Public housing in the United States has been a controversial sociopolitical topic since the years of the Great Depression. The issue of appropriate and secure habitation for the country's "deserving poor" continues to be of great importance as government subsidies become scarce in the early 21st century. This dearth of support for public housing is even more evident and prominent along the United States-Mexico border of South Texas, a territory described as having a third world environment. The dissertation is a narrative history of public housing in Laredo, Texas, a border community. Compiled from news media records and the archives of the Laredo Housing Authority, the study gives insight into methods used by this authority to achieve decent habitation for the underprivileged residents of one of the poorest cities in the United States. After a historical background of Laredo, the study follows a chronological development of federally funded housing through the six decades that began in 1938. The study accentuates the continuing need for such housing as its sponsoring federal agency; the Department of Housing and Urban Development fails to properly fund its subsidiary programs and projects. Principal governmental and nongovernmental sources substantiate the dearth of appropriate housing, with the author providing further insight to his native city's plight. The conclusion outlines how funding, together with higher upkeep and energy costs, will continue in a downward spiral and will lead to an increase in the underserved poor population.

Mexican neoliberalism has systematically undermined Mexico's rural and indigenous populations and created multiple forms of displacement in communities and individual lives. This thesis traces the impacts of displacement in the lives of Mixtec families living and working on the U.S.-Mexico border. As families encounter new circumstances of risk, violation and vulnerability, they develop material, spatial and social strategies to provide safe and meaningful lives, often through contradictory and uneven processes. Central to these processes are power relations and negotiations of class, ethnicity and gender, which both maintain community and continuity as well as further perpetuate systems of inequality and differentiation between groups, families and individuals. The focus on indigenous peoples in Nogales fills important gaps in the literature of indigenous transnational migrants and the U.S-Mexico border, particularly in light of recent border policies, which are pushing more people to the Arizona-Sonora desert region.

Using the Three Border Model developed by Mike Davis and Alessandra Moctezuma, this thesis presents a number of case studies focused on the narratives of power and transformation that continue to develop on the American side of the U.S.-Mexico border in the post-9/11 context. The first case study overviews the history of the U.S.-Mexico border in relation to the ongoing fortification of the physical boundary and its legal reification in federal policy. The second case study examines the exclusionary policies enacted by the state of Arizona as well as the anti-immigration agenda instituted by the Minuteman Project. The third case study examines the ways in which urban communities in the borderlands contest the material manifestations of the border present in their everyday lives. By surveying case studies at different sites and scales along the U.S.-Mexico boundary, this thesis challenges traditional conceptions of state power at the border.

Using the Three Border Model developed by Mike Davis and Alessandra Moctezuma, this thesis presents a number of case studies focused on the narratives of power and transformation that continue to develop on the American side of the U.S.-Mexico border in the post-9/11 context. The first case study overviews the history of the U.S.-Mexico border in relation to the ongoing fortification of the physical boundary and its legal reification in federal policy. The second case study examines the exclusionary policies enacted by the state of Arizona as well as the anti-immigration agenda instituted by the Minuteman Project. The third case study examines the ways in which urban communities in the borderlands contest the material manifestations of the border present in their everyday lives. By surveying case studies at different sites and scales along the U.S.-Mexico boundary, this thesis challenges traditional conceptions of state power at the border.

This dissertation addresses native activism in response to United States and Mexico border enforcement policies on the U.S.-Mexico border among indigenous peoples whose communities are divided by the international line. Fieldwork for the dissertation was conducted in collaboration with an indigenous grassroots community organization with members in both the U.S. and Mexico who advocate for rights of border mobility among native border peoples. This work discusses the impacts of border enforcement policies on native community cultural maintenance, local interpretations and uses of international human rights tools, and the challenges faced by U.S.-Mexico border native activists in communicating their ideologies to a broader public. This work further addresses the complex identity construction of Native Americans with cultural ties to Mexico, and conflations of race and nationality that result in distinct forms of intra-community racism.

This dissertation examines changing relationships among natural landscapes and state agencies, as these relationships intersect in transboundary protected wildlands and in debates about natural resource protection and U.S.-Mexico border policy. Recent increases in undocumented migration, smuggling, and border enforcement along the Arizona-Sonora border impact ecology and public land management practices. In this dissertation, I analyze how natural and national spaces and boundaries are produced through institutional and individual practices and discourses in border wildlands. Further, I consider how different productions of space restrict or create opportunities for collaborative responses to ecological impacts resulting from migration, smuggling, and border enforcement. This research builds on anthropological scholarship on conservation, borders, and the production of space through an ethnography of conservation institutions as they face dramatic political and ecological changes in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands.

The purpose of this ethnographic study was to explore the understanding of pre-diabetes and the possibility of developing diabetes among Mexican Americans at the U.S.-Mexico border. This study also explored how Mexican Americans adjust to living with pre-diabetes. While extensive research has been conducted regarding pre-diabetes, diabetes, and how individuals perceive their susceptibility to these illnesses, few studies have examined how Mexican Americans understand pre-diabetes and the possibility of developing diabetes. The increased prevalence of diabetes among this population, the divergent understandings of risk held by diverse cultural groups, and the large presence of Mexican Americans in the U.S.-Mexico border region prompted this study.There are gaps in the literature about how Mexican Americans understand pre-diabetes and their possibility of developing diabetes. Current literature focuses on studies of causality, folk beliefs, symptoms, and treatments. Current studies do not provide a framework in which healthcare professionals can identify how Mexican Americans understand pre-diabetes and the possibility for developing diabetes or how to incorporate these lay understandings into their practice, research, and education.An ethnographic study, guided by Freire's framework (2000) was conducted to provide insight into the understanding of pre-diabetes and the possibility of developing diabetes among Mexican Americans living at the U.S.-Mexico border. An overarching theme Living with Pre-diabetes emerged. This theme emerged from two major themes: 1) Awareness; and 2) Adjusting to Living with Pre-diabetes.This study revealed that Mexican Americans may not understand pre-diabetes or their possibility of developing diabetes until told of having pre-diabetes by a healthcare provider. Becoming aware of pre-diabetes may not necessarily imply understanding of what pre-diabetes is. The study also revealed that an awareness of having pre-diabetes may lead to changes in lifestyle, but may not always make these changes sustainable. The use of Freire's framework may prove useful when addressing the needs of Mexican Americans with pre-diabetes.

Learning to Stand on Shifting Sands: Sonoran Desert Capitalism, Alliance Politics, and Social Change offers a comparative analysis of activisms, labor organizing, and production practices in southern Arizona between 1999 and 2003. Using a combination of political economy, queer/feminist theory, transdisciplinary critical cultural studies, and discourse analysis, the research analyzes the broad social and ideological contexts, the tactics, the contradictions and the attempts and lost opportunities for building broader alliances for radical social change in contemporary Arizona. The case studies reckon with this experience, arguing that: Arizona's migrant workers have been strategically produced via media practices, border militarization, "development" discourse, and global production practices as flexible post-NAFTA commodities that enable formidable nationalist and heteronormative representation and political economic practices within the Sonoran desert border region. That local activism and labor organizing draws upon neoliberal "development" discourse strategies, and also breaks from these strategies in ways that suggests that the terms of production and exchange might be usefully applied towards outcomes that are outside of profit accumulation. That alliance practices that take structures and discourses of domination into account in estimations of value, even in production, can promote broader collaborations between activist organizations, cultural identities and single-issue politics. A politics of alliance that accounts for the interdependence of seemingly disparate practices of production, social oppression and culture might help invigorate contemporary grass roots struggles and promote social transformation.

Background: Tuberculosis (TB) remains a salient public health issue along the U.S./Mexico border. This study seeks to identify the social and structural factors, which are associated with TB disease burden in the binational geographic region. Identification of barriers of treatment completion provides the necessary framework for developing evidence-based interventions that are culturally relevant and context specific for the U.S./Mexico border region. Methods: Retrospective study of data extracted from medical charts (n = 439) from Yuma County Health Department (YCHD) (n = 160) and Centro de Salud San Luis Rio Colorado (n = 279). Patients currently accessing TB treatment at either facility were excluded from the study. Chi-square, unadjusted odds ratios, and logistic regression were utilized to identify characteristics associated with successful TB treatment in this population. Findings: The study population was predominantly male (n = 327). Females were more likely to complete TB treatment (OR = 3.71). The absence of drug use and/or the absence of an HIV positive diagnosis were found to be predictors of TB treatment completion across both clinical sites. Forty-four percent (43.59%) (n = 85) TB patients treated at CDS San Luis did not complete treatment versus 40.35% (n = 49) of TB patients who did not complete treatment at YCHD. Moving from the area or being deported was the highest category (20.78%) for incomplete TB treatment in the population (n = 64) across both clinical sites.

The terrorist attacks upon the United States of America, as perpetrated by Al Qaeda operatives on September 11, 2001, has resulted in profound changes of policy and_ action in Washington. The blissful ignorance of many was awaken to the shattering reality of the threat from unconventional warfare at the hands of extremist organizations. The following review and analysis of terrorism at the U.S.-Mexico border seeks to assess the threat on a more personal basis. All too often we associate terrorism with the Middle East and Asia, not coming to grips with realities faced close to home on a daily basis. The terrorist acts of violence by both criminal and religious extremist groups are resulting in a massive loss of life throughout the world. This paper seeks to address those acts of terror and violence on our southern border. While international terrorist groups have yet to succeed in another attack on American soil, many experts believe that it is now only a matter of time.