Members of racially- and ethnically-diverse societies often associate primarily with those of their own group. Such societies often also experience high levels of social conflict over distributional issues. This dissertation analyzes economic factors that link demographic diversity with these social, economic and political outcomes. Its main contribution is to highlight the role that between-group inequality plays in determining the extent and nature of contact among diverse segments of a society, and how the resulting social structure influences political and economic outcomes. It also argues that the interaction of inequality and social isolation can be a primary cause for the intergenerational perpetuation of intergroup inequality.

Studies of identity in anthropology have recently sought to articulate a growing awareness of the multiplicity and fluidity of human identification and affiliation. This discourse addresses static frameworks that historically mire the concept of identity within an “imagined community” of uniformity, positioning group after group within a model of un-altering, ‘sameness’. Frequently lost in the re-conceptualization is the consistent archetype of the “normative” against which “groups of color” or alterity are compared/contrasted. In this project I develop a theoretical direction from which one may examine notions of identity applied to Deaf populations through ethnographic engagement with Deaf populations in the U.S. and Britain. This theoretical development is ethnographically applied to a study of Black Deaf identity and a new theory of identity that emerges. This theory specifically allows us to identify: (1) current constructions of Deaf identity predicated on White normativity. (2) the importance of Deaf institutions and organizations as collectivities of embodied agency integral in developing models of identity that reflect multiplicity or a static/hegemonic identity within which alterity is marginalized. (3) the utility of an alternate transcultural model which effectively addresses the concept of identity and its embodied complexity.

This dissertation is a narrative self-representation of my professional experiences working as an outsider within two immigrant and refugee communities in Massachusetts. This study represents and illustrates my experience within the world of education and the personal transformation that took place during my encounters. The narrative focuses upon the interactions among the cultural liaisons, project participants and myself, and the profound effect that these experiences had upon my personal and professional research and practice. This study shows how diligent researcher praxis allowed for the alterations in my practice and research through acknowledging and deciphering fine points of the insider/outsider dimension and cultural differences. A variety of themes and issues are articulated after careful analysis of the narrative. Assertions regarding the application of the emic and etic theory are woven throughout the narrative reconstruction of events. The learning contexts are community development projects that I participated in and built relationships with those from other cultures. I use the story telling component to relay messages of importance regarding the cultural assumptions and judgments that possibly cloud or brighten the development of good interpersonal and business relationships with people from cultures other than one's own. The research ascertained a variety of themes and issues were present in my project experiences. These are: personal challenges, insider/outsider dimension, cultural issues, and relational trust building. From these themes I concluded that three main characteristics existed in relation to culture and insider/outsider theory. They are: (1) Insider/outsider relations are vigorous. (2) Insider/outsider relations are versatile. (3) Insider/outsider relations are rooted in context and influenced by politics and economics. Insider/outsider characteristics were identified for research consideration, and to provide more efficient organization. These elements can be considered to be sensitizing concepts, which allow for a bridge of understanding to be created. By identifying these characteristics, people can see clearly where they are in relation to the other(s). Clearly identifying these characteristics allows for multiple levels of understanding to occur both for the insider and the outsider. This appreciation provided me with the preparation necessary to work among others from different cultures, with different beliefs and different practices.

Many researchers attest to the emergence of gender differences in depression rates during adolescence, and have discussed how gender-linked risk factors and challenges faced in early adolescence might explain increased vulnerability in adolescent girls. However, many have not included immigrant and minority populations and on this basis the relations among acculturation related stress, race related stress, coping behaviors, and depression symptoms in late adolescent and young adult West Indian females were examined in this study. A sociodemographically diverse group of 130 first and second-generation immigrant females (aged 17–26) with ethnic roots in 12 Caribbean islands were recruited from colleges and community organizations in Massachusetts and New York. Participants completed a packet containing a demographics form and measures assessing acculturation, stressful life events, frequency and stressfulness of racist events, coping styles, and depression symptoms. Independent t-test analyses comparing the two generations showed that first generation respondents were more immersed in their ethnic society and second generation respondents were more immersed in dominant society. Paired t-tests showed that respondents from both generations perceived their parents to be more immersed in ethnic society, while they rated themselves as more immersed in dominant society. Contrary to prediction, there were no generational differences in depression symptoms, perception of racist events, or the use of different coping behaviors. Hierarchical regression analyses in which the level of depressive symptoms was regressed on the generation status, risk factor score, coping behavior, risk factor x coping behavior interaction term, and generation x risk factor x coping behavior, revealed that coping behaviors moderated the relationship between psychosocial stressors and depressive symptoms for second generation respondents but not first generation respondents. These findings illustrate the importance of integrating cross-cultural considerations in developmental models of depression. In addition, the impact of cultural socialization on the respondents' expectations and beliefs, and implications for therapy and research are discussed.

This project explores the relationship between literacy and immigration. It claims that the ideological imbrication between literacy and immigration is problematic because it articulates literacy with raceless, American citizenship and illiteracy with a raced, immigrant/outsider subject position. As a result, the notion of “becoming literate” serves as a racializing force in our culture. It supports an “ethnicity-based paradigm of race” that suggests that if an individual is not a “raceless,” middle-class American citizen, (if s/he does not see him/herself this way or if others do not see him/her this way), then s/he does not belong in the world and culture of the “literate.” Chapter 1 explains the rationale for this study both theoretically and in terms of the work in the field of composition. It demonstrates the ways that literacy narratives prominent in the field of composition are bound up with tropes, metaphors, and images of US immigration in the 20th century and contends that reliance on these tropes and images ultimately works to perpetuate static, homogeneous, hierarchized images of identities and cultures. Chapters 2 and 3 examine Mary Antin's The Promised Land. Together, they demonstrate that in order to argue against the biologically based ideologies of race underlying the arguments for immigration restriction, Antin needed to represent race as something that was “assimilable.” Therefore, her immigration narrative constructs literacy as a means of cultural assimilation. Chapters 4 and 5 address Richard Rodriguez' autobiography, The Hunger of Memory. Chapter 4 explores how the dominant image of immigration is embedded in the educational debates on desegregation, bilingual education, and affirmative action in ways that maintain the link between literacy and raceless, American citizenship and illiteracy and racialized immigrant others. Chapter 5 demonstrates that an intertextual reading of Rodriguez' narrative problematizes these articulations in promising ways. The concluding chapter points to teaching practices that might begin to deconstruct the racialized literate/illiterate binary that has prevented us from making literacy, in Linda Brodkey's words, “an offer that people cannot refuse.”

Women are at a higher risk for depression due to a number of social, economic, biological and emotional factors (Goldman and Ravid, 1980; nolen-Horksema, 1987; Strickland, 1989; Weissman, Leaf, Holzer, Meyers and Tischler, 1984). But even when the incidence is high among women in general, for Hispanic and Black women the incidence is higher (Russo, Amaro, and Winter, 1987). Factors such as, poverty and violence seems to be among the factors that predispose the high incidence of depression in this group of women. When we consider poor Puerto Rican migrant women in the continental United States who are exposed to multiple stressful situations, such as poverty, disintegration of family values, violence and discrimination, the incidence in the diagnosis of depression is higher yet (Comas-Diaz, 1981; Torres-Matrullo, 1976, and Caste, Blodgett, and Rubinow, 1978). But at the same time, research that addresses issues of oppression and mental health, particularly as it applies to low-income Puerto Rican women is scarce. Little or no attention has been paid to the effect that social stressors, such as poverty, single parenthood, and violence interact with issues of oppression in the context of migration, might have in the mental health of the migrant. Is a diagnosis of clinical depression the right diagnosis or are we as mental health providers using traditional practices that affect not only the way clients are diagnosed, but most important, the treatment they receive? This study explored the perception that six poor Puerto Rican migrant women who had been diagnosed with clinical depression, have of their condition of depression and the social factors interacting and influencing their condition. Using a qualitative research approach, data was gathered through a semi-structured open-ended interview, in which narratives were used to elicit stories of these six women lives. Six women who had been diagnosed with depression and were undergoing treatment in a community mental health were referred by their therapist and volunteered for the interviews. A set of two interviews was used. As a result of the first interview a story was produced using narrative form, and in a second interview, the participant was able to listen to her own story, reflect on it and look at themes and patterns that emerged from her own story and from the five other participants' stories. Narrative and feminist theories as well as theories of oppression and liberation were used to guide the data analysis in the pursuit of themes and patterns in the stories that emerged from each participant, as well as, similarities and differences among the six participants stories. All six participants reported that awareness of their social conditions made a difference in the way they perceived their condition of depression, the way they perceived themselves and made recommendations for their treatment. The results of this study show the importance of giving voice to the usually unheard, sharing power in a therapeutic relationship, and designing trainings and educational curriculums that take into consideration social stressors when interacting with multiple oppressions. This study is also a contribution to the growing body of literature on women and issues of mental health as well as to the field of social justice as it relates in particular to Puerto Rican women and issues of oppression.

This study seeks to join the emerging literature that uses an interactionist approach to empirically examine how kids develop their own constructions of gender and race. Participant observation took place in two distinctive summer day camps: a predominantly white "typical" camp, where camp groups were segregated by gender; and a "racially mixed" "cultural awareness" camp, with a program intended to encourage kids to learn non-sexist and non-racist ways of being. Examination of the kids' social practices and conversations show that: kids at the "typical" camp constructed masculinity defensively, protecting its vulnerability from loss of power; and kids at the "cultural awareness" camp constructed race with more fluid and shifting boundaries than did kids at the "typical" camp. In these ways, social context mattered. Several of the ways in which kids "did" gender and race, though, seemed to transcend context: kids at both camps constructed a firm gender boundary in which older white kids segregated themselves; and kids at both camps constructed whiteness as an invisible racial category. Overall, the data support three theoretical generalizations: (1) gender and race are more flexible than the culture often portrays them to be; (2) gender, race and age are inseparable; and, (3) kids "do" gender, race and age actively in response to the situation, not passively in response to biology or socialization.

This study evaluates "environmental equity" in the residential distribution of commercial hazardous waste treatment, storage and disposal facilities (TSDFs). Because of claims that TSDFs are disproportionately sited in poor and black neighborhoods, this area of research has become important to scholars, policymakers and community activists. Indeed, claims have generated significant changes in U.S. environmental policy, including the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) establishment of the Office of Environmental Justice, several remedial Congressional bills and an Executive Order from President Clinton mandating Federal Agencies consider environmental justice issues. Yet empirical analyses are limited. Beyond a comprehensive literature review and a theoretical summary, this study contributes two broad analyses. First is a comprehensive cross-sectional analysis of the current distribution of TSDFs. Efforts are directed toward uncovering systematic differences between the demographic composition of neighborhoods with and without TSDFs. Importantly, proxy measures for zoning and market forces in addition to proxy measures of TSDF activity are employed. Second is a longitudinal analysis of TSDF siting focused on whether the composition of neighborhoods is systematically related to site selection decisions at the time of siting. Further analyses aim to find out if TSDFs significantly impact the demographic composition of host neighborhoods over time. Several data resources are employed. TSDF data were primarily compiled from the Environmental Services Directory, validated through the EPA's RCRIS data resource and a telephone survey. Neighborhood data come from the 1970, 1980 and 1990 tract-level Census files. Proxy measures of zoning and TSDF activity come from Dunn and Bradstreet industrial firm files and EPA's 1992 Toxic Release Inventory (TRI), respectively. Analyses reveal no stark evidence of environmental inequity in either the current distribution of TSDFs or longitudinally. Findings suggest TSDF neighborhoods are generally white, working-class, industrial neighborhoods--a finding consistent with some theories of urban structure and some previous research. More active TSDFs appear to be located in neighborhoods with smaller percentages of minority and poor persons. Simple conclusions are complicated by evidence suggesting TSDF neighborhoods are surrounded by poor and minority neighborhoods and other methodological obstacles, however. Implications for policy and research are discussed.

The long-standing claim that migrating individuals are uniformly positively selected (i.e. possessing labor market skills of higher economic value than those who do not migrate) has been challenged in recent years. Research suggesting that some immigrants to the United States possess below average skills has generated debate over both the nature of migrant self-selection as well as the impact of immigration policy on the stock of immigrant flows. This debate has raised important theoretical questions about the relationship between the attributes of sending and receiving areas and the characteristics of migrants. This dissertation addresses the selectivity debate using a conditional logistic regression model of migrants' location choice. The model identifies the individual characteristics and location attributes that determine location choice and provides a unique approach to the issue of selectivity. The analysis tests two theoretical perspectives that have figured prominently in the economic and sociological literature on migration. The data are taken from the 1980 and 1990 U.S. Census Public Use Microdata Samples on Puerto Ricans living in the United States and Puerto Rico. A review of the growth and geographic dispersal of migration originating from Puerto Rico suggest a notable amount of human capital selectivity across migrant destinations. Recent data on metropolitan populations of Puerto Ricans in the United States and Puerto Rico reveal that the migratory process has lead to wide variation in the characteristics of individuals at different locations. The location choice analysis finds support for both theories of migrant self-selection. The results indicate that more competitive labor markets encourage positive selection and that larger migratory social networks encourage negative selection. This research makes important methodological and theoretical contributions to the literature. The analytical strategy taken in this study represents an original approach to the question of migrant self-selection. The location choice model provides the first simultaneous assessment of multiple causes of selectivity. The conceptualization of self-selection as the interaction between individual characteristics and location attributes is also innovative. The policy implications of this research are far-reaching. The results suggest that immigration criteria based on family reunification have a negative impact on immigrant selectivity by reinforcing the operation of migratory social networks. Further, the migration process examined in this analysis suggests that selectivity contributes to socio-economic segregation across geographic space.

The purpose of this study was to examine the influence of college experiences on Asian American college students' civic development at two public institutions in comparison with those of White students by utilizing longitudinal data from the Diverse Democracy Project. Students' democratic orientation was measured by six related scales including social justice orientation, acceptance of conflict in democracy, acceptance of multiple perspectives, self-efficacy for social change, social leadership abilities, and pluralistic orientation. The study first compared the level of democratic orientation between Asian American students and White students using Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) prior to college (Summer/Fall 2000) and at the end of their sophomore year (Fall 2002) to determine whether there was any difference between the two groups at each point. In order to assess how each group of students changed over the two years in their democratic orientation, the repeated measures MANOVA was conducted. The results of the MANOVA indicated that White students were likely to exhibit a greater level of civic outcomes overall than Asian Americans at each time of measurement. The repeated measures MANOVA suggested that (1) both groups of students fared higher in their acceptance of multiple perspectives at the end of their second year, and (2) while White students increased their social justice orientation, Asian American students did not change in this orientation. Second, two types of hierarchical regression analyses were performed to investigate the influence of college experiences on students' civic development and to determine how students' entry characteristics, high school experiences, and college experience each accounted for the variance that predicted the outcome variables at the end of the sophomore year separately for Asian American and White students. The first model used the democratic orientation measured at the end of sophomore year as the dependent variable to understand the influence of college experiences on where students stood. The second model used the change between the pre-measurement and post-measurement of the democratic orientation as the dependent variable to determine the magnitude of college experiences on how much students changed. The results of regression analysis indicated that while college experiences were positively associated with White students' six civic outcomes, they had influence only on two of the outcome variable for Asian American students. The dissertation aimed to contribute to the body of literature in the field by supplying empirical evidence as well as by proposing policy implications.