Living a Deportation Threat: Anticipatory Stressors Confronted by Undocumented Mexican Immigrant Women

Previous sociological research shows that exposure to stress varies by individuals’ social statuses and is a central mechanism in producing mental health disparities. This line of research suggests that ethnoracial groups are more exposed to racial discrimination, thus negatively impacting their mental health. There has also been a growing literature showing how legal status impacts the mental health of immigrants and their families. However, the sociology of mental health and migration literature has largely remained disparate. This paper bridges these literatures to highlight how living a deportation threat manifests itself as an anticipatory stressor that negatively impacts undocumented Mexican migrant women’s access to resources, social relationships, and social roles. Based on 30 semi-structured in-depth interviews with undocumented Mexican immigrant women from Houston, Texas, my findings reveal living a deportation threat is a perpetual anticipatory stressor that intensifies the effects of avoiding authorities, family fragmentation, and economic uncertainty. I argue this anticipatory stressor transforms into a chronic stressor that undocumented Mexican women confront daily. By situating this study within an anti-immigrant social context, it highlights the social processes and mechanisms that exacerbate the stressors undocumented Mexican immigrant women confront.     

Model (undocumented) minorities and “illegal” immigrants: centering Asian Americans and US carcerality in undocumented student discourse

As the numbers of immigrant apprehensions, detentions, and deportations increase, and in context of anti-immigrant sentiment, education scholars must better contend with the way that carcerality affects undocumented student experiences. Carcerality refers to social and political systems that formally and informally promote discipline, punishment, and incarceration. Guided by Critical Race Theory, I examine interview data from 15 undocumented Asian Americans to show that the portrayal of undocumented student exceptionalism that typically characterizes the discourse on their experiences obscures the centrality of carcerality in shaping how young people with undocumented status navigate their lives. The narratives of undocumented Asian Americans represent a shift in undocumented discourse as these students de-emphasized their academic mobility, demonstrated a hyper-awareness of punitive immigration policies, and were traumatized by and practiced nondisclosure in response to deportation threats. However, while these students developed resistance strategies that they believed would both physically and psychologically protect their presence in the US, some reinforced white supremacist perceptions of the illegality of other undocumented immigrants. Undocumented Asian American experiences illuminate the nuanced relationship between the criminalization of undocumented immigrants, race, and education, and how a legacy of carcerality is vital to deciphering the contemporary educational experiences of undocumented students in the US.     

Transnational migration and the involuntary return of undocumented migrants across the Cambodian–Thai border

ABSTRACT

Migration from Cambodia is a major livelihood strategy for rural communities, with most rural families having at least one, usually younger, member migrating in search of work. The pervasive nature of this phenomenon relates to Cambodia’s troubled political past, and the country’s political economy that structures choice and opportunity. Under-investment in the agrarian economy together with unequal access to credit and productive resources leaves many rural Cambodians with little option but to migrate to boost family income. Thailand is the number one destination for rural Cambodians. Most have an undocumented status, putting them at risk of arrest and deportation. The return of more than 200,000 migrants to Cambodia over a two-week period in 2014 was precipitated by the Thai military’s seizure of power and migrants’ fear of the consequences of political instability, given their still vivid historical memory of the Cambodian Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror during the 1970s. Interviews with Cambodian migrants and members of their families are examined within a wider political and economic context to gain insight into migrants’ motivations and decision-making. The expulsion of migrants from Thailand casts light on the compulsive nature of migration, despite the high risks and precarious conditions under which undocumented migration takes place.     

The Role of Racial Microaggressions,Stress, and Acculturation in Understanding Latino Health Outcomes in the USA

A growing body of literature demonstrates important negative health effects from racial microaggressions for racial/ethnic minorities. However, at present, the bulk of the literature is focused on the case of black Americans with relatively little attention as to how this may play out for other racial/ethnic groups. Here, we examine the association of health and racial microaggressions in the case of Latinos. Furthermore, we disaggregate Latinos by language preference in order to see how acculturation to the USA may moderate the effect of racial microaggressions on health outcomes for the group. In a statistical analysis of the 2004 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, we examine the association between stress from racial microaggressions and self-rated health for Latinos of different levels of linguistic acculturation. We find that more acculturated Latinos (measured in terms of language preference) are more likely to experience physical stress from perceived racial microaggressions after accounting for social and demographic factors. Further, this stress is linked to overall poorer self-rated health for the group. However, we find no such association for less acculturated, Spanish-preference Latinos.     

Does the Refugee Experience Overshadow the Effect of SES? An Examination of Self-Reported Health Among Older Vietnamese Refugees

Is the consistently poorer health of Vietnamese refugees relative to whites due largely to differences in socioeconomic status, demographic characteristics, and health risk behaviors or the residual impact of the trauma of war and resettlement? Using data from a population-based household survey we use multinomial logistic regression to assess the self-rated health and activity limitations of Vietnamese refugees aged 55 and older compared to whites, adjusting for demographics, socioeconomic status, and lifestyle characteristics. Vietnamese refugees report poorer health and are more likely to report activity limitations than whites. While substantial differences in characteristics exist between the two groups, they explain little of the health differentials. Demographic and socioeconomic factors do not explain the health differential between older Vietnamese refugees and whites, although their lifestyle exerts a protective effect. The trauma of war and the stressful context of immigration likely contribute to the poorer health of Vietnamese refugees.     

A ‘master status’ or the ‘final straw’? Assessing the role of immigration status in Latino undocumented youths’ pathways out of school

Previous research on undocumented youth and young adults in the United States asserts that immigration status is a ‘master status’, wherein undocumented status overshadows the impact of other social locations. Drawing primarily on interviews with 45 Latina/o undocumented immigrant youth who stopped out of school, I assess whether the ‘master status’ explanation accurately characterises how immigration status shapes undocumented youths’ pathways out of school. Using an intersectional lens, I argue that multiple social locations disrupt educational pathways and set the stage for immigration status to emerge as the ‘final straw’ that pushes undocumented youth to leave school. Specifically, I show how race, class, gender, and first-generation college student status heavily shape undocumented youths’ educational journeys. I find that their resistance to these other forms of marginalisation is weakened by the emerging salience of undocumented status as a severe, relatively insurmountable legal barrier. I highlight the process through which these multiple social locations work together to lead undocumented youth to stop out of school. I contend that using an intersectional lens enhances understandings of how multiple social locations intersect and interact over time to marginalise immigrants.     

Navigating health care: brokerage and access for undocumented Latino immigrants under the 2010 Affordable Care Act

ABSTRACT

Brokerage is a prominent mechanism that explains access for Latino immigrants to many American institutions. However, few studies examine the dual nature of brokerage in answering questions on access to health care for undocumented Latino immigrants. The growing importance of Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) and ethnic navigators connecting immigrants to health care under the 2010 Affordable Care Act calls attention to the duality of brokers and its role in access. The study draws from 44 in-depth interviews with providers, clinic directors, navigators, and immigrant patients and two years of fieldwork in FQHCs in California’s San Francisco Bay Area (2011–2013). Results show that brokers enable access through coaching and myth-busting but they also hinder it through scrutiny and bureaucratic filtering. The widespread dependence on brokerage, I argue, leads to ersatz brokerage, such as when providers navigate the health-care system for the undocumented without the appropriate linguistic resources or coordination. Furthermore, the study shows that the duality in brokerage generates misinformation, churning, and alienation. Understanding the relational processes that both include and exclude vulnerable populations from needed services enhances theories of immigrant integration and can help design more efficient policies and address inequalities related to documentation status.     

Scapegoat citizens in times of austerity: the impact of the crisis on the immigrant population in Spain

The economic crisis has not yet produced alarming cases of racism and social conflict in Spain. However, as we shall analyse, there are indications that ‘immigrants’ are considered one of the first populations to be disposed of in times of crisis. A preference for nationals is increasing among traditional parties, alongside the rise of political parties with anti-immigrant agendas. Unemployment rates among the foreign born population are disproportionate in comparison with those of the native population. Migration policies that link residence permits to the possession of an employment contract have resulted in disturbing rates of irregularity. Health regulations have been amended to prevent irregular immigrants from accessing ‘universal’ health care. Police raids occur in public places to detain and expel undocumented immigrants, and ‘hospitality’ towards irregular immigrants is considered a criminal offence by a new reform in the Penal Code. As a parallel trend that is repeated in other European countries in times of austerity, we shall identify a depletion of universal rights, detention, and deportation as alienating strategies and technologies that are used to redefine the relations between citizens and ‘others’ within the contemporary citizenship regime. Leaning on Engin Isin's critical perspective on citizenship, this article argues that under the circumstances of crisis and austerity that harry Spain, the ‘immigrant’ is constructed as a disposable category, not only to balance the labour market and welfare state, but also to reinforce the notion of the national citizen as a subject of rights.     

Uncertain aspirations: Latino students and dropout in the United States

ABSTRACT

Latinos are one of the fastest growing and most racially diverse students in American schools. Driven by immigration, they account for more than 24% of the kindergarten to high school population. Despite their numbers, the achievement gap between Latinos and their non-Latino peers remains wide since they have the highest rate of dropout. Using data from the High School Longitudinal Study of 2009, we find that Latino students who attend more than one school during their academic career are more likely to dropout than those who do not. We also find lower rates of dropout among children of parents who stated that they did not have difficulties interacting with school administrators due to language barriers. With regards to migration, we do not find immigrant status to be significant in dropout – a noteworthy effect given the increases in raids and deportation by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement.     

Hiding within racial hierarchies: how undocumented immigrants make residential decisions in an American city

In the United States, the residential segregation of Latinos from whites has persisted but has fallen between Latinos and blacks. Demographers offer the size of the Latino population that is undocumented as one potential explanation for these patterns. However, little work has examined undocumented immigrants’ first-hand accounts of residential decision-making. Drawing on interviews with undocumented-headed, Latin American-origin families in Dallas, Texas, we explore how lacking legal status relates to residential selection. We find that some undocumented families perceive certain neighbourhoods to be ‘off-limits’, not only because of financial constraints, explicit legal impediments to their tenure, or individual racial preferences, but also because they perceive them as high-risk: Most sample households agree that law enforcement patrols areas with white majorities in order to exclude Latinos and, specifically, the undocumented. As a strategy to minimise the perceived risk law enforcement poses to their families’ stability, some undocumented families in the study report opting into neighbourhoods with Latino majorities in order to ‘blend in’, whereas others describe feeling safe in neighbourhoods with black majorities where they can ‘hide in plain sight’. We demonstrate how undocumented families’ perceptions of law enforcement in neighbourhoods with differing racial compositions may partly underlie trends in residential selection and stratification.     

“My Life was Filled with Constant Anxiety”: Anti-Immigrant Discrimination,Undocumented Status,and Their Mental Health Implications for Brazilian Immigrants

Immigration reform and the various costs associated with undocumented immigration have been in national headlines in the past few years. The growth of Latinos as the US’ largest ethno-racial minority has sparked debates about the “browning” of the United States and led to an increase in anti-immigrant discrimination. While some researchers have documented the effects of racial discrimination on the mental health of ethno-racial minorities in the United States, less has explored how anti-immigrant discrimination and undocumented status influence the mental and psychological well-being of Latino immigrants, more specifically Brazilian immigrants, in the United States. Relying on data from in-depth interviews conducted with 49 Brazilian return migrants who immigrated to the United States and subsequently returned to Brazil, this paper will examine how their experiences living as racialized and primarily undocumented immigrants in the United States influenced their mental health. Specifically, I demonstrate that respondents experienced ethno-racial and anti-immigrant discrimination and endured various challenges that had negative implications for their mental health. This paper will also discuss additional factors that researchers should take into account when examining immigrants’ mental health and the challenges immigrants encounter in a racialized society with increasing anti-immigrant sentiment.     

Moving on or moving back? The temporalities of migrant students’ lived versus imagined school careers

In migration research there has not been much work on temporal dimensions of migration experiences (with the exception of Griffiths in this journal). This article investigates migrant students’ temporal framings of their lived versus imagined school careers, drawing on participant observation and interviews with students in language introduction classes in upper secondary school in Sweden. The findings document student experiences of temporal desynchronies: as seen in reports of slow time and repetition, suspended time, temporal uncertainty and blockage. The analyses highlight the students’ experiences of being temporally out of line (in Ahmed’s words). The narratives of their past and future school lives reveal a discontinuity between the students’ lived school experiences, on the one hand, and imagined school careers on the other, contrasting life as lived with both their own hope and plans and with the school careers of other students. The analyses highlight the importance of including temporal dimensions in the analyses of post-migration school landscapes.     

The vicious circle: effects of race and class on university entrance in Brazil

Brazil has high levels of socio-economic inequality and an inequitable distribution of access to higher education. How much of this inequality is associated with race or class is an important question in light of the current debate over affirmative action and the suitability of race and social targeted policies. There are those who claim that racial disparities in the educational system are a result of students’ social status and not a result of racism, while others believe race is an important factor that superposes the effect of class. This study uses national survey data from Brazil’s Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio (National Secondary Education Exam [ENEM]) to examine the relationship between race and access to higher education of high school students between 2004 and 2008. The results document a vicious circle which connects the schooling of the young with their race, socio-economic status, and university attendance.     

Advocacy and surveillance: primary schools teachers’ relationships with asylum-seeking mothers in Ireland

The article analyses the findings of a small-scale qualitative study in Ireland that examines interactions between asylum-seeking mothers and primary school teachers, and highlights the significance of teachers’ understandings of asylum in shaping home-school communications. Mothers and children in this study were living in Direct Provision, collective accommodation for asylum seekers in Ireland. The research identifies a number of concerns including: poor communication between the school and mothers, only English being used as a medium of communication with the mothers, and mothers being directly and indirectly excluded from Parent Associations. Interactions of teachers with asylum-seeker mothers demonstrated a lack of recognition that their situation is different from other migrants/newcomers and is particularly challenging because of the because of living in Direct Provision and under the threat of deportation. The research shows that primary schools are drawn into ambiguous relationships with asylum-seeking mothers in their attempts at advocacy and surveillance, as they are expected to facilitate integration, while at the same time dealing with the uncertainty facing asylum-seeking parents and children.     

Health-Related Stereotype Threat Predicts Health Services Delays Among Blacks

To our knowledge, no published research has developed an individual difference measure of health-related stereotype threat (HRST). We adapted existing measures of academic stereotype threat to the health domain on a sample of black college students (N = 280). The resulting health-related stereotype threat scale-24 (HRST-24) was assessed for internal consistency, construct and incremental validity, and whether it explains variance in self-reported delays among four preventive health behaviors—blood pressure and cholesterol assays, physical exams, and routine checkups. After adjusting for several control variables, the HRST-24’s (full scale α = 0.96) perceived black health inferiority (18 items; α = 0.96) and perceived physician racial bias (6 items; α = 0.85) subscales explained unique variance in delays among two of the four behaviors including a blood cholesterol check (p < .01) and routine checkup—albeit at marginal levels (p = .063) in the case of the latter. Overall, these data provide preliminary evidence of construct and incremental validity for the HRST-24 among blacks. Recommendations for administering the scale are provided and future directions for HRST research are discussed.     

Strange passages: carceral mobility and the liminal in the catastrophic history of American deportation

In the early twentieth century, the United States developed an integrated, continental deportation network based on rail travel. This new state apparatus would enable the restrictionists’ dream of immigration control and speed the elimination of those they deemed unfit for American life. It set a template for mass removal that would expand in the century to come. Scholars of immigrant detention and removal commonly employ Victor Turner’s concept of liminality to understand migrant experiences, but this paper suggests the need for an expanded theorization of the liminal as manifold rather than singular. Drawing on deportee case files and literature from the early twentieth century, this paper explores the complex, variegated and painful liminalities of the deportation journey. It argues that power affected deportees’ experience of space and time across different liminal zones and interprets the embodied catastrophe of deportation for migrant communities. If traumatic experiences reconfigure the meaning of time into a ‘before’ and ‘after’, deportation was an ongoing catastrophe that offered little sense of completion.     

The Impact of Perceived Discrimination and Immigration Policies Upon Perceptions of Quality of Life Among Latinos in the United States

This study examined the impact of enforcement of US immigration policies and perceived discrimination on perceptions of quality of life for Latinos in the US. Data for this study were drawn from the 2007 Pew Hispanic Center survey of 2,000 Latino adults living in the US. Multinomial logistic regressions indicated that participants who had higher levels of perceived discrimination and who were personally affected by US immigration enforcement also perceived the following: (1) life was more difficult now for Latinos than in the past; (2) higher levels of fear of deportation for themselves or a loved one; (3) the lives of Latino children will be worse in the future; and (4) a lower quality of life for themselves. Female participants and participants with more years in the United States, and higher levels of linguistic acculturation generally had fewer issues regarding immigration policies or had a more positive outlook for Latinos in the United States.     

‘Felons are also our family’: citizenship and solidarity in the undocumented youth movement in the United States

The undocumented youth movement began in the United States in the mid-2000s. Drawing on qualitative research with undocumented young organisers in California, this article explores how relationships between undocumented youth, the wider undocumented population, and legal citizens have been understood in narratives of citizenship in the movement over time. It is argued that, paradoxically, the movement’s retreat from prioritising a pathway to legal citizenship for the most ‘eligible’, made visible historic and contemporary ties to the United States and its peoples that are obscured in hegemonic narratives of contemporary citizenship. In becoming more inclusive of the wider undocumented population, positions of solidarity with marginalised US citizens have also emerged. In the context of attacks on some racialised and other marginalised social groups during Trump’s presidency, such solidarity is even more vital.     

Origins of the New Latino Underclass

Over the past four decades, the Latino population of the United States was transformed from a small, ethnically segmented population of Mexicans in the southwest, Puerto Ricans in New York, and Cubans in Miami into a large national population dominated by Mexicans, Central Americans, and South Americans. This transformation occurred through mass immigration, much of it undocumented, to the point where large fractions of non-Caribbean Hispanics lack legal protections and rights in the United States. Rising illegality is critical to understanding the disadvantaged status of Latinos today. The unauthorized population began to grow after avenues for legal entry were curtailed in 1965. The consequent rise in undocumented migration enabled political and bureaucratic entrepreneurs to frame Latino migration as a grave threat to the nation, leading to a rising frequency of negative framings in the media, a growing conservative reaction, and increasingly restrictive immigration and border policies that generated more apprehensions. Rising apprehensions, in turn, further enflamed the conservative reaction to produce even harsher enforcement and more still more apprehensions, yielding a self-feeding cycle in which apprehensions kept rising even though undocumented inflows had stabilized. The consequent militarization of the border had the perverse effect of reducing rates of out-migration rather than inhibiting in-migration, leading to a sharp rise in net undocumented population and rapid growth of the undocumented population. As a result, a majority of Mexican, Central American, and South American immigrants are presently undocumented at a time when unauthorized migrants are subject to increasing sanctions from authorities and the public, yielding downward pressure on the status and well-being of Latinos in the United States.     

费孝通先生的学问人生管窥

本文以文献资料为依据,从教学风格、学科建设思想和学问情怀三个方面对费孝通先生一生探索的榜样意义进行阐发。费先生在教学上倡导引导学生探求未知、从实求知的教学理念,在学科建设上坚持面向实践、学以致用的学术导向,在学术追求上达到将家、国、天下自觉统一起来的极高境界,他宏富的著述、深刻的思想和崇高的追求,是值得后人永远珍视的宝贵财富。