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Former President Trump's election and subsequent anti-immigrant policy initiatives brought an unprecedented sense of uncertainty for undocumented immigrants. This is particularly true for those who had experienced expanding opportunities through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) executive action signed by former President Obama in 2012. We use in-depth interviews with undocumented young adults to explore how the 2016 presidential election and 2017 executive action that rescinded DACA evoked emotions of anticipatory loss—including sadness and grief—and ontological insecurity—including anxiety and uncertainty. We adopt an interpretive and social constructionist approach to explore these emotions and their implications, demonstrating how even the threat of policy change impacts immigrant young adults' societal incorporation. We illustrate how DACA recipients conceptualized loss and how these experiences manifested in educational attainment, labor market incorporation, feelings of belonging, and civic participation. Our study provides an innovative contribution to interpret in real-time the incorporation trajectories through the emotions of living with precarious legal status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior research has explored the relationship between disasters and the personal well-being of migrants in the United States. The current study retrospectively evaluates the subjective well-being of Puerto Rican post-disaster migrants before migration, after migration (and after the return migration to Puerto Rico of a small subset of the sample), and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Utilizing both Wilcoxon Signed Rank and independent samples t -tests, we find that stateside and return migrants experience declines in self-reported mental health after migration and return migration (before the COVID-19 pandemic) and during the pandemic. In addition, we find that return migrants report worse mental health, more negative emotions, and fewer positive emotions than migrants who remained stateside. Our findings have implications for our understanding of Puerto Ricans' subjective well-being and mental health. Directions for future research on post-disaster climate migration, and particularly the subjective well-being of return migrants, are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we examine the sense of stability of Puerto Ricans in the aftermath of hurricanes Irma and Maria. Data from 20 interviews with Puerto Ricans currently residing in Florida illustrate how those who lived on the archipelago during the hurricanes felt obligated to leave their homes to survive the aftermath, and how members of the diaspora experienced the suffering of kin and the material losses in Puerto Rico. A sense of collective trauma is identified due to the disaster and through migration's effects. We argue that collective trauma exacerbated ontological insecurity that is rooted in the cultural trauma of the colonial experience. Our analysis draws from constructionist theories of identity and of trauma and the literature on disasters to explore the perceptions and meaning-making of Puerto Ricans in order to understand how cultural trauma, collective trauma, and ontological insecurity intersect in processes of recovery from environmental hazards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migrating to a new country is often associated with difficulties such as social isolation, financial strain, language barriers, and cultural differences. Less is known about how social mobility brought about by migration may be related to the emotional dispositions of immigrants (also referred to as subjective well-being). To examine this relationship, we utilize data from a representative sample of 1,268 first-generation immigrants from 80 different countries living in South Florida. Changes in perceived social mobility between the homeland and the United States-moving up and down the socioeconomic ladder-are indeed associated with differences in immigrants' negative dispositions. We draw from literature on expectations, social comparisons, and subjective class status to explain these findings. We do not find a statistically significant association between changes in socioeconomic status and positive dispositions, which may suggest that losses outweigh migration-related gains. Additionally, findings reveal that nondominant groups fare worse than Cubans (the dominant group in the region) with regard to dispositions. Social comparisons to the dominant ethnic group may explain this, as well as perceptions of relative deprivation experienced by groups not favored by immigration policies and underrepresented in social and economic institutions. We conclude by discussing implications on how negative emotional dispositions represent risk factors that could affect immigrants' mental health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Valdez and Golash-Boza argue that scholarship on race and scholarship on ethnicity have been divorced from each other and call for researchers to put these two paradigms in conversation with one another. I address some of their assertions using previous work, including my own, that has merged racial and ethnic literatures and that has shed new light on old theories, as well as opened the path toward new theories and methods. I argue that an ethnoracial perspective can be leveraged to better understand global racial and ethnic inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from 53 in-depth interviews with undocumented immigrant young adults in Florida, we argue that undocumented legal status leads to a range of emotional challenges among this group. Lack of ontological security is at the core of emotions they must contend with, from frustration, fear, shame, and depression to anxiety about their future. Positive coping strategies include individually oriented activities such as listening to music, exercising, playing sports, attending church, and turning to close family members or friends for advice or compassion. Negative coping strategies often include behaviors that result in self-harm, including starving themselves, overeating, drinking, smoking, using drugs, and even ideating or attempting suicide. The most positive mechanism to foster well-being draws from social and emotional health generated by membership in immigrant advocacy organizations that provide opportunities for empowerment and belonging. Meaningful social connections result in positive emotional states, which in turn, provide young immigrants with emotional capital to aid in the process of resocialization, leading them to recast negative emotions into positive ones. We conclude with a discussion of conditions most conducive to the emotional well-being of undocumented immigrant young adults and factors that enhance emotional capital and contribute to greater well-being among this population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using data from 41 in-depth interviews with undocumented young adults, we examine how they define what it means to be an American and explore whether and to what extent they identify as ‘Americans’. Framing our analysis in theories of personal and cultural trauma, we illustrate how undocumented youth experience double-consciousness that compounds their approach to national identities. Respondents express ambivalence towards adopting an American identity, recognising their commitment to American cultural values, yet continuously feeling repelled by laws that position them as outsiders to US polity. In spite of this, undocumented youth contest their liminal status by working towards full participation in civil society. Their activities, actions, and levels of civic participation demonstrate that even though they are barred from US citizenship, they work towards embodying what they believe a true American should be. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This special issue introduces a range of articles that analyze patterns of incorporation among Latinos living in the United States. We discuss the importance of race and institutionalized discrimination across various social institutions and through legislation and policies that promote and/or blunt Latino incorporation. Building on the findings of the studies in this special issue, this introduction considers how race and racialization shape the lives of Latino youth and adults through directives and policies emerging from a range of institutions—from the U.S. Census Bureau to State Courts, and state and federal legislative bodies. Mediating incorporation is legislation such as the Affordable Care Act and administrative changes such as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which, while promoting inclusion of Latino populations into the U.S. body-politic, also render some Latinos part of a class of people that are subjugated based on their origins. We conclude this introductory article with an assessment of how this structural discrimination results in various forms of incorporation that include marginalized belonging, blocked mobility, and both the invisibility and hypervisibility of Latinos in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

For most Latino youth, Latinos constitute a separate, while diverse, racial group. Our study demonstrates that, when asked about their identities, Latino youth do not follow conventional U.S. racial categories. Although they prefer to identify by national origin or panethnicity, they consider themselves to be part of a racial group rather than an ethnic group, as the U.S. Census designates them. Using findings from in-depth semistructured interviews with two samples of young adults in Chicago and Central Florida, this research joins the long-standing debate on the conceptual division between race and ethnicity arguing that there is a mismatch between existing sociological understandings of race and ethnicity and the current racial ideas and racial practices among Latino youth. There is also a mismatch between institutional measures of “race,” such as those found in the U.S. Census, and Latinos’ self-understandings of where they belong in the U.S. racial hierarchy. We suggest that not being officially designated as a racial group leads to the erosion of perceptions of belonging among Latinos to a nation in which being a member of a racial group allows for visibility and claims-making in a multiracial society. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In our introduction to this special issue, we describe how the immigration enforcement-first regime has consequences that extend beyond the supposed target population of undocumented immigrants and spill over to other groups, including legal permanent residents, U.S.-born Latinos/as, and other U.S.-born residents. The papers in this special issue address whether and how spillover effects exist and the form that they take. Often they include social, psychological, and in some cases, physical harm, and together they illustrate that directly or indirectly, U.S. policy’s emphasis on interior and external border enforcement affects all of us. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary migration studies in cultural geography emphasize place-based approaches, recognizing the relational and contextual nature of belonging, especially as these are nested within material and symbolic structures of racial inequality. This article highlights the role of precarious legal status, focusing on undocumented immigrant young adults who grew up in the United States, to examine subjective experiences of place-making and belonging in situations of heightened visibility, deportability and vulnerability. We analyze 56 interviews with undocumented immigrant young adults, predominantly from Latin America, collected in Central Florida. Findings focus on themes linked to shared experiences of vulnerability due to illegality and visibility: (1) belonging in co-ethnic/co-legal neighborhoods, (2) ethnic and racial tensions, (3) neighborhood (in)security and safety, and (4) mutual assistantance and support among neighbors. In addition to poverty, poor infrastructure, and lack of safety, many neighborhoods in which undocumented youth grow up are characterized by racial and ethnic divisions. Our findings contribute an analysis of how undocumented migrants experience place as intersecting with broader patterns of race and ethnicity, and point to the importance of "co-legal status". This extension of the concept of co-ethnicity references shared experience of illegality as it relates to place-making for legally precarious individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we argue that efforts at increased immigration control have consequences for immigrants’ affective attachments to the United States. Based on data from the Immigrant Transnationalism and Modes of Incorporation (ITMI) Survey that was administered to a random sample of South Florida immigrants (N = 1,268), we examine qualitatively and quantitatively how immigrants’ negative experiences in the United States with immigration officials, at the point of entry and during their residency in the country, impact their affective attachments to the United States. Examining the effects of negative experiences with immigration officials, both isolated incidents and patterns of treatment, reveals that immigrants with negative experiences are less attached to the United States. We suggest that how immigrants are treated in their countries of destination is likely to affect their approaches to other government officials and more broadly, their patterns of incorporation into U.S. society. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Patterns of labor market incorporation of two samples of middle-class Puerto Ricans (U.S. migrants and return migrants to the Island) are examined in this article. Particular attention is paid to the diverse class backgrounds of Puerto Rican professionals and how these backgrounds (and how they structure migration options) impact educational attainment. The author also examines the resources and opportunities garnered through U.S. citizenship, specifically among those from working-class/poor backgrounds who are more likely to be structurally constrained in their efforts to achieve social mobility. The author further analyzes the direct and indirect impact of these factors on Puerto Ricans' incorporation into mainland and Island labor markets and their entry into the transnational professional workforce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I examine the settlement experiences of middle-class Puerto Ricans in the U.S. mainland. Data for the study come from open-ended interviews with 40 middle-class Puerto Ricans who came to the U.S. mainland, 20 of whom remained and 20 of whom returned and resettled in Puerto Rico. I examine their subjective interpretations of incorporation and the conditions under which they resettle in Puerto Rico. Findings reveal that in spite of occupational and economic integration into the U.S. mainstream, migration and U.S. settlement result in dislocations among Puerto Ricans, particularly regarding separation from family and kin networks and experiences with racialization and exclusion. Puerto Ricans see themselves as members of transnational families, yet, the struggles of leading dual lives between mainland and Puerto Rican societies result in settlement decisions that reflect desires to live locally with roots in one place instead of feeling split between the two. Experiences with U.S. racism complicate these decisions. Findings illustrate the various patterns of attachments to place, or emotional embeddedness, that impact the circumstances under which Puerto Ricans engage in alternating periods of mainland and Island settlement. The implications for assimilation theories are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using case studies from interviews and focus groups, this article reconceptualizes the meaning of race and racism by examining how members of a multiracial group, Puerto Ricans, experience racism. The authors argue that the social construction of race involves ethnic and global factors such as national origin, culture, language, the historical relationship between colonial powers and their political subjects, and race. The totality of these factors amount to a racial matrix of domination resulting in ethnoracism. Findings suggest that within the cur- rent climate of "colorblind" racism, ethnoracism is the mechanism through which the current racial order will be maintained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior work has focused on the role of media in shaping public perceptions of immigrants and in the construction of social illegality. In this article, we examine how the undocumented 1.5 immigrant generation perceive, consume, and navigate media messaging about immigration—and particularly Latino immigrants—to understand the role of media in shaping their lived experiences. We analyze 50 in-depth and nine follow-up interviews with undocumented young adults in Florida collected between 2017 and 2021. Two major themes emerged: (1) how media information and misinformation invoke both legal and ethnoracial consciousness; and (2) how undocumented young immigrants deploy agentic strategies to resist negative and dehumanizing portrayals by rejecting media altogether, leveraging media to resist abuses, and embracing counter-narratives. Based on these findings, we discuss the usefulness of a double consciousness framework and argue for the use of "ethnoracial consciousness" in synergy with legal consciousness to more accurately describe experiences for this population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do alcohol use and binge drinking among Latina/o adolescents increase in the second and third generation? This study explores generational differences in alcohol use behaviors for three Latina/o ethnic groups. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health on 1504 Latina/o adolescents in secondary school, we found that the factors associated with alcohol use behaviors differed across the Latina/o groups. For Mexican and Cuban adolescents, but not Puerto Ricans, immigrant generation was associated with alcohol use. For Mexican, but not Cuban adolescents, acculturation mediated the effect of immigrant generation on alcohol use behaviors. Although generally social capital and a co-ethnic presence were protective factors against alcohol use behaviors, we found that some forms of social capital were actually risk factors for Cubans and Puerto Ricans. Our results provide support for segmented-assimilation theory. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]