Search

This paper leverages the repressive turn in U.S. migration policy to understand how a cross‐border perspective can illuminate the experiences of two different, but contemporaneous second‐generation populations: Those whose lives have unfurled in the United States, all the while growing up in internationalized families with ongoing homeland ties; and those whose childhoods began in the United States, but were disrupted as part of the 'Great Expulsion', and thus migrated to Mexico, albeit often with U.S. citizenship and almost always with cross‐border ties to family members still living in the United States. As the paper demonstrates, looking across borders highlights the importance of the territorial frontier and the continuing power of the national to undermine the forces that produce cross‐border connections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: This paper presents updated prevalence estimates of awareness, ever‐use, and current use of nicotine vaping products (NVPs) from 14 International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project (ITC Project) countries that have varying regulations governing NVP sales and marketing. Design, Setting, Participants and Measurements: A cross‐sectional analysis of adult (≥ 18 years) current smokers and ex‐smokers from 14 countries participating in the ITC Project. Data from the most recent survey questionnaire for each country were included, which spanned the period 2013–17. Countries were categorized into four groups based on regulations governing NVP sales and marketing (allowable or not), and level of enforcement (strict or weak where NVPs are not permitted to be sold): (1) most restrictive policies (MRPs), not legal to be sold or marketed with strict enforcement: Australia, Brazil, Uruguay; (2) restrictive policies (RPs), not approved for sale or marketing with weak enforcement: Canada, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand; (3) less restrictive policies (LRPs), legal to be sold and marketed with regulations: England, the Netherlands, Republic of Korea, United States; and (4) no regulatory policies (NRPs), Bangladesh, China, Zambia. Countries were also grouped by World Bank Income Classifications. Country‐specific weighted logistic regression models estimated adjusted NVP prevalence estimates for: awareness, ever/current use, and frequency of use (daily versus non‐daily). Findings NVP awareness and use were lowest in NRP countries. Generally, ever‐ and current use of NVPs were lower in MRP countries (ever‐use = 7.1–48.9%; current use = 0.3–3.5%) relative to LRP countries (ever‐use = 38.9–66.6%; current use = 5.5–17.2%) and RP countries (ever‐use = 10.0–62.4%; current use = 1.4–15.5%). NVP use was highest among high‐income countries, followed by upper–middle‐income countries, and then by lower–middle‐income countries. Conclusions: With a few exceptions, awareness and use of nicotine vaping products varied by the strength of national regulations governing nicotine vaping product sales/marketing, and by country income. In countries with no regulatory policies, use rates were very low, suggesting that there was little availability, marketing and/or interest in nicotine vaping products in these countries where smoking populations are predominantly poorer. The higher awareness and use of nicotine vaping products in high income countries with moderately (e.g. Canada, New Zealand) and less (e.g. England, United States) restrictive policies, is likely due to the greater availability and affordability of nicotine vaping products. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I will first discuss the historical development of the Mexican migrant as 'illegal.' Second, I will discuss current border control and legalization policies and their effects on the undocumented population in the United States. Finally, reflecting on the effects of previous policies, I will discuss Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's proposed 'three-legged stool' and its likely effects on the undocumented population in the United States. I will argue that the current immigration system, and any future proposals that include border enforcement as the primary mechanism to stop undocumented migrants from entering the United States will likely result in the continual perpetuation of an undocumented population of Mexican migrants in the United States. This paper is informed by the ethnographic data collected from July 2009 to August 2010 in the border city of Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico. During this time at the border, I talked to migrants deported from the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the journeys of male migrants to Empalme, Sonora, Mexico to uncover the development of the often overlooked domestic bracero programme that operated in conjunction with its well-known international equivalent. Drawing on interviews and observations with ex- braceros who met at a park near the Mexico-US border, I examine their experiences and participation in Mexico's domestic bracero program, an unintended and unexplored consequence of its international counterpart. The study shows how regulation and control were constantly reinvented at every step of the selection process by state actors and their affiliates in Mexico. The paper reveals how the oversupply of labour and modernization of agriculture in Sonora resulted in the development of a migration industry where local municipal leaders, coyotes, the state, and Mexican agribusiness capitalized from men's displacement. The migration industry during the bracero selection process controlled who gained access to the United States labour market by capturing migrant labour en route to the United States in the process fueling a thriving cotton industry in the otherwise stagnant Sonoran Desert economy. The study concludes by taking the lessons from the historic domestic bracero programme to show one instance in which internal and international labour markets were closely interwoven. In the end, I call for more research that examines the relationship between markets on both sides of the border that uncovers how networks are not only structured by personal ties but also by state and market relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the increasing number of Southwest Hispanics in the United States, as well as the overwhelming number of foreign nationals that die every year trying to enter the United States along the southern United States border with Mexico, new methods for classifying individuals have been established at the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner in Tucson, Arizona (PCOME). For each of the past 5 years, the PCOME has investigated a record number of deaths associated with these border crossings. The overwhelming majority of the identified decedents are Mexican Nationals. However, approximately 25% of these undocumented border crossers have yet to be identified, making it clear that improved methods for human identification are greatly needed. The first goal of this paper is to delineate the suite of skeletal nonmetric traits utilized in assessing Southwest Hispanic ancestry at the PCOME. This suite of nonmetric traits has proven to be an effective component in establishing the “biological profile” of unknown individuals in these cases. The second goal of this paper is to introduce methods used at the PCOME to establish the “cultural profile” of individuals in these cases. The “cultural profile” is a set of identification criteria that include: the geographic context of recovery, personal effects, dental health, and cultural accoutrements. Establishing the “cultural profile” in these cases is essential in identifying individuals as foreign nationals who have died trying to cross the border. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the centrality of Mexico–US border policing to pre- and post-9/11 US immigration geopolitics, perhaps the most significant yet largely ignored immigration-related fallout of the so-called war on terrorism has been the extension of interior immigration policing practices away from the southwest border. As I outline in this paper, these interior spaces of immigration geopolitics—nominally said to be about fighting terrorism, but in practice concerned with undocumented labor migration across the Mexico–US border—have not emerged accidentally. Rather, the recent criminalization of immigration law, the sequestering of immigration enforcement from court oversight and the enrollment of proxy immigration officers at sub-state scales have been actively pursued so as to make interior enforcement newly central to US immigration geopolitics. I argue here that these embryonic spaces of localized immigration geopolitics shed new light on the spatiality of US immigration governance, which has typically been thought of by geographers as active predominantly at the territorial margins of the state. I conclude the paper with some thoughts as to how geographers might rethink the what and where of contemporary US immigration geopolitics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses natural gas demand in the United States of America, Canada and Mexico for the period 1980–2001. Visual inspections of the historical trends for natural gas demand, GDP and natural gas prices provide an initial assessment of the relationship between these variables. The paper then estimates various regressions, using the Almon polynomial distributed lag model. Several regressions, utilizing different combinations of explanatory variables, were run with or without an autoregressive scheme of various orders. The best-fitting model in each country was selected, and this was later used to generate natural gas demand forecasts for the respective countries to 2020. The results show that the income elasticity for Canada is more than unity (1.4), compared with less then unity for the USA (0.8) and Mexico (0.65). Changes in natural gas consumption generally lag by a few years, before the full impact of the changes in gas prices is realised. The length of lags varies between countries, but generally the effect of a price change on natural gas consumption dissipates after three-to-four years. Population is one of the important explanatory variables for Mexico, while it is not significant for the USA and Canada. The model predicts that natural gas demand in the USA (base case) will increase at an annualised growth rate of 1.9 per cent and, by 2020, should reach 919 billion cubic metres. This is not very different to the forecast of the US Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration (EIA) (900 bcm). Similarly, the base case forecast for Canada to 2020 is 128 bcm, compared with that of the EIA at 125 bcm. The forecast for Mexico (92 bcm) is significantly different to that of the EIA (120), perhaps due to different economic growth assumptions. The paper concludes that there is an urgent need to enhance exploration efforts and investment in liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals, to be able to receive LNG from multiple sources, particularly in the USA and Mexico. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The terrorist attacks of September 11 and their immediate aftermath along the US-Canadian and US-Mexican borders focused attention on border management strategies in ways previously unimaginable. Suddenly confronted by the fact that existing systems and processes were not particularly effective either at protecting security or facilitating legitimate traffic, the United States, in conjunction with the Canadian and Mexican Governments, demonstrated an uncharacteristic willingness to reconceptualize its approach to physical borders. While initiating a series of internal policy adjustments to secure themselves against terrorist threats, the US, Canadian, and Mexican Governments also signed two bilateral agreements — the 12 December 2001 United States-Canada Smart Border Declaration and the 22 March 2002 United States-Mexico Border Partnership Agreement. These agreements represent an important development in the US's relationship with each of its North American neighbours, acknowledging not only the deep economic, social, and cultural ties, but also the new reality that the United States cannot attain the additional security it desires through unilateral actions alone. Thus, while September 11 forced a reassessment of vulnerabilities, it simultaneously provided the United States an opportunity to work more systematically with its contiguous neighbours for security benefits, a realization likely to flow into other areas where the benefits of cooperation eclipse those of unilateralism. This paper analyses the first year of the two border accords, tracking their implementation and evaluating their successes and failures. Most importantly, the paper outlines outstanding challenges, highlights steps that the governments should take to achieve additional border security and efficiency, and draws conclusions regarding factors likely to make their efforts more, or less, successful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the implications of the new tomato suspension agreement (signed on March 4, 2013, by the U.S. government and Mexican tomato producers) for trade in fresh tomatoes and processed tomato products. The empirical analysis is performed through a gravity model that accounts for vertical linkages between primary and processed goods. The estimated gravity parameters are used to implement suspension agreement scenarios. The results show that the new suspension agreement leads to considerable decreases in Mexico's exports of fresh tomatoes to the United States. These decreases are accompanied with various trade diversion and deflection effects. There are increases in Mexico's exports of processed tomato products to the United States and other countries, and in Mexico's exports of fresh tomatoes to non-U.S. destinations. These increases do not amount, however, to considerable compensations of the decreases in Mexico's fresh tomato exports to the United States. The results also suggest that the initial 1996-based suspension agreement has significantly smaller impacts on trade flows over the period that preceded the implementation of the new suspension agreement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Population-specific reference data are necessary for sex estimation in forensic anthropological practice. Currently, there are no population-specific data for Hispanics equivalent to data available for American Blacks and Whites. Individuals of Mexican origin represent the largest group of Hispanics in the United States (Spradley and Jantz. 2011. J Forensic Sci;56:289). This paper presents new population-specific sex estimation criteria for postcranial measurements for Mexican Hispanics. Metric data come from positively identified border-crossing fatalities at the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner and documented cemetery collections curated at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán. Stepwise variable selection procedures and discriminant function analyses were utilized to generate classification functions for postcrania. Sectioning points were also created for select measurements. Both the cross-validated classification rates and sectioning points achieved accuracy rates as high as 95% and 92%, respectively. These new criteria will improve sex estimation for US Mexico border crossers and Hispanics in the US. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background This paper examines the prevalence, the symptom profile, and the drinking and sociodemographic predictors of current (past 12 months) DSM- IV alcohol abuse and dependence among Mexican Americans living along the U. S.- Mexico border and those living in metropolitan areas away from the border. Methods Respondents in the non-border areas (primarily Houston and Los Angeles) constitute a multistage probability sample ( N = 1,288) of these areas, interviewed as part of the 2006 Hispanic Americans Baseline Alcohol Survey ( HABLAS). Respondents in the border area ( N = 1,307) constitute a household probability sample of Mexican Americans living on the border. In both surveys, data were collected during computer-assisted interviews conducted in respondents' homes. The HABLAS and the border sample response rates were 76 and 67%, respectively. Results Although bivariate analyses revealed no overall differences between border and non-border locations, (negative) age trends were more pronounced on the border for male abuse and for dependence among both genders. Among females aged 18 to 29, border residence was linked to significantly higher rates of dependence. In multivariable analyses, the prevalence of male abuse declined more rapidly with age on the border than off the border. Other unique predictors of male abuse were Jewish/other religion and weekly volume of alcohol consumption. Being married or out of the workforce, attaining a higher education, having no religious preference, and weekly volume uniquely predicted female dependence. Age and weekly volume uniquely predicted male dependence. Conclusions The prevalence of alcohol use disorders among Mexican Americans on and off the U. S.- Mexico border largely mirrors previously documented patterns of alcohol consumption in these areas. For young Mexican American women in particular, border residence is linked to heightened vulnerability to alcohol dependence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives: Existing studies of Latino(a) college students in the United States suggest that self-reported alcohol consumption tends to be higher among males, and that drinking among Latinas is often influenced by social and contextual factors. The current study extended this work by examining both self-reported drinking levels and predictors of drinking among Latino(a) college students in the United States and Mexico (MX). Methods: Latino(a) college students (N = 376) from three universities in the South Central United States and Northern Mexico completed pencil-and-paper surveys about alcohol. Results: US Latino students (vs. MX males), reported drinking more frequently and had more positive expectancies about alcohol. Latinas in the United States (vs. MX females) were more likely to report regular drinking. Across countries, both female gender and the Mexican orientation component of acculturation predicted lower reported alcohol consumption. Positive expectancies about drinking predicted increased drinking. Conclusions and Scientific Significance: Self-reported college drinking and expectancies about alcohol may differ subtly among individuals in the United States and Mexico based on gender and endorsement of traditional Mexican values. These findings could ultimately be applied to the development of more tailored programs for the treatment and prevention of alcohol abuse on college campuses. (Am J Addict 2012;21:544-549) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This paper examines differences in drinking and binge drinking between Mexican Americans living along the U.S.-Mexico border and those living in 2 metropolitan areas away from the border (Houston, Texas and Los Angeles, California). Methods: Respondents in the non-border area (Houston and Los Angeles) constitute a multistage probability sample ( N = 1,288), who were interviewed as part of the 2006 Hispanic Americans Baseline Alcohol Survey (HABLAS). Respondents in the border area ( N = 1,307) constitute a household probability sample of Mexican Americans living on the U.S.-Mexico border. In both surveys, data were collected during computer-assisted interviews conducted in respondents' homes. The HABLAS and the border sample response rates were 76 and 67%, respectively. Results: There were no differences between border and non-border Mexican American men in the proportion of drinkers, the proportion who binge drink at least once a year, and volume of alcohol consumption. However, within each location, there were significant differences in drinking by age, indicating that younger men drank more than men who were older. Border women showed significant differences across age-groups in the proportion of drinkers, in binge drinking, and volume of alcohol consumption, which were not seen among non-border women. Conclusions: Women's drinking seems to be more affected than men's by their residence on or off the U.S.-Mexico border. This is seen most clearly among young women 18 to 29 years old, and it is associated with an increased proportion of drinkers, a higher volume of drinking, and an increased proportion of women who report binge drinking. Increased drinking in this group of younger women seems to be associated with drinking in Mexico. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why were the Mexican and United States governments unable to establish formal cooperation for the management of migration flows even after agreeing on the need for a 'shared responsibility' approach and establishing an agenda for negotiations on a bilateral agreement in the spring of 2001? Conventional wisdom is that the terrorist attacks of September 11th were the main reason for the shift from a bilateral to a unilateral approach to the management of US-Mexico migration flows. Although this event changed the US government's foreign policy priorities, in order to understand the reasons why the proposal for a migration agreement failed, it is necessary to look beyond the security context that permeated the US agenda after September 11th and analyse the underlying structural, domestic and ideological factors that influenced the governments' positions during and after the negotiations. By examining the context of power asymmetry in the US-Mexico relationship, the domestic politics that surround the issue and public perceptions of immigration in the United States, this paper identifies the challenges implied in efforts to expand bilateral cooperation over migration issues in the NAFTA framework. The fact that both countries' migration policies are mostly pursued unilaterally despite the acceptance of a 'shared responsibility' raises key questions regarding the limits of regional integration and bilateral or multilateral cooperation for the management of migration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT As the number of Latino children in public child welfare continues to grow, it is necessary to understand how their mental health is faring. The paper examines emotional and behavioural needs among Latino children who had contact with the public child welfare system. The purpose of this longitudinal study was twofold: to examine the severity of emotional and behavioural problems, and to assess the predictive role of generation status and Latino origin. Latent growth models were completed using the National Survey on Children and Adolescent Well-Being. The predictive model for the externalizing CBCL scale revealed that generation status and Latino origin were significant predictors. At baseline, Puerto Rican children exhibited higher rates of externalizing problems compared with Mexican children. Over time children who were first/second generation tended to have lower scores compared with the third-plus generation children. Implications for practise are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the discussion of 9/11 has debated its historical significance, but it is equally important to explore the geographical dimensions of the wars that have been conducted in its shadows. Subsequent transformations in the American way of war have played a major role in the increased militarisation of the planet. Most attention has been focused on Afghanistan and Iraq as the principal theatres of the 'war on terror', but one of the characteristics of late modern war is the emergent, 'event-ful' quality of military, paramilitary and terrorist violence that can, in principle, occur anywhere. Vulnerabilities are differentially distributed but widely dispersed, and in consequence late modern war is being changed by the slippery spaces through which it is conducted. This paper explores three global borderlands to bring those changes into focus: Afghanistan-Pakistan (particularly the deployment of CIA-controlled drones in Pakistan), US-Mexico (particularly the expansion of Mexico's 'drug war' and the US militarisation of the border), and cyberspace (particularly the role of stealth attacks on critical infrastructure and the formation of US Cyber Command). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the consequences of parental migratory strategies for children in three types of Mexican families: those living with their migrant parents in the United States, those living with parents who migrated and returned to Mexico, and those living in Mexico with parents who have never migrated. Using data on 804 children from the Health and Migration Survey (HMS), we found significant differences in children’s health across the three types of families. Results also revealed robust effects on child health of the size of immediate and extended social networks and migration experience after controlling for potential mediators such as mother’s general health, receipt of social support, and child’s age and sex. Findings suggest that social networks and migration affect children in complex ways, offering health benefits to those with migrant parents in U.S. households but not to those living with parents who migrated in the past and returned to Mexico. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a model of border enforcement in order to address trade-related invasive species risk. An agent-based modeling (ABM) framework was developed based on a theoretical economic model that incorporates a spatially explicit damage function. The framework was applied to a representative commodity (broccoli), invasive species (crucifer flea beetle), ports-of-entry (Calexico and Otay Mesa U.S./Mexico land ports), and vulnerable location (California). The ABM evaluated the economic impacts of port-specific and importer-specific enforcement regimes, enabling regulators to improve both the allocation of scarce enforcement resources and the effectiveness of current enforcement policies. The analysis generated several policy relevant findings concerning importing firm behavior and suggests conditions under which increasing enforcement may or may not significantly reduce invasive species risk and associated crop damages. The analysis illustrates that with a more realistic parameterization, the ABM could be used to make real-world policy decisions concerning allocation of limited resources across ports-of-entry. Dans le présent article, nous présentons un modèle de renforcement des frontières pour examiner le risque d'introduction d'espèces envahissantes par le biais d'échanges commerciaux. Nous avons élaboré un modèle multiagent fondé sur un modèle économique théorique qui intègre une fonction de dommage spatiale. Nous avons appliqué ce modèle à une denrée représentative (le brocoli), à une espèce envahissante (l'altise des crucifères), à des points d'entrée (les points d'entrée terrestre de Calexico et d'Otay Mesa à la frontière des États−Unis et du Mexique) et à un endroit vulnérable (la Californie). Le modèle multiagent a évalué les répercussions économiques des régimes de renforcement spécifiques à un point d'entrée et à un importateur, permettant aux organismes de réglementation d'améliorer à la fois l'allocation des ressources de renforcement qui sont rares et l'efficacité des politiques de renforcement actuelles. L'analyse a généré plusieurs résultats quant aux politiques concernant le comportement des entreprises importatrices et indique des conditions dans lesquelles l'accroissement du renforcement pourrait diminuer considérablement ou pas le risque d'introduction d'espèces envahissantes pouvant causer des dommages aux cultures. L'analyse a montré que, à l'aide d'une paramétrisation plus réaliste, le modèle multiagent pourrait être utilisé pour prendre des décisions stratégiques du monde réel quant à l'allocation des ressources limitées dans les points d'entrée. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

California shares a 150-mile international border with Mexico. Traditionally, this border has seen non-stop illegal migration. In the 1990s, the Border Patrol began a concerted effort to establish and maintain control of the border, beginning in urban San Diego. This heightened law enforcement presence, known as Operation Gatekeeper, changed the westernmost segment of the border from the most permeable to the least permeable. This enforcement pushed migrants into more dangerous crossing areas in eastern San Diego and Imperial Counties, making their trip longer and more physically challenging as they made their way through treacherous mountains, deserts, and irrigation canals. Death rates soared. Political decisions impacted human lives and the caseloads of forensic anthropologists in jurisdictions along the border. Bodies decompose rapidly here, and there are minimal sources of antemortem data. Many of these migrants are never identified. This paper, and this symposium, is an attempt to bring this situation to the notice of other anthropologists and to discuss cooperative means of addressing the issue of identification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The structure of an economy in the framework of the Input-Output (IO) model is defined by the set of industries within, together with the set of existing links between those industries, the latter determined by the demand and supply of intermediate goods exerted by the producers. Such a structure can be characterized by a subset of those connections between industries, regarded as the essential substructure, whose analysis allows learning some of the fundamental features of the system at large. This paper presents a qualitative method to find that essential productive structure, employing endogenous IO information only. Furthermore, the proposed method has been used to compare two such structures, namely, the United States and Mexico. Results assign structural positions to each sector in each system and describe the way industries influence one another in each economy. As expected, those results confirm that these economies are structurally different, despite existing similarities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Prior studies suggest that the passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) in 1986 signalled a deterioration in the labour market conditions of Mexican migrants. In this paper, we examine whether and how labour market conditions worsened for Dominicans and Nicaraguans after 1986, and the extent to which these shifts were comparable to those experienced by Mexicans. Our analysis relies on a new source of data that offers comparable data across the three national origins. We estimate multivariate models that capture the effects of demographic attributes, human and social capital, migration-specific human and social capital, legal status, period of trip, national origin, and other controls on the hourly wages earned by household heads and whether they received cash wages on their last US trip. Models with interaction terms reveal significant pre- and post-1986 wage effects, but few differences in these effects between Mexicans and Dominicans or Nicaraguans. In contrast, group differences appear in the risk of cash receipt of wages. Dominicans and Nicaraguans experienced a greater increase in this risk relative to Mexicans pre- and post-1986. Together, these findings depict a broader, negative impact of IRCA on Latino migrant wages than has been documented elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim Climate change has the potential to have an impact on the distribution of ticks and tick-borne diseases. This paper identifies the changes in climate suitability for the tick Rhipicephalus (Boophilus) microplus in the Americas by analysing climate data for the period 1950–99. Location The model was applied to the American continent. Methods A model based on Environmental Niche Modelling was used on a gridded (0.5°) long-term (1950–99) climate data set. A map of the core range of the species was constructed, and areas where habitat suitability (HS) changes suddenly over short time periods were identified as regions of high sensitivity. Tendency of climate in the continent was evaluated and scenarios constructed for 2025 and 2050. Results Regions of high sensitivity included the southern USA, Mexico and western and central Argentina. Analysis of climate variables in these regions identified water vapour pressure deficit and evaporation as underlying the high sensitivity of habitat suitability in the USA and Mexico, and showed that episodes of high variability are linked to the El Niño Southern Oscillation. Projections of the tendency of HS as observed for the 1950–99 period point to an increase in this value in parts of the southern USA and in central Argentina, a finding that can be attributed to the progressive increase in minimum and yearly averaged temperatures. Conclusions Short-term changes in climate may drive the system into unstable situations with sudden changes in habitat suitability for the target tick in specific zones of the Americas. Results suggest an increased abiotic (climate) suitability for R. microplus in areas whose habitat is currently unsuitable for this species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chewing gum is a good example of a commodity whose 'value' is not confined to the sphere of economics. Gum became one of the first products to employ mass advertising and marketing expertise, even in the first decades of the twentieth century. Later chewing gum became associated with all things 'American', and was used as a way of promoting `American values', in sport, entertainment and even politics. Chewing gum assumed iconic status in the United States at a time when its sourcing and raw material (chicle) was largely unknown (or hidden) in Mexico, the chief supplier. The paper argues that consumption can, and often does, acquire primacy within production/consumption circuits, when its use becomes seen as both necessary and inevitable. Products like chewing gum also point to complex cultural relationships, that can extend beyond national boundaries, and illustrate the way in which political economy is supported by fashion and taste. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the U.S. perception of the Mexican War. The facts are that on February 2, 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo was signed between the United States and Mexico. In this treaty, the United States gained approximately 500,000 square miles of territory--including California and the southwestern portion of the United States. Five hundred thousand square miles represented an enormous increase in the territory of the United States and had significant implications for United States society. Despite the general paucity of material, the situation is not hopeless. In 1964, Robert Lewis Taylor authored "Two Roads to Guadalupé," a novel of the Mexican War. The book has two main characters, Blaine and Sam Shelby, who are half brothers. Each ultimately takes a different road to Queretaro and the final treaty of the Mexican War, and the two alternate chapters in the novel as they narrate events. Sam is sarcastic to a fault and looks at the world with great good humor. Life is a lark and only occasionally does reality intrude.

In this paper we present a frame of reference for analysing the possible impact of economic integration under NAFTA on the size, composition and forms of migration between Mexico and the United States. Our argument is that the source of any possible impact on migration ought not to be sought in NAFTA but in the underlying processes of change in production operations. In particular, we contend that the new forms of migration are indicative of structural changes related to changes in labour market dynamics caused by the various forms of labour flexibility introduced in both Mexico and the United States. Both the neoliberal policy implemented in Mexico and economic restructuring in the United States have facilitated the reconfiguration of the two countries' trade relations in a context of more integrated economic and industrial relations. In this regard, labour force mobility within the bloc will depend not so much on the integration process in itself as on the linkage between work processes and labour markets in each economy and in the bloc as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Peoples that span national borders are ambiguous in that they in some ways partake of both nations and in other ways partake of neither. This paper analyzes how the boundary - the power to impose difference - of the United States and Mexico is being eroded by transnational developments causing the structure of the nationstates to become problematic. To the degree that anthropology is an official discipline predicated on the distinction between Self and the alien Other which it presumes to represent, the deterioration of the borders and boundaries of the nation-state have serious implications for its epistemology and legitimacy and its power of representation of transnational communities and of difference in general. Furthermore, as national distinctions decline ethnicity emerges as a consciousness of difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT The pre-Hispanic ballgame was integral in the lives of ancient Mesoamerican communities. Today, modern ballgames closely resembling their pre-Hispanic antecedents are still played in different states throughout Mexico. Here I explore the links between the modern ballgame pelota Mixteca (Mixtec ball) and ethnic identity in Mixtecan communities in Oaxaca and the United States, using data from ethnographic interviews with pelota Mixteca players. I conclude that because cultural traditions are important influences in the (re)shaping of identity, participation in Oaxacan traditions like pelota Mixteca is critical to the creation of a pan-Mixtecan identity among migrant Mixtec groups in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Migration stories abound in pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican history. After the Conquest, indigenous groups continued to migrate as part of Spanish imperial expansive and within the cultural bounds of their own migratory tradition. In spite of state consolidation, people of Mesoamerica have continued moving between borders regardless of how they identify themselves. As these migrant groups have encountered hostility in the U.S. and Mexico, in recent history they have become activists, challenging traditional definitions of what an indigenous community is. A theme in their activism is a migration narrative that echoes those used by their ancestors from pre-Hispanic to present times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which examined the reasons behind the performance of the exporters in the various states in Mexico from 1994 to 2002. The researcher categorized the Mexican exports into two components, namely their foreign market potential and the supply capacity. He found that an increase in supply capacity is directly related to export expansion. He also mentioned that export growth is caused by an increase in the demand from the U.S. rather than an improvement in the competitiveness of exporters.