SOCIAL SUPPORT AS A BUFFER OF ACCULTURATIVE STRESS: A STUDY OF MARITAL DISTRESS AMONG UNDOCUMENTED, MEXICAN IMMIGRANT MEN by Douglas Costa de Andrade Ribeiro Immigration trends in the United States have changed drastically in the last 20 years. Starting in the 1990’s the majority of immigrants have originated from Latin American, with most emigrating from Mexico. Men, some of whom are undocumented, have driven this new wave of immigrants. These new Mexican immigrants have bypassed traditional receiving sites across the U.S. Mexican border and settled in non-traditional sites in the southern U.S. (Kiang, Grzywacz, Marin, Arcury, and Quandt, 2010). They face increased difficulties adjusting to life in the U.S. due to separation from family and spouses, lack of established social support networks in the U.S., and marginalization. Difficulties adapting to a new culture combined with lack of social support have been associated with significant mental health problems in this population (Hiott, Grzywacz, Arcury, & Quandt, 2006). This study explored the relationship between acculturative stress and marital satisfaction, as well as the protective (buffering) role of social support in a sample of 125 undocumented, married, Mexican American men. The following instruments were used in this study: (a) The Social, Attitudinal, Familial, and Environmental Scale (Mena, Padilla, & Maldonado, 1987), (b) the Social Support Questionnaire (Acuna & Bruner, 1999; Sarason, Levine, Bashan, & Sarason, 1983), and (c) the Global Distress Scale of the Marital Satisfaction Inventory-Revised (Negy & Snyder, 1997). Results indicated that high levels of acculturative stress and low levels of social support were significantly associated with higher levels of marital distress. However, results did not support the hypothesis that social support acted as a buffer (moderator) against the effects of high acculturative stress on marital distress. These findings suggest that interventions with undocumented Mexican immigrant men should focus on assessing and treating acculturative stressors as well as aiding/advocating for the development and strengthening of social support networks.

This study sought to research and documents the experiences of a group of Mexican undocumented college graduates in the state of Texas. Mexican students were chosen for this study because they are the largest undocumented group residing not only in the United States, but also in the state of Texas. Furthermore, this study revealed perceived and real opportunities Mexican undocumented students have after college graduation. The study focused on college choice as aspirational capital, Latina/o critical race theory (LatCrit) through testimonios as counternarratives, social capital, and cultural wealth to frame a discussion on the post-college experiences of Mexican undocumented college graduates. Furthermore, the study provided a review of legislation and policies addressing the broader immigration context. Overall, this study concluded that for the participants in this study, social capital as well as cultural wealth played important roles in how critical connections and networks operated. After exposure to social capital, participants were able to build their own networks and by tailoring it to their unique needs, were able to help their community by providing access and information about the college admissions process and available options after college graduation. In doing so, they were able to adapt, thrive, and survive within racist and discriminatory societal structures. College choice played a pivotal part in this study, but given the participants’ immigration status, they were left to attend institutions in their home state of Texas. However, given the participants academic acumen, they were able to attend and graduate from the state’s premier public flagship institution. Through their testimonios, activism, and civic engagement the participants shared their experiences as undocumented college students as well as college graduates. In the process, participants dispelled myths about their intellectual abilities and their potential to succeed. Still, their options were limited given their lack of a social security number. This study contributed to the limited literature about opportunities and challenges Mexican undocumented college students face upon degree completion. / text

This thesis examines the federal government’s progression in implementing the Secure Communities program. The Secure Communities program was initiated by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2008 as a pilot program in only fourteen jurisdictions nation-wide. As of the writing of this thesis, four years following the initiation of the program, S-Comm. has been implemented in over 1700 jurisdictions nation-wide and it is set to be implemented in all local jurisdictions nationally by the end of 2013 (Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 2012). Although local law enforcement agencies had long shared the fingerprints of those they arrested with the FBI, the FBI now forwards this information to the DHS through S-Comm. who then checks the fingerprints against the Automated Biometric Identification System known as IDENT—a fingerprint database containing information on over 91 million individuals, including travelers, applicants for immigration benefits, and immigrants who have previously violated immigration laws. ICE then supposedly reviews their records to see if the person arrested is deportable. If they believe they are, or want to further interrogate them, ICE will issue a detainer. The detainer is a request to the local police to inform federal immigration authorities when the arrestee will be released from custody and to hold the individual for up to two days for transfer to ICE (The Chief Justice, 2011). This process is considered to be the most advanced form of file sharing between local authorities and federal immigration authorities yet. The focus of this endeavor is to evaluate whether this program has been effective in doing as its title maintains. If this program is one that the American people, documented or not, have to endure then it is important that we ask: has Secure Communities made American communities safer? Recent data collected on the program, reports of mass opposition to the initiative by local law enforcement officials throughout the country, and numerous personal accounts of discriminatory harassment of mostly Spanish-speaking Americans by federal immigration agents and state and local law enforcement officials participating in Secure Communities collectively demonstrate that this program has failed in making American communities more secure. / text

This qualitative study addresses the interrelation of residency status, ethnic identity formation and schooling among young children of immigrants from Mexico and Central America in mixed legal status families in Central Texas. Through critical case studies, the researcher worked with Latino children of immigrants and undocumented immigrant mothers. The dissertation examines the following question: What is the interconnection between immigration experiences, residency status, and ethnic identity for children in mixed status families from Mexico and Central America? Informed by identity formation theories, Critical Race Theory, LatCrit theory and Chicana Feminist epistemology, this study shows how undocumented immigrant mothers support the development of an ethnic identity development in their children. A reason to work towards understanding identity formation among children of Latino ancestry is to open a space where their unique experiences are valued just as much as those of mainstream students. Latinos in the United States are not a homogenous group; we have diverse social, cultural, racial, and linguistic backgrounds. Schools and communities have inadvertently overlooked Latino children of immigrants by classifying them with the 1.5 and 2nd generation Mexican American students, but this classification does not acknowledge their unique needs and their particular familial experiences. This study also brings to light the experiences of undocumented immigrant mothers as important to the analysis of the phenomenon of immigration itself. This project is relevant to the growing field of immigration studies, education, educational administration, and anthropology of education, among other fields because it concentrated on young children ages 7-10, what the researcher considered an under researched population. The intention of this research is to disrupt monovocal, discriminatory discourses about Latino immigrants. Preliminary findings suggest the need to reframe Latino children of immigrants as individuals with rich, complex lives composed of different elements such as legal status, English/Spanish languages, immigration experiences/traumas, cultural traditions, and family composition. We need to work at the intersections of these different dimensions of identity and experience as well as to consider how each aspect is relevant for the education of children of immigrants of Latino descent. / text

From the exterior, the United States has extracted natural resources and transformed the social dynamics of those living on the periphery, contributing to the emigration from Mexico and immigration to the United States. This,in turn,creates the racialization of the Mexican immigrant, specifically the undocumented immigrant—the "illegal alien." I argue that this unilateral interaction operates with a racial formation of the Mexican immigrant created by elite white (non-Hispanic) males. The anti-Mexican immigrant subframe and "prowhite" subframe derive from the white racial frame,which racializes the undocumented immigrant in the United States. In addition, the subframes are evident in the three stages of migration. The three stages consist of threefold factors: First, the exploitation of Mexican resources (natural and human) and racialized immigration policies; second, the social networks and smugglers, called coyotes, who assist the undocumented immigrant to bypass barriers; and third, the discrimination undocumented immigrants encounter in the United States by other people of color. This dissertation relied on the migration experience of thirty Mexican male day-laborers,living in Texas, to examine the white racial framing of undocumented immigrants. The findings demonstrate how the U.S. immigration policies and members of the host society persistently exhibit the white racial frame and its subframes. This study is essential, because, aside from noting the issues of unauthorized migration, it demonstrates how elite white males shape the dialogue on the discourse and all that surrounds the migration process.

This thesis provides a qualitative research of asylum seeking of unaccompanied children in Sweden. Children who find themselves traveling borders without company of a family member are in a very vulnerable position. In this thesis, the experience of unaccompanied children undergoing an asylum process in the Swedish jurisdiction is presented and the consequences of this process are also presented. With the creation of territorial boundaries embodied with an institution of state sovereignty, unaccompanied children finds themselves in a position of statelessness which produces a situation of rightlessness as they find themselves outside their own territories. This research suggests that, the territorial system provides great examples of unaccompanied children in a situation of statelessness even when they find themselves inside a new community. Even in this new state they do not automatically gain access to the community, instead through migration system, they must undergo investigations and procedures to prove that they have the rights to belong to that current community, a procedure that contributes to stress and other negative factors to the health of these children. From the findings of the interviews with unaccompanied children undergoing the process of seeking asylum and also unaccompanied children in hiding, it is seen that the asylum seeking process in the condition of unaccompanied children is characterized by the paradoxical system of national states, territorialism, totalitarianism, state sovereignty and an effort of maintaining human rights. The suggestion is that, the paradigm of territorialism and state sovereignty deprives unaccompanied children from what one in the Arendtian sense would call the right to have rights. As their journey to a new community starts off as a position of statelessness and with a 50% chance of returning back to that position. Their position slowly emerges from unaccompanied children, to a stateless adultescence and lastly to a forgotten undocumented adult.

The beginning of industrialized fish processing plants reveals themes of labor exploitation, racial and gender segregation, and antagonistic legislation that have continued well into the present. Today in the Pacific North West, the majority of workers are Latino and many among them are undocumented or DACAmented. Many aspects of the work conditions in salmon canneries back in the late 1800’s to the mid 1900’s and the work conditions in present day fish processing plants have not changed. Many jobs in a fish processing plant remain gendered, and when there is more than one race working in a single plant racial tensions as well as differences in the owners expectations of labor output by race may arise. The study interviews undocumented workers and documents their experience working in fish processing plants as well as provides historical context.

xii, 59 p. : ill., col. maps. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / Continued federal and state policies aimed at reducing the livelihood of undocumented workers may force these populations to move to other locations. With the loss of undocumented workers and their families, Oregon can expect to see losses in population, employment, industrial production and state and local revenue. As undocumented populations are unevenly distributed across the state similarly to Hispanic populations, this study expects six counties, Hood River, jefferson, Malheur, Marion, Morrow and Umatilla, will see more than an eightpercent population loss, double the expected state loss rate, and proportionally greater economic losses. By estimating the undocumented population in each of Oregon's 36 counties, this study further details potential economic losses in the six Oregon counties with concentrated Hispanic, and consequently, undocumented populations. / Committee in Charge: Dr. Laura Leete, Chair; Dr. Jean Stockard; Dr. Daniel HoSang

Cette thèse porte sur les migrants illégalisés, étrangers dont la présence sur un territoire national est en contradiction avec la législation sur le séjour des extranationaux, dans trois pays : la France, l’Argentine et le Canada. L’illégalité migratoire doit dans un premier temps être comprise comme un processus historique d’illégalisation des mobilités migrantes par l’institution frontière. Un tel processus prend racines dans la constitution des Etats-nations, puis des politiques migratoires qu’ils mettent en œuvre. S’il est important de prendre en compte les spécificités historiques et géographiques propres à chaque pays, cette perspective donne à voir dans chaque cas la construction progressive d’un « espace de la clandestinité migratoire ». À partir d'une ethnographie fine, ce travail se propose dans un second temps faire la sociologie des pratiques, procédures, usages, opérations, autrement dit des tactiques des acteurs qui évoluent dans ces espaces. Se découvrent alors des lieux où peuvent se dire les expériences, où se construit une autonomie, où s’élabore une argumentation politique. Ceux que l’on nomme parfois les sans-papiers échappent ainsi – au moins en partie – à la négation sociale dont ils sont l'objet, et s'affirment comme étant dotés, au même titre que n'importe qui, d'une intelligence à la fois situationnelle et réflexive. C'est bien cette dialectique entre un ordre et les pratiques qui lui sont hétérogènes, voire subversives, que cette thèse met à jour. / This thesis examines the situation of illegalised migrants, that is of foreigners whose presence on a national territory is contrary to its legislation concerning the stay of non-nationals, in three countries: France, Argentina and Canada. Migratory illegality needs first to be understood as a historical process of illegalisation of migrant mobilities through the action of the border institution. This process has been rooted in the constitution of Nation-States, then in the migration policies they developed and implemented. Although it is important to take into account the historical and geographical specificities of each country, an analysis in terms of process reveals in each case the progressive construction of a “space of migratory clandestinity”. In a second stage, based on a detailed ethnography, I develop a sociology of practices, procedures, uses and operations – in other words of the tactics adopted by the actors evolving there. Places then appear where experiences can be told, where a certain degree of autonomy can be built and where a political argumentation can be elaborated. So-called “undocumented” people can thus escape - at least partially - from this statute socially imposed upon them to claim, just like anyone else, an intelligence that is both situational and reflexive. Understanding this dialectic between an order and practices that are heterogeneous to it, or indeed subversive of it, is the main objective of this thesis.

Nearly two decades have passed since the strategic border security paradigm known as “prevention through deterrence” (PTD) took root in the landscape of Southern Arizona. The aim of PTD was to deter illicit migration by strategically amassing border security forces to funnel migrants into increasingly remote and treacherous territory where they would face increased risk. Indeed, risk was to be the prime factor of deterrence. Thousands of undocumented migrants died attempting to overcome those risks in an outcome known as the “funnel effect,” wherein migration patterns shifted to overcome bypass and overcome border security. When speaking about PTD taking root in southern Arizona, I mean that this geography is the locus of the funnel effect and has been since 2001. Southern Arizona represents the longest stretch of border walling in the United States and the highest concentrations of border security personnel and undocumented migration activity since the early 2000s. In this sense, this region is a useful point of focus for evaluating the outcomes and efficacy of the border security apparatus. Here, the PTD strategy has been physically tethered to the landscape as border security infrastructure has literally been dug into the ground. With the hundreds of border security infrastructure and wall projects have also come the hundreds of clandestine trails routed around them used by undocumented migrants, and hundreds of tons of left behind migrant survival materials like backpacks, water bottles, blankets, and rosaries. Over the years while border security has expanded, the evidence associated with migration has shifted in turn reflecting a dialectical engagement between the formal border security apparatus and the informal politics of migrants. While many scholars have studied either border security or the risks faced by migrants, few have looked at their mutual influence over time. This dissertation incorporated a multidisciplinary methodological approach, including ethnography, archival research, archaeology, and GIS technology. These methods allowed me to answer the following questions: What are the social and material effects of border enforcement policy on the ground? How have these changed over the 15 years of concentrated border enforcement in this area, both geographically and in terms of their volume and constitution? What are the stories, the experiences, and the tangible points on the landscape that mark these processes? I viewed the material signature of migration as a form of ruins both literally and metaphorically as they mark the scars of abandonment, loss, and failure. Following Walter Benjamin, I conceived of such ruins as an indictment of the political conditions that led to their formation. In the spirit of Benjamin, I also prioritized this form of marginalized material evidence. Questions of memory and materiality were also entwined with realities of absence and a search for fragmentary traces. I encountered this reality constantly in fieldwork, as when a place known to have been a major clandestine travel corridor for migration was often found completely cleared of all evidence of use. I also routinely walked past coordinates where migrant bodies were recovered, and where no evidence of that tragedy was left. A dialectical approach also highlighted how much more accessible and visible the actions related to the implementation of the United States border security were in relation to those of migrants. Further, the material evidence associated with migration was actively being removed, often as an environmental hazard. Thus, this project also came to encompass questions about the process of historical creation and heritage. Among those who live and work in the borderlands, this contemporary situation was already largely conceptualized in terms of its heritage potential. Will we remember this episode in history as we remember the Berlin Wall, or Japanese internment camps in the United States, as many of the border residents who participated in my project speculated? Certain public land managers along the border anticipated that their heritage future may well be as lands associated with the migration experience, circa the turn of the 21st century. It is acknowledged that this is a dark chapter of history. But, how does one curate history in the making? All of this inextricably links to issues of power. This is the power to decide what is culturally valuable or relevant, as well as the power to define historical narratives as they are made. Border security itself is about maintaining U.S. sovereignty, while defining the value of migrant lives and deaths as the border is secured. This is also a set of values that prioritizes border security over reform to the system that could facilitate labor migration. There is also a hierarchy to what survives between the monumental architecture of border security and the ephemeral tools and structures of clandestine migration. The latter are hidden and actively decaying while the former will stand the test of time. This dissertation analyzes the informal and the fragmentary side by side with the formal and monumental. What do decaying survival materials dropped by undocumented migrants, decaying migrant bodies in the wilderness, and hundreds of miles of clandestine smuggler trails in one of the most highly secured borderlands in one of the most powerful countries in the world say about power here? On a practical level, the accumulated evidence are read as an indictment of border security, revealing that the building of walls and surveillance structures have not stopped migration, though they have led to increasingly imperiled migrant journeys.