Latin American Studies Commons^™

Brazilians In The United States, 1980—2007, Laird W. Bergad

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This report examines demographic and socioeconomic factors concerning Brazilians in the United States between 1980 and 2007.

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: The wave of migration from Brazil which began in the 1990s in all likelihood will continue into the future, economic fluctuations in the U.S. notwithstanding. In part this is due to the relatively high rates of educational attainment …

Learning Sustainable Development: Chimeneas De La Esperanza, Miriam V. Mollan Gundersen

Social Sciences

Social inequality and environmental degradation are motivating informed young people into action and connecting impoverished regions of the world with students in more developed nations. This Social Sciences senior project is to analyze an alternative development model designed by a group of Californian university students. The project, named Chimeneas de la Esperanza, is designed to help impoverished Nicaraguan women start a ceramics business. The major hurdle of this mission is to establish a market for the ceramics product. Energy efficient ceramic stoves and smoke ventilating chimneys would benefit the community and avoid an impacted crafts market. The project encompasses ideas …

The House In The Market: How Q’Eqchi’ Market Women Convert Money And Commodities Into Persons And Personhood, Sarah Ashley Kistler

Faculty Publications

Recent research argues that globalization in Latin America sometimes results in the homogenization of culture and loss of indigenous identity. This paper, however, explores how Q’eqchi’-Maya market women in San Juan Chamelco, Guatemala, generate Q’eqchi’ personhood by embracing the conflicts of value introduced by the confrontation of globalization with longstanding Q’eqchi’ values. I argue that in Chamelco, market women are mediators of value who participate in global capitalism to reinforce the categories that structure indigenous life. Q’eqchi’ women engage in marketing activities not only to accrue capital resources, but also to maintain local values, centered on the junkab’al or “house,” …

Transnational Students' Perspectives On Schooling In The United States And Mexico: The Salience Of School Experience And Country Of Birth, Edmund T. Hamann, Víctor Zúñiga, Juan Sánchez García

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Students in Mexican schools with previous experience in US schools are transnational students. To the extent their Mexican schooling does not recognize or build on their US life and school experience and their American school experience did not anticipate their later relocation to Mexico, these students are incompletely attended to by school. Yet these students, like all students, are agentive and have some control over how they make sense of their schooling.

As schooling becomes an increasingly common institutional presence across the world and as decided majorities of children now attend at least some version of primary school, it is …

Migration, Food And Cultural Production Across Changing Afro-Ecuadorian Geographies, Amelia J. Swinton

Honors Theses

The human geography of Ecuador is changing. Urban Afro-Ecuadorians now outnumber those living in the two rural regions that have been the ancestral homelands of the population. This physical transformation assaults Ecuador's historically racialized geography, which conflated cities, modernity and white-mestizo identity. Though Afro-Ecuadorians living in the rural north had previously been physically and figuratively located outside of the national project, Ecuador’s new constitution has sought to reverse this institutionalized exclusion. National belonging has been reframed through the concept of interculturality, which recognizes diversity and equality at the same time. I conducted two periods of fieldwork in the north-central Chota …

La Mujer Se Va Pa’Bajo: Women’S Health At The Intersections Of Nationality, Class, And Gender, Mary Alice Scott

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

This research utilizes an intersectionality framework to examine the complexity of social location and its effects on women's health. By examining connections among the state, processes of globalization, and the production of health inequalities for poor women in a rural community in southern Veracruz, Mexico, the research highlights the nexus of nationality, class, and gender. Four interconnected contexts are explored: (1) women's increasing paid and unpaid labor in the context of a poverty of resources brought on by sustained economic crisis; (2) the maintenance of reproductive labor as the responsibility of women; (3) the development of migrant "illegality" and its …

Inflammation And Infection Do Not Promote Arterial Aging And Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors Among Lean Horticulturalists, Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan, Jeffrey Winking, Daniel Eid Rodriguez, Sarinnapha Vasunilashorn, Jung Ki Kim, Caleb Finch, Eileen M. Crimmins

ESI Publications

Background: Arterial aging is well characterized in industrial populations, but scantly described in populations with little access to modern medicine. Here we characterize health and aging among the Tsimane, Amazonian forager-horticulturalists with short life expectancy, high infectious loads and inflammation, but low adiposity and robust physical fitness. Inflammation has been implicated in all stages of arterial aging, atherogenesis and hypertension, and so we test whether greater inflammation associates with atherosclerosis and CVD risk. In contrast, moderate to vigorous daily activity, minimal obesity, and low fat intake predict minimal CVD risk among older Tsimane.

Methods and Findings: Peripheral arterial …

U.S. Human Rights Activism And Plan Colombia, Winifred L. Tate

Faculty Scholarship

Non-governmental organizations claim to play a central role in defining U.S. foreign policy, particularly in the field of human rights. Here, I will examine the role of human rights and humanitarian groups in the debates over U.S. foreign policy towards Colombia, focusing on the design and subsequent additional appropriations for Plan Colombia, a multi-billion dollar aid package beginning in 2000. I argue that NGOs were able to build on the legacy of prior human rights activism focusing on Latin America, but failed to achieve significant grassroots mobilization around this issue. I examine the structural issues limiting such mobilization, as well …

From Sugar To Blackberries: Restructuring Agro-Export Production In Michoacán, Mexico, Donna Chollett

Anthropology Publications

In recent years, economic crisis in the sugar industry and the closure of an important sugar mill in Michoacán, Mexico, have fostered the entry of transnational agribusinesses that contract with local growers for blackberry production. Land concentration is under way as wealthy growers rent ejido (agrarian-reform) land to grow berries and small-scale growers shift to less capitalized berry production or migrate out of the region. An analysis of the impact of this transition, part of the globalization of the agro-food system, on campesinos, workers, and their communities reveals that a general improvement in the economy has been accompanied by increased …

A Bioeconomic Approach To Marriage And The Sexual Division Of Labor, Michael Gurven, Jeffrey Winking, Hillard Kaplan, Christopher Von Rueden, Lisa Mcallister

ESI Publications

Children may be viewed as public goods whereby both parents receive equal genetic benefits yet one parent often invests more heavily than the other.We introduce a microeconomic framework for understanding household investment decisions to address questions concerning conflicts of interest over types and amount of work effort among married men and women. Although gains and costs of marriage may not be spread equally among marriage partners, marriage is still a favorable, efficient outcome under a wide range of conditions. This bioeconomic framework subsumes both cooperative and conflictive views on the sexual division of labor. We test hypotheses concerning marriage markets, …

From Greed To Grievance: The Shifting Political Profile Of The Colombian Paramilitaries, Winifred Tate

Faculty Scholarship

On June 28, 2004, indicted drug trafficker and paramilitary leader Salvatore Mancuso, wearing a fashionable Italian suit and tie, addressed the Colombian Congress from the podium. "The judgment of history will recognize the goodness and nobility of our cause," he told the assembled legislators and press. The day before, Mancuso, along with two other paramilitary leaders, had traveled in an official air force plane from the small northern Colombia hamlet where paramilitary leaders had assembled to begin talks with the Colombian government. After almost a decade of fighting outside the law, Mancuso was now addressing the heart of the state, …

Beyond Corporatism And Liberalism: State And Civil Society In Cooperation In Nicaragua, Hannah Pallmeyer

Hispanic Studies Honors Projects

The Nicaraguan state has historically attempted to control Nicaraguan civil society using corporatist and liberal-democratic frameworks. This has created a difficult organizing environment for civil society organizations to struggle for social change. In this thesis, I argue that civil society organizations, operating in 2008 in a corporatist or liberal framework, were less effective in achieving national social change than organizations that worked cooperatively with the state, yet maintained some autonomy. This hypothesis is developed using the case study of three water rights organizations, and is further tested using the case of corporatist-structured Citizen Power Councils, created in 2007.

The Tadpole Of Hypsiboas Atlanticus (Anura, Hylidae) From Northeastern Brazil, Filipe A. C. Do Nascimento, Marcelo G. De Lima, Gabriel O. Skuk, Rafael O. De Sá

Biology Faculty Publications

The tadpole of Hypsiboas atlanticus (Caramaschi & Velosa, 1996) is described from the municipality of Maceió, State of Alagoas, Brazil. At stage 36 the larvae have an overall elliptical body in lateral and dorsal views, oral disc anteroventral, spiracular tube sinistral, and labial tooth row formula 2(1,2)/3(1). The oral disc is surrounded, almost completely (anterior medial gap present) by a single row of marginal papillae. Described tadpoles of the H. punctatus species group can be differentiated by a combined disc oral features. Additional descriptions of H. punctatus (Schneider, 1799) tadpoles from populations throughout South America may be helpful in determining …

Washington Heights/Inwood Demographic, Economic, And Social Transformations 1990 – 2005 With A Special Focus On The Dominican Population, Laird W. Bergad

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This report examines demographic and socioeconomic factors concerning New York City based Latinos in Washington Heights and Inwood – particularly Dominicans.

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: Since the 1980s the upper Manhattan neighborhood of Washington Heights/Inwood has been transformed by the immigration of a large Latino population of whom Dominicans have been the most prominent national group. Latinos made up …

Socio-Economic And Cost Of Living Indicators Among Foreign And Domestic-Born Latino Nationalities In The New York Metropolitan Area, 2005, Howard Caro-López

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This report focuses on comparing socio-economic conditions between foreign born and domestic born populations among the major Latino national groups in the New York City metropolitan area as of 2005.

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: New York City Latinos lag considerably behind all other groups in terms of total family income. While median family income for non-Hispanic white residents far …

Mexicans In New York City, 2007: An Update, Laird W. Bergad

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This report examines the Mexican population of New York City in 2007.

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: The Mexican-origin population of New York City continued its extraordinary growth between 2005 and 2007 increasing by just over 27%, from 227,842 to 289,755 persons according to American Community Survey data for 2007 released by the U.S. Census Bureau. From 2000, the Mexican …

The Multiple Dimensions Of Male Social Status In An Amazonian Society, Christopher Von Rueden, Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan

ESI Publications

"In all human societies, individuals differ in social status depending upon their age and personal ability (Sahlins, 1958; Service, 1971). In laboratory-based small group studies, status hierarchies emerge spontaneously (Bass, 1954; Campbell et al., 2002; Kalma, 1991). Even among “egalitarian” foragers, who are characterized by widespread resource sharing (Kaplan & Gurven, 2005; Winterhalder, 1986) and some degree of status-leveling (Cashdan, 1980), certain individuals consume more resources, get the best pick of mates, and take a more central role in group decision-making (Boehm, 1999; Trigger, 1985; Wiessner, 1996). Whether implicit or overt, classification by social status is a human universal. While …

Aging And Inflammation In Two Epidemiological Worlds, Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan, Jeffrey Winking, Caleb Finch, Eileen M. Crimmins

ESI Publications

Humans evolved in a world with high levels of infection resulting in high mortality across the life span and few survivors to advanced ages. Under such conditions, a strong acute-phase inflammatory response was required for survival; however, inflammatory responses can also promote chronic diseases of aging. We hypothesize that global historical increases in life span at older ages are partly explained by reduced lifetime exposure to infection and subsequent inflammation. To begin a test of this hypothesis, we compare C-reactive protein (CRP); levels in two populations with different epidemiological environments: the Tsimane of Bolivia and persons in the United States. …

Alumnos Transnacionales: Las Escuelas Mexicanas Frente A La Globalización, Víctor Zúñiga, Edmund T. Hamann, Juan Sánchez García

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Counter to the expectations that Mexico-U.S. migration is one-way, adult, and from Mexico to the United States, this Spanish-language book includes nine chapters describing various facets of the lives and educational circumstances of students encountered in Mexican schools who have previously attended U.S. schools. Data were derived from written questionnaires from a sample of more than 24,000 students in the Mexican states of Zacatecas and Nuevo León, of whom 632 had U.S. school experience and/or a U.S. birthplace and thereby American citizenship, and from more than 125 interviews with transnational students and their teachers. This study variously considers transnational students' …

Demographic, Economic, And Social Transformations In The South Bronx: Changes In The Nyc Community Districts Comprising Mott Haven, Port Morris, Melrose, Longwood, And Hunts Point, 1990 - 2005, Astrid S. Rodríguez

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This report analyzes demographic and socioeconomic characteristics among the five largest Latino nationality groups during 1990-2005 in South Bronx, specifically the neighborhoods of Mott Haven, Port Morris, Melrose, Longwood, and Hunts Point.

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: Puerto Ricans are the largest Latino subgroup in the South Bronx, accounting for over half of the total population by 2005 although their …

Beyond Confronting The Myth Of Racial Democracy: The Role Of Afro-Brazilian Women Scholars And Activists, Nathalie Lebon

Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Faculty Publications

This paper offers a synopsis of the current scholarship mapping the social and economic exclusion of women of African descent in Brazil. It highlights the work of and role played by Afro-Brazilian women scholars and activists in redressing the paucity, until recently, of basic data and research on the life conditions of women of African descent. Finally, it provides some initial thoughts on the national and transnational dynamics of knowledge production underlying this state of affairs.

Mexicans In New York City, 1990 - 2005, Laird W. Bergad

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This study examines demographic and socioeconomic aspects of the Mexican population of the New York City area from 1990-2005.

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: The Mexican-origin population of New York City was the city’s fastest-growing Latino national group between 1990 and 2005. From a population of 55,587 in 1990 Mexicans increased to 183,792 in 2000 and 227,842 in 2005.1 By …

Changes In Income Distribution Patterns, Wealth, And Poverty Among New York City’S Racial/Ethnic Groups Between 1999 And 2004, Laird W. Bergad

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This study examines demographic and socioeconomic aspects of the Latino population of the New York City area between 1999 and 2004.

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: The most striking differential when household income patters are examined is that among Latino households there was almost no increase in median household income between 1999 and 2004. Among whites, African Americans, and Asians …

The Evangelical Movement In Ecuador, Steve Grosz

Honors Capstones

Capstone submitted as a graduation requirement for the BSU Honors Program.

Common Origins/"Different" Identities In Two Kaqchikel Maya Towns, Walter E. Little

Anthropology Faculty Scholarship

Kaqchikel Maya residents of San Antonio Aguas Calientes and Santa Catarina Barahona (neighboring towns in Guatemala) tell the same origin story. This story is used to root historically their concepts of collective identity and community. However, residents in each town hold that those in the other town have no real claim to the story. Both towns can equally claim this origin story, but the debate between residents of these towns offers an opportunity to discuss how the meaning of place is related to the historical and ethnographic contexts of which that place's residents are part. By weighing the story and …

Performing Tourism: Maya Women's Strategies, Walter E. Little

Anthropology Faculty Scholarship

Walter Little is assistant professor of anthropology at the State University of New York at Albany and codirector of Oxlajuj Aj, Tulane University’s Kaqchikel Language and Culture class in Guatemala. He has conducted fieldwork among Maya handicrafts producers and vendors since 1992 on issues related to tourism, gender roles, and identity performance, and this research is the subject of his book, Mayas in the Marketplace: Tourism, Globalization, and Cultural Identity (Austin: University of Texas, 2004).

In Defense Of Social Justice: From Global Transformation To Local Resistance, Donna Chollett

Anthropology Publications

The global transformations that enveloped Latin America over the past decade resulted in uneven consequences for diverse social groups. Scholars witness an increasing tension between a macroeconomic agenda concerned with profitability and local community access to employment and sustenance. As neoliberal reforms intensify Latin America's integration into the world economy, they may adversely impact local communities. Should local people lose their ability to obtain basic rights, will they be able to effectively challenge the neoliberal model? In the absence of more adequate attention to social justice, it is probable that occurrences of local resistance in defense of these rights will …

The Evolution Of Human Life Expectancy And Intelligence In Hunter-Gatherer Economies, Hillard Kaplan

ESI Publications

The economics of hunting and gathering must have driven the biological evolution of human characteristics, since hunter-gatherer societies prevailed for the two million years of human history. These societies feature huge intergenerational resource flows, suggesting that these resource flows should replace fertility as the key demographic consideration. It is then theoretically expected that life expectancy and brain size would increase simultaneously, as apparently occurred during our evolutionary history. The brain here is considered as a direct form of bodily investment, but also crucially as facilitating further indirect investment by means of learning-by-doing.

Hispanic Citizenship, Registration, And Voting Patterns In Comparative Perspective During The 2000 Presidential Elections, Laird W. Bergad

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction: This study examines citizenship, registration, and voting patterns of Latinos during the 2000 presidential elections.

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: The participation rates among potential Hispanic voters who were citizens of the U.S. 18 years of age and older were the lowest of any of the major racial/ethnic groups in the nation during the 2000 presidential elections as well as …

Dancing For Land: Law-Making And Cultural Performance In Northeastern Brazil, Jan Hoffman French

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

In Mocambo, cultural practices and performances are being reconfigured and retained in new forms and surrounded by new discourses, revealing modes of local self-fashioning and political action. However, our inquiry should not end there. Thomas Abercrombie (1991:99) argues that whatever meanings might adhere to a certain "traditional" cultural form "are today produced and interpreted, within the (semi-open) semiotic systems produced at locally or situationally specific intercultural loci..., which intersect with national and international systems as significantly as with neighboring town groups." In this essay, I suggest that the demands, interests, and desires of the larger society, as manifested in laws, …