Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Insiders/Outsiders In America: Students Capture Shifting Perspectives, Madelyn Ayers, Shanyn Furlong, Chris Wood, Leslie Bejaran Solorio, Shannon Chloe Cheng, Christopher Mendez-Lemus, George Faithful

Social Justice | Student Perspectives on Religious Nationalism

What the U.S. is and ought to be depends on who you ask, where they stand, and their personal story. In this volume’s essays, student authors built on their work in Dominican University of California’s 2024 “Religious Nationalism” course to capture some of the divergent possibilities, including shifts in their own perspectives.

"You Kind Of Have To Act Like A Robot": Latina College Students, Emotional Labor, And The Demands Of Service Work, Julia Holguin

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In this thesis project, my aim was to discern whether a discernible pattern exists in the way Latina college students at UTEP navigate the challenges of work, education, and family responsibilities. Given the evolving nature of the contemporary economy, the selling of emotions in the workplace has become increasingly prevalent. Latinas, often overrepresented in low-wage occupations, find themselves tasked with balancing work demands alongside familial responsibilities and academic pursuits. Existing research has predominantly leaned on Arlie Russell Hochschild's theory of emotional labor, notably showcased in her study on flight attendants, to illustrate the gendered nature of this phenomenon. This qualitative …

Creando La Confianza: Narratives On Mentorship Of Latina Professors At The University Of New Mexico, Maria G. Vielma

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

Numerous scholars have investigated the significant role that representation and mentorship play in the success of Latinas and other women of color during their journey through higher education, from degree completion to faculty hiring and advancement (Vasquez 1982, Zambrana et. al. 1997, Valdez 2001, Cavazos & Cavazos 2010, Shayne 2020, Contreras et. al. 2022). However, little research exists surrounding the lived experiences that have shaped mentorship carried out by university faculty, specifically, mentorship carried out by bilingual Latina faculty in higher education. Through a Latina Feminist Epistemology implementing Oral History Methodologies, this thesis aims to understand the cycle of mentorship …

Latinas In The Labor Market, Lorna Rivera, Vishakha Agarwal, Phillip Granberry

Gastón Institute Publications

In Massachusetts, the share of Latinas in the overall population has been rapidly increasing. From 2000 to 2019, the number of Latinas increased by 81.5%1 even as the number of Non-Latina women declined by about 5.8% during that same period. The share of Non-Latina White women in the Massachusetts female population dropped from approximately 82% in 2000 to 71% in 2019.

This report offers an in-depth look at the difference between the median wage income and other labor market outcomes of Latina and Non-Latina women in the Massachusetts workforce. (A great majority of Non-Latina women workers in Massachusetts are White …

Exploring Promotoras As Influencers Of Physical Activity And Diet Acceptability Among Latinas, Gladys Orock Tataw-Ayuketah

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Promotoras are frontline community health workers who help link Latino community members to health and social services. Latino women have high rates of attrition and lack of participation in weight loss programs due to various barriers, and the promotora model is vital to address these concerns. The approach incorporates strong family support and influence to address health and social issues through interdependent ties of promotoras and families who live and work within the community they serve. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore how promotoras influenced the acceptability of and participation in physical activity and dietary modification programs …

Assessing The Association Of Acculturation, Racial Discrimination, Social Support, And Breastfeeding Intention With Postpartum Depression: Findings From The 2012-2014 Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System Among Latinas, Diana L. Cabezas

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Postpartum depression (PPD) nearly doubles among immigrants. When we consider that Latinas are densely represented in the United States, the need to explore the risk and protective factors that may be associated with PPD onset among Latinas is critical. A consideration of racial discrimination, social support, and breastfeeding practices may aid in incorporating contributors that may be prevalent among Latinas. In particular, breastfeeding practices have differed by acculturation, yet there are inconclusive relations with depressive symptoms, therefore, examining the relationship with predictors may shed light on the intersection among individual, cultural, and societal factors by acculturation among Latinas. This dissertation …

Compassion Fatigue And Intersectionality In Human Service Practitioners: Latina Low-Wage-Earners Fighting Poverty, Marlo Greponne

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Compassion fatigue, secondary traumatic stress, and vicarious trauma among professionals are well-documented within clinical settings. Human service practitioners working directly with people experiencing poverty and trauma, hunger, homelessness, victimization, and depression are considered at risk of experiencing compassion fatigue. Latina low-wage-earners may suffer compassion fatigue when handling cases mirroring their personal experiences with poverty. The purpose of this descriptive single case study was to explore marginalized workers’ experiences with compassion fatigue using intersectionality to understand what Latina low-wage-earning human service practitioners’ experiences with compassion fatigue were and what coping strategies they developed while serving people experiencing poverty. An intersectional approach …

Becoming A Mom: Intersectionality And Fashion Consumption For Millennial Latinas And The Role Of Social Media Influencers, Leslie M. Cuevas

Doctoral Dissertations

When it comes to motherhood for women of color, the topic of women empowerment is scarce, and the media mostly portrays Latinas through traditional ethnic stereotypes. The advent of social media has presented women the opportunity to engage in identity formation as they exercise empowerment in choices and self-monitoring online. A good example of this transition in power involves fashion influencers who use their personal influence to change the meaning of motherhood, making it more accessible and realistic to women in general. However, a lack of diversity remains within the influencer industry as white women are the majority. Drawing upon …

The Foundations Of A Mexican American Bias Scale, Kendra Quiroz, Cynthia Willis-Esqueda

UCARE Research Products

Mexican Americans are the largest group of Latino/a/x in the US. The purpose of this study was to provide information on the current stereotypes concerning Mexican American males and females with a university student sample. A total of four hundred and four students volunteered from a large midwestern university. Participants spontaneously provided their notions of unfair advantages, unfair disadvantages, and stereotypes for Mexican American males and females. All data was collected through an online survey. The responses were provided with randomized introduction of the group to be described. In addition, items to measure essentialism were included. Results indicated that there …

Does Ethnic Identity, In-Group Preference, And Acculturation Protect Latinas With A History Of Interpersonal Trauma From Developing Symptoms Of Ptsd?, Evelyn M. Ramirez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Previous research suggests ethnic identity, a sense of belonging to a particular cultural group, may be protective against symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, the role of ethnic identity, in-group preference (i.e., an individual’s preference for interactions with members of their own ethnic group) and acculturation (i.e., the level of comfort with the mainstream culture) have not been investigated as protective factors for Latinas with a history of interpersonal and sexual trauma. In this study, ethnic identity, in-group preference and acculturation were assessed via self-report on the Scale of Ethnic Experience in two samples of undergraduate Latina and non-Latina …

Early Care And Education Testimonios At The Borderlands, Jennifer Torres Siders

University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations

Latinas represent a large proportion of the United States early care and education workforce, and thus have the potential to wield significant influence over the growth and development of millions of American children. However, the voices of Latina early childhood professionals often are missing in both research and mass media. Instead, social, political, and academic frames cast Latinas as foreign regardless of nationality, uneducated notwithstanding expertise, and passive despite action and influence. This testimonio analysis draws on Chicana feminist epistemology to re-center the perspectives of Latina child care providers and reveal more authentic insights on how they understand and perform …

Foreign Born Latina Earnings And Returns To Education And Experience In The United States, Trevor Mattos

Gastón Institute Publications

The determinants of immigrant earnings have long been a heavily researched topic, beginning with the contributions of Chiswick (1978) and Borjas (1985). The majority of this work focuses on male immigrants. Prior findings provide conflicting results with respect to determinants of native and foreign-born earnings in the U.S. This study, however, focuses on the earnings levels and differential returns to education and experience between native and foreign-born Latina workers in the U.S. using pooled American Community Survey microdata from 2014, 2015, and 2016. The analytical approach borrows from Chiswick’s 1978 paper that utilized cross-sectional regression methods and the human capital …

Where Our Girls At? The Misrecognition Of Black And Brown Girls In Schools, Amanda E. Lewis, Deana G. Lewis

Occasional Paper Series

Black and brown girls remain too often at the margins not only in society at large and in our schools but also in our research and writing about schools. Herein we argue for careful consideration of the specific ways that their raced and gendered identities render these girls vulnerable and put them in jeopardy so that educators and scholars do not become complicit in their marginalization. We focus on dynamics of invisibility and hypervisibility. While these dynamics may seem to be diametrically opposite, both involve the process of what scholar Nancy Fraser (2000) calls “misrecognition” (p. 113).

Distributing Condoms And "Hope": Race, Sex, And Science In Youth Sexual Health Promotion, Chris A. Barcelos

Doctoral Dissertations

This project uses discursive, visual, and ethnographic approaches situated in a critical feminist methodology to understand how ways of knowing about youth sexuality and reproduction influence community health work. I understand the “problem” in this inquiry as the discursive contexts that limit critical ways of knowing about young people’s sexual subjectivities and practices and about the design of policies and programs. Although race, class, gender, and sexuality are understood in the public health literature as important social determinants of health, there is a lack of research that applies a critical, feminist lens to these constructs. I draw on three years …

My Mother Needs Me! Is It Possible To Stay Connected While Being My Own Person? The Object Relations Of The Latina “Dutiful Daughter”, Juliana Martinez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Background: Latinas are culturally expected to be “dutiful daughters” establishing strong attachments and adhering to the traditional values characterized by loyalty, cooperation, respect and interdependence within family members. Conventional Latina mother-daughter bonds, therefore, are expected to be exceptionally close. Healthy mother-daughter closeness can be a valuable source of support while closeness without differentiation from the mother may result in a lack of independence and poor interpersonal and personal growth. Mutuality of autonomy, a dimension of object relations (OR) theory, focuses on the progression of separation – individuation from developmentally normative fused representations in infancy to highly differentiated self-other representations as …

A Narrative Study Of Latinas' Experiences With The Leadership Pipeline In Higher Education, Ana Cecilia Marrero-Lopez

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this qualitative narrative study was to report the stories of Latina’s experiences with the leadership pipeline in higher education, and determine what venues within that pipeline facilitate or impede access to executive level administrative positions. The practical significance of this study would include expanding the quantity of academic research on Latinas’ interest and inclusion in obtaining executive leadership positions in higher education, where little has been recorded of their presence or successes (Lopez-Mulnix, Wolverton & Zaki, 2011). In addition, though many studies have been conducted on racial and ethnic minority faculty (Eddy, 2009; Moses, 2009; Green & …

Intimate Partner Violence In South Texas (Rio Grande Valley): An Exploratory Research Of Latinas Of Mexican Descent, Georgina Villegas

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This is a qualitative exploratory research study of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) among a sample of Latinas from the Rio Grande Valley. Purposive and snowball sampling was used to identify 12 Latina victims of intimate partner violence. Respondents’ ages ranged from 24 to 40 and were born in cities throughout the Rio Grande Valley. Respondents participated in a structured interview process. Respondents’ descriptions of abuse included physical, verbal, sexual, and emotional abuse. Interview results produced 12 distinct narrative memos summarizing respondents’ intimate partner violence experiences. Interview results were analyzed and revealed several themes and subthemes frequently identified in other intimate …

Latinas In New York City: A Comparison Of Education And Income, 1990 – 2010, Justine Calcagno

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This study examines demographic and socioeconomic factors regarding Latinos in New York City between 1990 and 2010 – particularly education and income rates among Hispanic females.

Methods: Data on Latinos and other racial/ethnic groups were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa. Cases in the dataset were weighted and analyzed to produce population estimates.

Results: From 1990 to 2010 Latinas’ educational attainment and income levels both rose. Disparities between Latinas and Latinos in yearly personal income have persisted. From 1990 to 2010, women earned …

Latina Pathways To Political Leadership In Massachusetts [Presentation], Elizabeth Cardona

Latina Pathways to Political Leadership

Elizabeth’s research aimed to explore pathways to leadership for Latinas who are change agents residing in Western Massachusetts. Recognizing the significance of culture, family and community in her own personal journey, Elizabeth wanted to document and analyze key factors that helped Latina leaders find a voice and play a political role in their communities.

This is a presentation by Cardona on her research process and project findings.

Western Massachusetts And Campaigns: Women Of Color Running For Office [Presentation], Gladys Lebrón-Martínez

Western Massachusetts and Campaigns: Women of Color Running for Office

While attending a Women’s Pipeline for Change event in Boston during the summer of 2011, Gladys was inspired by the large number of women of color who came out to support other women of color in politics. This prompted her to document and analyze the resources that exist and are utilized by women of color, especially Latinas, running for elected office in Western Massachusetts.

This is a presentation by Lebrón-Martínez on her research process and project findings.

Western Massachusetts And Campaigns: Women Of Color Running For Office, Gladys Lebrón-Martínez

Western Massachusetts and Campaigns: Women of Color Running for Office

While attending a Women’s Pipeline for Change event in Boston during the summer of 2011, Gladys was inspired by the large number of women of color who came out to support other women of color in politics. This prompted her to document and analyze the resources that exist and are utilized by women of color, especially Latinas, running for elected office in Western Massachusetts.

Latina Pathways To Political Leadership, Elizabeth Cardona

Latina Pathways to Political Leadership

Elizabeth’s research aimed to explore pathways to leadership for Latinas who are change agents residing in Western Massachusetts. Recognizing the significance of culture, family and community in her own personal journey, Elizabeth wanted to document and analyze key factors that helped Latina leaders find a voice and play a political role in their communities.

Exploitation Via Location: Latinas In The Garment Industry, Katherine J. Woodward

Scripps Senior Theses

My thesis is about the evolution of the garment industry, both in the U.S and worldwide, with particular emphasis on how this has impacted Latinas and other poor immigrant groups. The thesis traces the rise of garment unions in the U.S. and their subsequent decline as a consequence of competition from the East Asian garment industry and U.S. trade policy. It also discusses the vulnerability of Latinos in the U.S. as a group to exploitation by low wage industries as a result of racial and gender prejudice and legal status.

A Su Salud En Acción: Replicating A Model To Increase Utilization Of Cancer Screening Among Low Income Latinas, Amelie G. Ramirez Drph, Patricia Chalela, Lucina Suarez, Kipling J. Gallion

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

Latinas suffer longstanding disparities in breast cancer survival and cervical cancer incidence and mortality compared to non-Hispanic white women. This study assessed the feasibility of replicating the theory-based A Su Salud En Acción communication model to impact cancer screening behaviors in two at-need Nevada clinics. The intervention significantly increased the number of mammograms and Pap smears among Latinas. Mammograms and Pap smear rates increased by 58.7‰ and 51.8‰ respectively in the pilot site (95% CI 40.1-49.1 and 47.1-56.5 respectively) and by 33.7‰ and 7.5‰ respectively (95% CI 15.6-51.9 and 4.3-10.6) in the replication site, among women ages 50-64.

This study …

Divergent Discourses: Medical And Cultural Understandings Of Latina Reproductive Health In The Era Of Gardasil, Cindy Camacho

Honors Papers

In 2006, the vaccine Gardasil was distributed in the United States. Gardasil was created to block four strains of human papilloma virus (HPV), two of which cause about 70% of cervical cancer, and two others that cause 90% of genital warts. Although the Gardasil vaccine is an advance in the fight against cervical cancer, reports show that Latinas have low vaccination rates of Gardasil, disproportionately higher rates of cervical cancer and that cervical cancer screening rates are much lower for Latinas than women of other ethnicities. I argue that there is a disconnect between the Latina and medical discourses and …

A Profile Of Latina Women In New York City, 2007, Laura Limonic

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This report provides an in-depth profile of Latinas of various national origins in 2007 New York City.

Methods: Data on Latinas and other racial/ethnic groups were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey, reorganized for public use by the Minnesota Population Center, University of Minnesota, IPUMSusa. Cases in the dataset were weighted and analyzed to produce population estimates.

Results: There was little difference in the sex breakdown between Latinos and non-Latinos in New York City (48% of all Latinos were women while 47.6% of non-Latinos were women). 37% of Latinas in 2007 were Puerto Rican while Dominican …

Hpv Vaccine Acceptance Among Latina Mothers By Hpv Status, Maureen Sanderson, Ann L. Coker, Katherine S. Eggleston, Maria E. Fernandez, Concepcion D. Arrastia, Mary Kay Fadden

CRVAW Faculty Journal Articles

Objective: We investigated whether Latina mothers who were and were not human papillomavirus (HPV) positive differed in their knowledge and acceptance of the HPV vaccine for their children.

Methods: We conducted a cross–sectional survey among women aged 18–64 years between April 2007 and April 2008. Data collectors conducted in-person interviews in community clinics with 215 HPV-negative women and 190 HPV-positive women (with respective response rates of 64% and 84%). Most (83%) HPV-positive women were recruited at dysplasia clinics. Although no HPV-negative women were recruited at dysplasia clinics, they were recruited at other low-income public and private clinics.

Results: After adjustment …

Familialism, Social Support, And Stress: Positive Implications For Pregnant Latinas, Belinda Campos, Christine Dunkel Schetter, Cleopatra M. Abdou, Calvin J. Hobel, Laura M. Glynn, Curt A. Sandman

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

This study examined the association of familialism, a cultural value that emphasizes close family relationships, with social Support, stress, pregnancy anxiety, and infant birth weight. Foreign-born Latina (n = 31), U.S.-born Latina (n = 68), and European American (n = 166) women living in the United States participated in a prospective study of pregnancy in which they completed measures of familialism, social support, stress, and pregnancy anxiety during their second trimester. As expected, Latinas scored higher on familialism than European Americans. Familialism was positively correlated with social support and negatively correlated with stress and pregnancy anxiety in the overall sample. …

Business Ownership Patterns Among Black, Latina, And Asian Women In Massachusetts, Russell E. Williams

Trotter Review

Using data from the most recently released Survey of Minority Businesses, this article explores the significance of businesses owned by minority women in Massachusetts. I describe the number of such businesses, the rates at which the number of such businesses are expanding, and the average sales and receipts of women-owned businesses — and I compare these statistics for White, Black, Latino and Asian businesses.

[Review Of] Clara E. Rodriguez, Ed. Latin Looks: Images Of Latinas And Latinos In The U.S. Media, Gabriel Haslip-Viera

Ethnic Studies Review

The anthology Latin Looks is an important contribution to the literature on Latinos and their relationship to the mass media in the United States. It builds on the earlier work by Rosa Linda Fregoso, George Hadley-Garcia, Chon Noriega, Luis Reyes, Peter Ruble, Allen Woll, and others. The book focuses primarily on television and film; however, there is no discussion of the films produced in other countries, or the Spanish language films produced in the United States. The images that are developed in music, literature, or magazines are also not discussed, although there is an admission that these are an important …