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This article examines how geographic proximity to the U.S.-Mexico border influences newspaper coverage of immigration issues. The authors investigate two questions: Do media organizations spatially proximate to the border offer more frequent coverage of Latino immigration than media organizations farther removed from the border? Do media organizations spatially proximate to the border offer more frequent coverage of the negative aspects of immigration than media organizations farther removed from the border? We find that news organizations closer to the border generate a higher volume of articles about Latino immigration, articles featuring the negative aspects of immigration, and articles regarding illegal immigration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides new insights into the process of undocumented border crossing by examining both men and women in the process. We investigate differences in the ways in which men and women make their way across the well-guarded Mexico-U.S. border, and the extent to which men and women by the end of the 1990s were similar to, or different from, their counterparts who crossed before 1986 and the implementation of immigration policy designed to reduce undocumented migration. We find substantial differences in how men and women crossed the border without legal documents and in their chances of being apprehended. Our analysis makes clear that shifts in U.S. immigration policy after 1986 have led to women's greater reliance on the assistance of paid smugglers to cross without documents but men were more likely to cross alone. Moreover, immediately after 1986, women on first U.S. trips faced higher risks of being apprehended compared to women who migrated in the early 1980s, but men faced lower risks. After accumulating some U.S. experience, however, both women and men faced lower risks of being detected after 1986 compared to earlier in that decade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Altruism, insurance, and investment are three potential motives for migrant remittances that have been explored in the literature. The model developed in this paper posits an additional motive - that remittances are necessary for the migrant to participate in the employment networks that are based in the village, and thus are partially a payment for the option to change jobs within this network. The model is tested with data on Mexican migrants to the United States and finds support in that network strength and diversity increase remittances, whereas the insurance motive predicts stronger networks will decrease remittances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes differences between legal and illegal Mexican migration to the United States as reflected by the migrant population of a rural, mestizo town in Michoacán,. Mexico, in which 75 percent of families send migrants north on a periodic basis. Data collected during 1977-78 on a total town population numbering 2,621 inhabitants indicated that immigration status plays a key role in determining the size and composition of migrating parties, the duration of time spent away from home, and frequency of movement while in the United States. Compared to illegal migrants, it was found that legal migrants, or holders of U.S. resident visas, tended to migrate in larger groups and were much more likely to be accompanied by wives, children, and non-working dependents. The average period of time spent away from home by legal migrants each year also tended to be significantly less than that of illegals. Finally, legal migrants demonstrated far greater mobility while in the United States than illegals, both in terms of distances traveled and frequency of movement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the factors contributing to the flow of undocumented migrants from Mexico, demonstrating the problem to be both massive and enduring. The authors focus on the inadequate growth of productive employment, income inequality, and rapid population growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay represents an attempt to place the contemporary situation in historical perspective, showing how the American state permitted and indeed had to permit illegal immigration to meet its various commitments to different sectors of capital and labor. The paper outlines the historical dialectics which made illegal immigration the direct consequence not of the weakness, but of the strength of U.S. organized labor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper summarizes the view on the broader structural determinants of the illegal flow held by Mexican scholars concerned with the problem. In the first section, some of the aspects of the country's economic and technological structures are examined; in the second, certain features of the modernization process are dealt with; in the third, an analysis is made of one component of the Mexican migratory flow into the United States; in the last, the migratory flow, seen in the context of the system of `peripheral' and `central' economies, is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on three aspects of the undocumented immigration from Mexico to the United States. First is presented, a statement on the state of the art regarding the empirical research on this phenomenon; second is, a review of what we know on some of the characteristics of this migration and the presentation of preliminary findings of a survey conducted by the author in nine Mexican border cities, based on interviews with Mexican undocumented emigrants recently deported from the United States; and third is, a discussion on past attempts to solve the problems and some suggestions on how it might be solved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using an ethnographic case study of Mexican immigrant construction workers in two U.S. cities and in Mexico, the authors illustrate the contribution of immigrant skill as a resource for changing workplace practices. As a complement to explanations that situate the protection of job quality and the defense of skill to external institutions, the authors show that immigrants use collective learning practices to improve job quality from inside the work environment-that is to say from the inside-out. The authors also find that immigrants use collective skill-building practices to negotiate for improvements to their jobs; however, their ability to do so depends on the institutions that organize production locally. Particular attention is given to the quality of those industry institutions, noting that where they are more malleable, immigrant workers gain more latitude to alter their working conditions and their prospects for advancement [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article draws on more than 15 years of research to analyze “Black Mexicans,” phenotypically “Mexican-looking” youth who identified as Black during adolescence, used this identity to become upwardly mobile, and then abandoned it in early adulthood. Black Mexicans are potentially iconic cases among emerging varieties of U.S. ethnic and racial life, given Mexicans’ status as a key, usually negative, case in assimilation theory. Most such theory posits that assimilation into Black, inner-city culture leads to downward mobility. To explain how and why this did not happen for Black Mexicans, I propose a sensitizing framework using the concepts of conjunctural ethnicity, emphasizing analysis of racial and ethnic identity in local, historical, and life course contexts; and operating identity, which analyzes identities in interactions and can accommodate slippage in informants’ understanding or use of ethnic and racial categories. Some Mexicans used a Black culture of mobility to become upwardly mobile in the late-1990s and early-2000s in New York, adopting a socially advantaged operating identity that helped them in ways they felt Mexicanness could not in that historical conjuncture, especially given intra-ethnic competition between teen migrants and second-generation youth. This article uses case-based ethnographic analysis and net-effects analysis to explain why and how Blackness aided upward mobility among Black and non-Black Mexicans, but was left behind in early adulthood. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Latino immigrants are 50% more likely than all workers in the United States to experience a fatal injury at work. Occupational safety and health (OSH) organizations often find that the approaches and networks they successfully use to promote OSH among U.S.-born workers are ineffective at reaching Latino immigrants. This article describes the collaboration between the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Secretaría de Relaciones Exteriores) to promote OSH among Mexican immigrant workers. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs operates 50 consulates throughout the U.S. that provide four million discrete service contacts with Mexican citizens annually. The focus of this ongoing collaboration is to develop the internal capacity of Mexican institutions to promote OSH among Mexican immigrants while simultaneously developing NIOSH's internal capacity to create effective and sustainable initiatives to better document and reduce occupational health disparities for Mexican immigrants in the U.S. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why are there so many unauthorized migrants in the United States? Using unique survey data collected in Mexico through the Mexican Migration Project, I develop and test a new decision-making model of unauthorized labor migration. The new model considers the economic motivations of prospective migrants, as well as their beliefs, attitudes, and social norms regarding U.S. immigration law and legal authorities. My findings show that perceptions of certainty of apprehension and severity of punishment are not significant determinants of the intent to migrate illegally; however, perceptions of availability of Mexican jobs and the dangers of border crossing are significant determinants of these intentions. In addition, individuals’ general legal attitudes, morality about violating U.S. immigration law, views about the legitimacy of U.S. authority, and norms about border crossing are significant determinants of the intent to migrate illegally. Perceptions of procedural justice are significantly related to beliefs in the legitimacy of U.S. authority, suggesting that, all else being equal, procedural fairness may produce greater deference to U.S. immigration law. Together, the results show that the decision to migrate illegally cannot be fully understood without considering an individual’s underlying values and norms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article explores the connection between immigration to the U.S. from Mexico and Central America and the rate of minimum wage per state in the contiguous 48 U.S. states. It addresses the effect of raising the minimum wage on employment and influx of Mexican and Central American immigrants. It comments on the ability of states to control their rates of immigration by adjusting the minimum wage within the state, the status of low-wage immigrants in the U.S., and an explanation of the dispersal of Mexicans and Central Americans within the U.S.

Family-school-community partnerships are critically important for the academic success of all students. Unfortunately, in the face of specific barriers, Mexican immigrants struggle to engage in partnership efforts. In the hopes of promoting the engagement of Mexican immigrant families in partnerships, this article presents the findings of a transnational ethnography, exploring family-school-community partnership experiences of Mexican nationalists in Veracruz and Mexican immigrants in North Carolina. A portrait of partnerships in Mexico is contrasted with a portrait of partnerships in the United States, highlighting similarities and differences in role, structure, and function. School counselors are offered strategies for utilizing the knowledge of partnerships in Mexico to promote and support the engagement of Mexican immigrants in partnerships in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the wake of presidential elections in Mexico and with immigration reform in the United States still largely undetermined, scholars and politicians on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border are the first to recognize the fundamental need to address Mexico's emigration problem from within. Focusing on the views and experiences of those who stay behind provides important insights on this issue. Although anecdotal evidence suggests that middle-class Mexicans are emigrating in greater numbers as a result of mounting economic pressures, there is little empirical evidence that this is the case. Rather, they have resorted to strategies such as taking second jobs or making substantial cuts in household and leisure expenses. A strong social and cultural investment ties middle-class Mexicans to their country, and this investment has consequences for Mexico's labor market reform and, by extension, its emigration patterns and flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes gender relations among women in a transnational Mexican community. Gender empowerment, gender ideals and practice, and the division of labor in households between the genders differ across genders and borders. The study views these differences with a home-host dichotomy in that home countries encompass patriarchal oppression, while host societies offer the opportunity of increased equality and freedom from patriarchy. Findings suggest that U.S. women have more authority in the family and greater responsibility. Mexican women uphold the idea of male dominance, but gaps are noted between gender ideals and practice.

In this article, the authors first give attention to main factors that resulted in the passage of NAFTA and subsequently investigate Mexican migration to the United States during roughly the same period that the bilateral treaty has been in effect. At the center of the relationship between economic liberalization and immigration is the paradox of increasing capital mobility and attempts at controlling more tightly the movement of immigrant workers. Although immigration from Mexico has remained flat over the past ten years, the Mexican population in the United States has grown rapidly, partly as a result of the unanticipated effects of harsh immigration policies since 1986. Prior to that date, Mexicans engaged in cyclical movements, but as security measures became harsher, especially in the 9/11 period, more immigrants and their families settled in the United States hoping to avert the dangers of exit and reentry. This analysis shows the slanted function of borders that have become permeable for capital but increasingly restrictive for immigrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both U.S. and Mexican sociologies allege that they are in the business of making true scientific knowledge claims about the social world. Conventional conceptions of science notwithstanding, I demonstrate that their claims to truth and scientificity are based on alternative epistemological grounds. Drawing a random sample of nonquantitative articles from four leading journals, I show that, first, they assign a different role to theories, and indeed they have dissimilar understandings of what a theory should consist of. Second, whereas U.S. sociology actively struggles against subjectivity, Mexican sociology maximizes the potentials of subjective viewpoints. Third, U.S. sociologists tend to regard highly and Mexican sociologists to eagerly disregard the principle of ethical neutrality. These consistent and systematic differences raise two theoretical issues. First, I argue that Mexican and U.S. sociologies are epistemologically, semantically, and perceptually incommensurable. I contend that this problem is crucial for sociology's interest in the social conditioning of scientific knowledge's content. Second, I suggest four lines of thought that can help us explain the epistemological differences I find. Finally, I argue that sociologists would greatly profit from studying epistemologies in the same fashion they have studied other kinds of scientific and nonscientific beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic and population growth in the U.S.-Mexico border region has had a negative impact on the region's water resources. Although water-related problems along the border are binational in nature, the presence of interdependence alone might not be sufficient to overcome the considerable obstacles to binational collaboration. This study seeks to explain the presence and absence of binational civil society collaboration to address water-related problems in the U.S.-Mexico border region. To do so, the research compares levels of binational civil society collaboration in the Tijuana-San Diego, Ambos Nogales, Paso del Norte, and Los Dos Laredos areas. The study finds that while interdependence is a powerful concept, domestic political institutions create opportunities to pursue policy concerns through domestic channels. While transnational institutions exist, only the Border 2012 program currently produces binational civil society collaboration. Successful cooperation is dependent on key network actors that can bridge differences across the border. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with a largely overlooked consequence of Mexico's process of economic restructuring in the past 2 decades: the incorporation of the country `s skilled industrial workers into U.S.-bound migratory flow. In Mexico, restructuring has transformed workplaces and undermined employment stability and wage and benefits systems that used to keep industrial workers from migrating to the United States. By studying a working-class neighborhood in Monterrey, Mexico, this article seeks to show how migration has become part of the structure of labor market opportunities of displaced manufacturing operatives and how these workers have managed to transfer skills to the oil technology and extraction industries at their main U.S. destination, Houston, Texas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Religion is increasingly moving beyond private confines to public venues, where it challenges and informs public morality and civil society. This article focuses on the Posada Sin Fronteras, an annual political and religious-informed event that calls attention to the rising death toll at the LLS.-Mexico border caused by changes in U.S. border enforcement policies. Based on ethnographic data and on-the-spot interviews with participants at the event, this article analyzes the Posada as a collective ritual and examines the meanings it holds for its varied participants. The crisis in U.S. immigration and border enforcement policies, and the cultural influences brought about by Mexican and, to lesser extent, Central American immigration provide the conditions for the Posada. Interfaith religious morality allows for the adoption of Mexican and Catholic cultural forms by diverse groups, including people who are of neither Mexican nor Catholic heritage. We refer to this process as "religio-ethnic cultural expansion," and we suggest that religious discourse of Christian kinship, unity, and shared humanity constitute one of the key forces animating the post- national challenge to nation-state border and citizenship policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deals with the citizen submission process administered by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), one of the key concessions made to the environmental movement by the governments of Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. in their effort to build political support for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1993. Overview of the NAFTA; Role of CEC in the area of enforcement of international trade; Status of citizen submissions on enforcement matters; Revisions of guidelines for submissions on enforcement matters.

As an American volunteer colonel during the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), Alexander W. Doniphan played a leading role in the earliest experiences of the U.S. military government. Serving as an officer in the U.S. expedition that captured Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1846, Doniphan was ordered to write a constitution and set of laws for the New Mexico Territory. Furthermore, Doniphan had to deal with the ethnically diverse population of the conquered lands. He negotiated a treaty with the Navajo tribe in hopes of establishing peaceful relations between the tribe and the United States. Other officers, both regulars and volunteers, later performed similar duties in the captured territory of California. Comprehensive works on military government point to Doniphan's actions as helping to set the example for U.S. military governments in other captured territories after the war with Spain in 1898 and into the twentieth century. Moreover, Doniphan was also involved in an incident that served as an important example of the difficulties of nineteenth century civil-military relations during wartime. Believing that he would need privately owned supplies while his expedition operated in enemy territory, Doniphan ordered goods to be commandeered for his soldiers' use. The owner of the supplies sued for compensation and his case proceeded all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court ruled that Doniphan and his subordinates had acted improperly in confiscating the supplies, thus forcing military officers to be aware that they could not take arbitrary actions even in the face of enemy armed forces in enemy territory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined the ways in which Mexican-American students construct meaning when reading school materials. It focused on the strategies they use when reading English and Spanish, the knowledge sources they call upon, and the ways in which these relate to understanding. Twelve fifth-grade students, all who come from bilingual homes, were asked to read both Spanish and English stories and informational pieces. Interspersed questions, post reading probes, and oral and written recalls were designed to tap their text understanding over time, as well as what they recalled after reading each piece. Interviews and school records provided background information about the students personal and school histories both in the United Stares and in Mexico. Transcripts, fieldnotes, and student writing samples were analyzed for patterns in the students' approaches to the construction of meaning and in their differential uses of language and genre. Findings indicate that: (a) beyond a necessary basic, but limited knowledge of English. the students' abilities to use good meaning-making strategies made the major difference in how well they comprehended in both Spanish and English; (b) the students' language competence in Spanish helped them understand and respond to questions in both languages; (c) the students' familiarity with genre affected their ability to build meanings in both languages; and (d) the kinds of questions the students were asked affected their ability to communicate what they understood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the author examines the politics of pesticide poisoning among farm workers in Mexico. The author investigates pesticide use and abuse in the country and analyzes the economic and policy aspects of commercial export agriculture at the national and international levels. He also documents how protection of U.S. consumers has aggravated the already horrendous working and living conditions of Mexican migrant workers in the state of Sinaloa. The author concludes that the problem must be faced in the context of a political and economic system that is not open to generalized social change.

This report examines the process of integration and settlement among Mexican migrants to the United States using data specially collected from four Mexican sending communities. These data indicate that as migrants accumulate experience in the United States, social and economic ties are formed which progressively increase the likelihood of U.S. settlement. Over time, migrants bring family members abroad, make new friends, establish Institutional connections, and obtain more stable, better paying jobs. As a result, less money is remitted home to Mexico, and more is spent in the United States. These trends give rise to a steady, cumulative increase in the probability of U.S. settlement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents a portrait of Mexican small business negotiations with United States companies and of the elements essential for their success. Challenges of negotiating in the global marketplace facing small businesses; Negotiation from the viewpoint of a small firm; Experiences of Mexican negotiators with American firms.