Migration Studies Commons^™

Interviews And Perspectives Among Community Members Working With Undocumented Female Border Crossers In The States Along The United States-Mexico Border, Melissa M. Frasco

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In order to discuss immigration in the context of the United States, we must dispel the myth that immigration is monolithic. Therefore, when we discuss national identity, gender equality, policy, employment rates, and countless other ordinary topics, we are discussing immigration, as it is embedded in our history and our future. The goal of my research is to delineate the experiences of violence that female border crossers undergo in the process of crossing into the United States via the southernmost border. The data collection process involved four semi-structured interviews to collect oral histories from workers at community-based organizations. These organizations …

Containerization Of Seafarers In The International Shipping Industry: Contemporary Seamanship, Maritime Social Infrastructures, And Mobility Politics Of Global Logistics, Liang Wu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation discusses the mobility politics of container shipping and argues that technological development, political-economic order, and social infrastructure co-produce one another. Containerization, the use of standardized containers to carry cargo across modes of transportation that is said to have revolutionized and globalized international trade since the late 1950s, has served to expand and extend the power of international coalitions of states and corporations to control the movements of commodities (shipments) and labor (seafarers). The advent and development of containerization was driven by a sociotechnical imaginary and international social contract of seamless shipping and cargo flows. In practice, this liberal, …

Colonial Geographies Of Gendered Violence And Mental Health In The United States And Puerto Rico, Lorraine Lizbeth L. Torres Colon

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

As of January 2021, after years of community organizing and protests, the Puerto Rican island government announced a state of emergency due to the high rates of gendered violence on the island. At the same time, within the field of psychiatric epidemiology, consistent findings have indicated higher frequencies of mood disorders and substance abuse disorders among Puerto Ricans both on and off the island, relative to all other US Latinx ethnic groups. This dissertation frames Puerto Ricans experiences with psychological distress and gendered violence as public health issues nested within differing geographies of colonial divestment. I explore the relationships between …

Settling Into Inequality: Resettled Afghans In The Washington Dc Metro Area, Harry Frey

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August of 2021, nearly 90,000 Afghans who had fled their country have been resettled in the United States, constituting one of the largest groups of refugee arrivals in the U.S. in recent history. Working from a database I created from the administrative records of a non-profit refugee aid group, I use data and spatial analysis to examine the demographics of Afghans resettled in the DC metro area, the characteristics of the census tracts and counties in which they have been resettled, and their access to public transportation. I find that the …

Learning To Fly While Staying Grounded: How Forcibly Displaced Individuals Develop A Sense Of Belonging In Disempowered Cities, Janina L. Selzer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Despite a growing interest in belonging, immigration and urban scholarship has yet to develop an empirically grounded, spatially sensitive, and complex theorization of the concept itself. Drawing on a comparative case study of two disempowered cities – Bielefeld, Germany, and Detroit, US, – this dissertation analyzes how and to what extent forcibly displaced Yazidi and Chaldean Iraqis develop a sense of belonging. By triangulating data from semi-structured interviews, ethnographic observations, as well as a discourse analysis of policy documents, the following pages trace how politics of belonging are continuously produced, reproduced, and challenged through a spatially mediated and often contradictory …

Immigration Status As A Social Determinant Of Health: Provider Perspectives, Elisabeth Brodbeck

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project examines how immigration is understood as a social determinant of health through the perspective of medical providers and social workers. Through the bridging of immigration studies in sociology and social epidemiology and public health, I demonstrate the need to bring these disciplines together to understand how immigration and legal status are encountered in clinical settings. I conducted a qualitative research study, specifically open-ended interviews with medical providers and social workers, to understand how providers currently screen for complex social determinants of health, and more specifically, how they engage with immigration as a factor influencing health during their patient …

The Anatomy Of A Migration Policy: An Institutional Analysis Of India’S Migration Policy From The Nineteenth Century To The Present, Ashwin Kumar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study looks at the institutional evolution of emigration governance in India from the nineteenth century to the present. Building from Agarwala’s (2022) “Migration Development Regime” framework of emigration governance based on class, I extend it to an analysis of emigration institutions through an archival study of emigration legislation in India. Using a historical-institutionalist framework, I find that legislation and the creation of emigration institutions in the country have roughly followed the migration development regime eras put forward by Agarwala, but in a lagged manner due to political expediency and institutional stickiness based on path dependence. I deviate slightly in …

Navigating Families, Negotiating Identities: Asian-White Mixed Family Experiences, Hayden Daeshin Ju

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines how White and second-generation Asian American heterosexual couples negotiate race, ethnicity, and gender as they come together and form families. While Asian-White intermarriage is often theorized as an endpoint of assimilation, this research concerns itself with the ways in which race plays a central role in shaping various domains of family life among mixed couples. Drawing on 62 semi-structured interviews with White and second-generation Asian American individuals, I find that race and gender jointly shape how the couples navigate household divisions of labor, in-law relationships, naming decisions, and transmitting ethnicity to children. By revealing the ongoing processes …

Operation Lone Star: The Spectacle Of Immigration Federalism, Danielle Puretz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Texas Governor Greg Abbott launched Operation Lone Star in March 2021 to respond to the “crisis” at the United States/Mexico border. While in the US immigration is usually thought of as a federal responsibility, different states have worked to expand their capacity to welcome or exclude immigrants. Operation Lone Star is an example of how one state is working to restrict immigration to the US and build notoriety for its republican governor. Drawing on press releases, executive orders, news articles, opinion pieces, and other sources I highlight the performative politics within this initiative. Operation Lone Star is an example of …

Indigenous Mexicans In New York City: Immigrant Integration, Language Use, And Identity Formation, Leslie A. Martino-Velez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

As indigenous Mexican immigrants migrate, settle, and raise families in the United States, parents, particularly women, and their children increasingly have contact with community institutions, such as schools. Despite their growing numbers in U.S. schools, indigenous children, youth, and their parents are often invisible due to their ethnolinguistic identities and undocumented status. Understanding what parents do to help their children is essential to understanding the first generation's integration and their children, the second generation.

To better understand this, I conducted an ethnographic research study at a bilingual Head Start program in New York City, in East Harlem, where many undocumented …

Tracing The Trajectory: Exploring The Origins, Iterations, And Impacts Of The Muslim Travel Ban, Dalia Yousef

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Muslim Travel Ban emerged as an explicitly discriminatory policy when former President Trump signed Executive Order 13769 on January 27, 2017. The first version of the Ban suspended the entry of travelers from seven majority-Muslim countries into the United States. After several iterations, the third version of the ban was upheld by the Supreme Court on June 26, 2018, and only rescinded by a Presidential Executive Order issued by President Joe Biden on January 20, 2021. Although the Ban received significant media attention, it was analyzed by only a few scholarly works utilizing legal and discursive approaches. This thesis …

Orban's Hungary: Lack Of Freedoms Becoming The Motivation For Hungarian Emigration, Fanni Sampson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the past 10 years Hungary has gone through some major systematic changes since the Orban administration took office. The implementations of the Orban government serve the benefits and power of his party and aim to limit the freedom of Hungarian citizens. Orban, throughout these changes, emphasizes the importance of preserving the Hungarian national identity, which he defines as far-right conservative christian values and takes control over everything that does not fit under this definition. This thesis argues that the Hungarian government is becoming increasingly dictatorial under the Orban administration which not only challenges the life of Hungarian citizens but …

Remarkably Ordinary, An Oral History:
 Examining The Micro Effects Of Family Reunification On The Lee Siblings And Their Spouses, Carol Joo Lee

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Family reunification accounts for a majority of entry mechanisms by which current Korean immigrants arrived in the U.S. The peak Korean immigration period from the mid-1970s to the late 1980s saw a dwindling of skill-based immigration and a rapid increase of immigrants who arrived through family preferences as a direct result of the Immigration Act of 1965. Despite there being ample studies and aggregate data on the post-1965 immigrants from Korea, not enough micro-level research has been conducted on the ways in which the family reunification provisions affected individuals, their brothers and sisters, and the inter-family dynamic both prior and …

Should I Stay Or Should I Go? Mexican Return Migration Across The Life Course, Mara G. Sheftel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Foreign-born individuals make up a growing share of older adults in the US. Older immigrants offer an important vantage point from which to investigate integration because outcomes at older ages can be considered “final” measures providing empirical evidence for theoretical understandings of the forces impacting immigrant trajectories. However, considering the non-negligible portion of immigrants that ultimately return to their country of origin it is impossible to get the full range of immigrant outcomes without considering returnees. Further, patterns of return may differ across the life course with distinct economic, social, and health considerations at older ages. However, the impact of …

The Grid Elegies, Pamela A. Kallimanis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Immigrants are a key component in New York City’s pandemic. Historically, New York is a city of immigrants and their children. In the latter part of the 20th Century, more immigrants arrived due to changes in migration policy. There was also an increased outmigration through second and third generations, which mirrors an economic trajectory seen in previous points in history, mainly in the 1970s. At that time, there was the lure of government policies – from federal mortgage agencies that graded white suburban areas as safer areas for banks to make loans than racially mixed urban areas, to road construction …

Covid, Immigrant Nonprofits, And Online Services: A Case Study Of An Esol Program In Queens, Sabrina Lara

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The coronavirus pandemic has presented challenges to both the public and private spheres of life. For public facing staff in nonprofit organizations, there has been a need to adapt service delivery from in-person to online services. This transition has presented benefits and challenges for participants, especially immigrants who regularly depend on nonprofits for different service needs, as well as nonprofit staff. This case study examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Jacob A. Riis Neighborhood Settlement, an immigrant-serving nonprofit organization in Queens, New York, and it analyzes how they addressed the transition to fully online service delivery. This organization …

The Impact Of Local Demographic Change In The Contemporary United States, Christopher Maggio

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Growing racial/ethnic diversity has undoubtedly made a major social and political impact in many localities across the United States in recent times. Various studies have addressed local reactions to this demographic change, most commonly highlighting backlash among the White population. This dissertation takes an in-depth look at the impact of these demographic changes on several key outcomes: the 2016 presidential election, White attitudes toward immigration policy, and perceptions of racism among racial/ethnic minorities that may emerge as a result of White backlash. These studies are careful to examine particular subsamples that may be more or less susceptible to backlash or …

Situational Awareness, Maeve Higgins

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This is a long-form essay exploring the politics and power at play along the U.S.-Mexico border. My objective with this piece was to better understand how and why this increasingly militarized border has grown in the past decades, as well as who is profiting and who is suffering because of this growth. To do this I relied on academic theorists, journalism and on-the-ground research. I discovered that the year I visited The Border Security Expo was also the year that Customs and Border Patrol saw their biggest ever budget, and I gained insight into what they spent this budget on. …

Tears, Trauma And Transformation: Central American Mothers' Experiences Of Violence, Migration And Family Reunification, Sandra B. Castro

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This study analyzes the experiences of migration, separation, and reunification of transnational mothers from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala and their children. Drawing on data collected from 25 mothers living and working on Long Island, New York who migrated to the US during four periods from 1976-2019 and whose children returned to them, sometimes years later. My findings suggest that transnational mothering is an experience marked by multiple forms of structural, institutional, and interpersonal violence, along with the commitment to sacrifice for their children. Taken together, transnational mothers operated within a form of “compounded disadvantage” (Abrego, 2014) due to their …

How Are Refugees Depicted In The Amarillo Globe-News?, Shannon Reimers

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This research uses media analysis to ask how refugees in Amarillo, Texas, are portrayed in the Amarillo Globe-News from 2002 until January 2021. Amarillo, Texas is a small, conservative city with a long history of refugee resettlement. Researching one town, over an extended period, tells a rich story of how refugees are depicted in the local media. This research is important because while the United States takes in refugees on a national level, the local level is where they settle and become long-term members of a community. It shares what a community resettling refugees has to say about them. In …

Refugee Higher Education And Participatory Action Research Methods: Lessons Learned From The Field, Hadas Yanay

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Refugee access to higher education is devastatingly low. Recognizing the complex barriers facing refugee learners, global educational initiatives are innovating flexible learning models which promote blended online and in-person learning modalities. This article describes the implementation of a five month, online-based internship pilot offered to 21 refugee participants in qualitative and quantitative research methods, through a participatory action research (PAR) framework in five different countries -- Malawi, Kenya, South Africa, Rwanda, and Lebanon. The internship is part of the Global Education Movement (GEM), which brings refugees accredited online college degree and career development opportunities. Through direct engagement, observation of the …

Varieties Of Transnational Life: Brazilian Nikkeis’ Changing Cross-Border Ties With Two Homelands, Hiroyuki Shibata

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores the varieties of Brazilian Nikkei’s – Japanese emigrants to Brazil and their descendants – transnational lives throughout a century of their migration history. I propose an interactive process approach to migrant transnationalism to understand the divergence of Brazilian Nikkeis’ transnational lives between their two homelands, Japan and Brazil. First, I focus on the four macro-institutional contexts: 1) positions and development patterns of sending and receiving states within the international state system; the infrastructural power of states, more concretely 2) the diasporic bureaucracy of sending states and 3) the incorporative power of receiving states; and 4) the mobilizing …

El Chapo's Trial As Legitimation Of The War On Drugs: A Neoliberal Mechanism Of Social Control And Imperial Intervention, Maurizio Guerrero

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

While it has been established in the academic literature that the War on Drugs is a mechanism deployed by the neoliberal state to control people of color in the United States and justify imperial interventions in Latin America, there's a lack of research on how this approach to the drug problem is legitimized in the public opinion. The 2018-2019 trial in a New York federal court of the drug trafficker Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán, considered one of the most notorious criminals in history, was rendered into a spectacle by the media and, thus, provided a prime example of the discourses …

Paper, Places, And Familias: Tracing The Social Mobility Of Mexicans In New York, Guillermo Yrizar Barbosa

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Why and how do some undocumented immigrants, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients, and their families in the United States do better than others in terms of family household income and educational planning? Immigrant “illegality” can limit specific possibilities and opportunities for most immigrants and their family members. But important variations have been identified in ethnographic fieldwork for this dissertation and through a dataset of contemporary immigrants interviewed in New York. The objective of this dissertation is to analyze how immigration status, place or local ecosystem, human capital, social networks, and intra-family dynamics affect the socioeconomic mobility of individuals, born …

Legitimizing Violence At The European Border: Gendered Misrepresentations At Sea And The Vulnerable Other, Michela Demelas

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis highlights a temporal and spatial gap in the feminist literature about migrants' journeys throughout the Mediterranean, and investigates the gendered dynamics acting upon the encounter between the European border and racialized bodies at sea. The Mediterranean sea’s material features allow Europe to approach migration as a humanitarian crisis coming from outside, which discharges its responsibility for the deaths. Yet, essentialistic views represent the feminized Other as vulnerable and needing to be saved from the male Other and the sea. Such views shape the Western narratives around concrete rescue procedures and border authorities behaviors. The encounter between the border …

A Re-Evaluation Of The Hyper-Selectivity Perspective: The Case Of Second-Generation Filipinos, Brenda B. Gambol Gavigan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Scholars Jennifer Lee and Min Zhou (2015) argue that the upward mobility of one racial group --- Asian Americans --- in the U.S. can be explained by its “hyper-selectivity”: the Immigration Act of 1965 brought in Asian migrants who are more highly educated than their compatriots back home and the average American. These middle-class immigrants bring with them a success frame based on exceptional achievement and generate ethnic capital (i.e. resources and information available in the community) that ultimately benefits all members of an ethnic group, including the second-generation. In addition, the educational leaps of the second-generation have altered racial …

Precarious Empowerments: Sexual Labor In The Coffee Shops Of Santiago, Chile, Pilar Ortiz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Precarious Empowerments analyzes sexual labor in ‘tinted cafes,’ spaces hidden from public view where women dance for their male clients and clandestinely perform sexual services. Drawing from an embodied ethnographic account of the everyday lives of five coffee shops that fit into the lower status ‘tinted cafes’ where sexual labor is common, this thesis examines sex workers’ experiences at the intersection of class, racial, and gender hierarchies. From an intersectional perspective, my study examines how inequalities based on class, gender, race, nationality, and body capital are reproduced and contested by sex workers. Based on the multiple facets of the precariousness …

Making Muslim Americans: Parenting Practices, Parochial Schools, And The Transmission Of Faith Across Generations In Metropolitan Detroit, Rebecca Karam

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

At present, it is estimated that there are 3.45 million Muslims living in the United States, the vast majority of whom are immigrants and the children of immigrants. While religion has typically been found to foster assimilation among immigrant newcomers, Islamophobia is rampant and threatens to challenge this process. This dissertation project intervenes in this empirical puzzle by asking the following research questions: How do we explain the conscious attempt by second generation Muslim parents to foster a distinctly Muslim and American identity among their third-generation children? More specifically, how have the parenting decisions of upper-middle class, second-generation Muslim Americans …

Migratory Timescapes: Experiences Of Pausing, Waiting, And Inhabiting The Meanwhile Of Migrants And Asylum Seekers In Mexico, Isabel Gil Everaert

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Mexico´s southern border with Guatemala, this dissertation provides insights into contemporary experiences of migration in Mexico by engaging with the notions of movement, control, and settlement from a critical perspective. I explore these experiences through the idea of migratory timescapes, defined as structural temporal-relational contexts in which migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers are socially embedded. In the case of this dissertation, I unpack three migratory timescapes which are situated in a regional context of growing displacement and increasingly restrictive migratory and asylum policies, what I call the block-and-wait system.

First, I introduce the idea …

Familismo, Fafsa, And Sallie Mae: A Study Of Second Generation Latinx Student Loan Debt, Jasmine Gonsalez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

As college expenses continue to skyrocket, borrowing thousands of dollars to pay for college has become a rite of passage towards achieving the American Dream. Very little has explored the problem of rising student loan debt thorough a sociologically-oriented lens, and even less work has examined the variations in the lived experiences of underrepresented student borrowers. This study focuses on second-generation Latinx students who have used student loans to pay for college. As American citizens with Latin American roots, this generation lives in a precarious situation, often straddling the lines between their traditional family-oriented values, and the more individualistic values …