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.

This study examines the ethnic identity development process of second-generation Indian Americans, the first sizeable cohort of Indian Americans to come of age in the United States, and identifies major factors involved, exploring the salience of each across the lifespan. The inquiry included a detailed look at the role of religion and the impact of racial and religious discrimination in ethnic identity development. This study is predominantly qualitative in methodology, employing a semi-structured interview protocol with 41 research participants. Research participants were also asked to rank the salience of eleven predetermined factors using a modified Likert Scale. Research participants were young professionals and graduate students, aged 22–32, residing in Atlanta and Boston. The research findings reveal the most salient factors affecting second-generation Indian American ethnic identity development to be the presence or absence of an ethnoreligious community and the individual's sense of (dis)connection with such a community; “dimensions of culture,” including food, ethnoreligious celebrations, clothing and Hindi popular films; trips to India; knowledge of the family language and participation in the family religion, or the lack of such knowledge or participation; and experiences of racial and religious discrimination. While the salience of each factor alone and in relation to others changes over the lifespan, the experiences of most research participants mapped four specific trajectories of ethnic identity development. This study pays particularly close attention to the role of religion. Research participants self-identified as Atheist, Catholic, Christian, Hindu, Ismaili, Jain, Methodist, Muslim and Sikh. Religion—experienced as community, culture, family, belief and ritual, and knowledge—has a multidimensional role in second-generation Indian American ethnic identity development. The context, content and intensity of “religious” experience varied across the lifespan. Whether social, spiritual or “symbolic,” religion is omnipresent in the lives of research participants, even those who do not consider themselves “religious.” Experiences of racial and religious discrimination also affected ethnic identity development. Research participants reported covert and overt experiences of racial and religious discrimination at all life stages. They experienced religious discrimination in the form of direct insults, Christian proselytization, and inaccurate depictions of their religion in the media and popular culture.

This study examined the various ways in which Ashkenazi Jewish undergraduate anti-racism peer educators understood and used their Jewish identity in their work with non-Jewish people of color and white Christians. Ashkenazi Jews, who are Jews of Central European heritage, often find themselves questioning the racial space they occupy. The ways in which students of Ashkenazi Jewish identification compare or contrast their historical and current social position with that of communities of color can either facilitate or disrupt their efforts to be effective anti-racist educators. Fifteen Ashkenazi Jews who are peer facilitators in a nationally-recognized social justice program at a university in the Midwest were interviewed. Three data gathering techniques were utilized: demographic intake form, individual interview, and focus group interview. Participants articulated a complex understanding of the position of Ashkenazi Jews in U.S.-based systems of ethnicity, religion, race and class. Based on these systems, the students claimed that Jews are both insiders and outsiders in American society, targeted and privileged simultaneously in their ethno-religious and class identities. Findings reveal that being Jewish is salient and a distinct identity for this generation of college students; the history of Jewish oppression continues to inform Jewish identity; Jewish students continues to describe a connection with Blacks; and distinctive processes of ethnic and ethno-religious identity development take place for Jewish undergraduates. Findings suggest the need for a new social identity model that addresses the unique racial, ethnic and ethno-religious positionality of Ashkenazi Jewish undergraduates. The author presents a Jewish ethno-religious target development model, along with implications for anti-racism and social justice education and suggestions for further research.

This dissertation employs an ethnographic perspective to describe and interpret the communicative practices of a speech community of Jewish immigrant elders on South Miami Beach. Fieldwork conducted from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s with a daily gathering that met by the oceanside offers the basis for analysis of the meanings of sociability and Yiddish linguistic and musical performance. Indepth interviews with gathering participants indicate distinctive ways in which these communicative practices displayed and affirmed a sense of shared cultural identity, an accomplishment underscored by the marginal status of this speech community. Practices of sociability and Yiddish cultural performance were understood as countering conditions of cultural invisiblity, social isolation and the abandonment of Yiddish culture. Issues of communal space, a public sphere, collective memory, mutual aid, and life storying in relationship to the Holocaust are discussed. The meanings of folksong performance are elaborated as a cultural norm and ritual form that perpetuated a long-term, diasporic cultural tradition.

Globalizing processes of late capitalism shape local cultures in complex and contradictory ways, exacerbating assimilation and alienation in geographically and culturally marginalized communities and, paradoxically, empowering disenfranchised groups by facilitating communication between diasporic populations and providing access to information, images, and commodities. This dissertation explores the ways in which linguistic difference, geographic isolation, and cultural marginalization have contributed to collective consciousness and feelings of distinctiveness in Chéticamp, an Acadian community in rural Nova Scotia, Canada. I examine forms of cultural work—such as genealogical research, community museums, and cooperative associations—as cultural performances in which community members envision and enact their Acadian identities. Performed identities are inauthentic in the sense that they are actively negotiated and subject to ongoing adaptation and transformation; yet they are also authentic in the sense that they are deeply felt and central to understandings of our experiences, our relationships, and our place in the world. Examining Acadian ethnic and linguistic identities through a performance lens thus illuminates possibilities for cultural survival in contexts of uncertainty and change.

Historically, throughout the world, Indigenous nations have been subject to colonial policies and practices which deliberately seek to obliterate the way of life of Indigenous societies. The Kanienkehaka nation is but one of the thousands of such nations struggling to survive and resist against state invasions within traditional national territories. This study examines the current conflict-relationship between the Kanienkehaka nation and the State (U.S./Canada) from a historical/cultural/political framework. The Oka crisis of July 11, 1990 will serve as a case study. This study also constructs pedagogy that examines both U.S./Canadian governmental policies towards Indigenous nations, specifically the Kanienkehaka nation. This curriculum is designed to assist teachers place each chapter in an educational context by specifying central themes that revolve around the historical/contemporary relationship existing between the Kanienkehaka nation and the State.