high parity was characteristic of diabetic females. Diabetics' blood glucose (B.G.) levels were higher than those of non-diabetics, regardless of the variables tested. Known risk factors for NIDDM were not found to be significantly strong in the determination of diabetic status nor of B.G. levels. However, the ethnographic and quantitative data suggested that physiological variables may be affected by work and occupational related risks, diluting the prediction strength of known NIDDM risk factors. The yearly cycles of farm work and the physiological demands of the tasks involved are probably the most salient risk factors in farmworkers' lives. Recommendations are provided for the incorporation of anthropological theory, methods and techniques to the study of disease processes, and for the design of public health strategies.

Using a national probability sample of approximately 1,000 Mexican American heads of household, we analyze a subsample of 253 Mexican American male wage earners and present evidence of the importance of phenotype, measured by skin color and physical features, on earnings, controlling for other factors known to affect earnings. Even after controlling these variables, individuals with a dark and Native American phenotype continue to receive significantly lower earnings than individuals of a lighter and more European phenotype. A decomposition of differences in earnings reveals that most of the differential in earnings between the darkest one-third of the sample and the lighter two-thirds is due not to differences in endowments but rather to labor market discrimination. When taken as a whole, Mexican Americans in all phenotypic groups remain far from having incomes comparable to those of non-Hispanic whites.

The Mexican Revolution and WWI spurred the first large wave of Mexican migration to the United States. As a result, the 1920s and 1930s witnessed the largest cohort of children of Mexican migrants of the twentieth century. A significant percentage of these children were U.S. citizens by birth and were also granted Mexican citizenship through their parents, who generally did not seek to become U.S. citizens through naturalization. Using archival collections in Mexico and the United States, this dissertation examines the formal practices and strategies that these migrant families used to engage both U.S. and Mexican citizenship and navigate their place in both nations. It shows that the practice of citizenship was a multi-sited and transnational historical process as evidenced by an examination of two key areas in which it occurred. First, this dissertation uses education to show that Mexican parents and youth practiced Mexican citizenship from the United States. From 1924 to 1939, migrant parents and organizations, Mexican consuls, and the Secretary of Public Education established schools for migrant children in the United States. In addition, Mexicans in the United States pushed the Mexican government to create scholarships for U.S.-born youth at two Mexican universities in 1939 and 1945. Second, this dissertation provides new interpretations of repatriation by focusing on the relationship between repatriates and Mexican state, the role of the family during the Great Depression, and efforts by U.S.-born youth to claim and benefit from their status as U.S. citizens. By following migrant families across the U.S.-Mexico border, this dissertation is able to compare the ways in which migrants and U.S.-born youth engaged both the U.S. and Mexican state. Indeed, they deployed a similar set of strategies and language. For example, in both Mexico and the United States, Mexicans visited the consuls. While the consuls did not always provide Mexicans with the resources they needed, they were often important intermediaries between migrants and the state and between migrants and family members in either Mexico and the United States. In addition to visiting consul, Mexicans wrote to government officials, especially the presidents of both the Mexican and U.S. nation. Their countless letters, I show, emphasized their citizenship status, their affinity to the nation, their “Americanness” or “Mexicanness,” and their commitment to contribute to the nation. Moreover, in their letters, Mexicans echoed the nation’s patriarchal values and metaphor of the family. In constructing a transnational history of citizenship, this dissertation bridges and contributes to Chicano/a historiography, scholarship on Mexican nation building, and works on Mexican repatriation during the Great Depression. By including migrant families into the process of Mexican nation-building after the Mexican Revolution, I integrate a set of historical actors that have generally been excluded from Mexican historiography. Placing migrants and migrant children within this context contributes to Chicano/a historiography by demonstrating not only that Mexican citizenship mattered for these families, but that it was a negotiated process that included migrants and the Mexican state.

The purpose of the study was to develop a model for use by planners of migrant education. Attitudes and behaviors of planners and teachers relative to the academic expectations set for migrant students were assessed. The levels of task difficulty, information sources, and feedback mechanisms encouraged by planners and the evaluation standards applied by teachers were investigated. Descriptive analyses were made and reported for data collected from twenty-five teachers and fifty state and local planners attending the Eleventh Annual National Migrant Education Conference.While academic achievement was generally judged to be a priority, half the teachers and over one-third of the planners expressed lower expectations for migrant students than for the general student population. These findings were interpreted as substantiating a need for a model for setting higher academic expectations. Teachers and planners also favored assigning easier tasks for migrant students, a practive revealed in the review of literature as producing unhappiness and shame in the student.Diffuse use of warmth and friendlines was reported by-teachers of migrant students. An exception showed that teachers tended to use warmth and friendliness discriminately for purposes of classroom control. In findings of related research a relationship was established between diffuse warmth and friendliness and low academic achievement.Sources, highly susceptible to the effect of existing expectations and stereotypes were favored. Teachers used multiple sources of information, but relied most on ethnic background and communication from other teachers. Information about student past performance was used more than information comparing migrant students to national or local norms.The following were conclusions of the study:1. Migrant teachers and planners hold lower expectations for migrant students than for the general population, an attitude found to relate to low academic achievement.2. Teachers exhibit warmth and friendliness toward migrant students without regard to the quality of performance. Such use of diffuse warmth and friendliness has been found to be directly related to low academic achievement.3. Teachers and planners rely on past performance, ethnic background, and other teachers for information. All three sources promote a continuation of low expectations.4. By giving the highest grade or mark available to migrant students regardless of the quality or difficulty of work, teachers lead migrant students to believe their work is outstanding.5. Migrant students, assigned easy tasks, are thereby subjected to conditions which produce unhappiness as well as limited academic achievement.6. Migrant students, seldom provided evaluation information based on comparison with others, must rely on non-challenging past experiences in establishing future expectation for self.An interactive model involving teachers indirectly in raising Mexican-American student expectations was designed based on the findings of the study and related research. Components of the model included the existing national math and reading skill lists, a national norm-referenced achievement test or tests, systematic student career goal-setting by parents, systematic academic expectation objective-setting by students, and process evaluation of teacher use of feedback with students.Processes were identified for interstate, intrastate, and intra-project interactions. At each level peer commitments among implementers combined with implementation experiences would result in the use of increasing numbers of information sources. Ultimately teachers, parents, and students supported by local, state and federal planners would set challenging academic expectations for migrant students.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references. Available also from UMI/Dissertation Abstracts International.