Browsing by Subject "Mexican Americans"
Now showing 1 - 20 of 26
- Results Per Page
- Sort Options
Item The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the U.S. Mexico Border: Text and Map Analysis Assignment(2019-08-21) Perez Allison, Alexandrea Noel; Palacios, Albert A.This assignment helps students think critically about the geographical and political definition of the U.S.-Mexico boundary and its effect on people living in the borderlands through the analysis of the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo text and contemporary historical maps.Item The campus climate of a border HSI : redefining Latino student success(2011-05) Cortez, Laura Jean; Sáenz, Victor B.; Vincent, Gregory J.; Reddick, Richard J.; Rodriguez, Victoria E.; Yamamura, Erica K.The number of Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) is on the rise. Research suggests that institutions designated as HSIs graduate over fifty percent of Latinos enrolled in college (Santiago, 2006). However, few studies have examined the campus climate of HSIs and how such climate may influence the degree attainment of first-generation, Mexican American students. Considering the instrumental role HSIs have had in advancing the number of Latinos in postsecondary education, this study investigates the campus climate of an HSI along the U.S.-Mexico Border. By utilizing the theoretical frameworks of funds of knowledge (Moll, Amanti, Neff & Gonzalez, 1992) and organizational habitus (McDonough, 1997) this qualitative study involved first-generation, Mexican American students, faculty, and administrators from the University of Texas-Pan American (UTPA). Data collection methods included: student focus groups, individual interviews, observations, reflective notes and a review of relevant documents. Instrumentation used for this study incorporated a student questionnaire as well as pre-established interview questions. Findings revealed students’ perceptions of a Border HSIs, the experiences they describe as helpful in allowing them to obtain a degree; and the institutional characteristics faculty and administrators found critical in allowing first-generation, Mexican American students to persist. This study builds upon a pilot conducted in 2009-2010, that assessed Latino students’ perceptions of HSIs. The goal of this study is 1) to contribute to the literature on first-generation, Mexican American student success and 2) to further enrich our knowledge about the campus climate of Border HSIs and their role in degree attainment of Latinos.Item Constituting citizens 'Mexican migrants' and the discourses and practices of United States citizenship(2005) Plascencia, Luis F. B.; Menchaca, MarthaThis dissertation examines the discourses and practices of citizenship in the United States through an analysis of interviews carried out with a group of Mexican migrants who are in the process of acquiring, or have recently acquired, U.S. citizenship, participation and observations at citizenship promotion events and naturalization ceremonies, and interviews of individuals promoting citizenship. The discourses of citizenship are contextualized through an examination of statutes, historical material, legal cases, and other documents. Theoretically, the dissertation addresses the undertheorized notion that power not only asserts a disciplining and coercive force upon individuals, but that, following Foucault, it has a ‘productive’ force, it produces subjectivities. It is argued that the effectiveness of the discursive formation of citizenship depends on its making sense to individuals, and its ability to hold out the possibility of meeting the needs and desires of individuals. Previous work has not adequately examined the broader process encompassing the promotion of citizenship, assistance with the application, citizenship classes, and naturalization ceremonies. The social science literature on citizenship has not paid sufficient attention to affects such as fidelity in the constitution of citizens, specifically “good citizens.” Fidelity is demanded by state citizenship and it overlaps with other discourses that are part of the lived experience of individuals. The discourses and practices of citizenship overlap with schooling, with graduation ceremonies, and with weddings. All of these practices, and the discourses involved, invoke fidelity: fidelity to the state and its institutions, fidelity to one’s school, and fidelity to one’s marriage partner. In sum, the attributes of a “good citizen,” and our desire to possess the positively-defined elements, contribute to the functioning of the state, the military, the workplace, the school, and the family; and to the production of governable subjects. The dissertation also discusses the overlooked everyday uses of the notion of “citizen,” and the possibility of disenchantment with the acquisition of juridical citizenship; and offers a critique of critics who are concerned with the “devaluing of citizenship” and the lack of “sanctity” in the contemporary taking of the citizenship Oath.Item Depressive symptoms, behavioral health risk factors, and physical illness among older Mexican Americans(2010-12) Talavera-Garza, Liza; Holahan, Charles J.; Bigler, Rebecca S.; Iscoe, Ira; Ramirez, Manuel; Warner, David C.This study utilized data from the Hispanic Established Populations for Epidemiologic Studies of the Elderly (H-EPESE) at two different time points, seven years apart, to examine the relationship between physical illness and depressive symptoms in elderly Mexican Americans. The two physical illnesses studied are coronary artery disease and type II diabetes due to their high prevalence among Mexican Americans. The relationship between physical illness and depressive symptoms is examined longitudinally and prospectively, in both directions. In addition, the relationship between depressive symptoms and three behavioral health risk factors: alcohol use, cigarette smoking, and physical inactivity, at baseline is examined. The roles of gender, acculturation, nativity, and locus of control are examined as moderators of the key relationships studied. Additionally, self-rated health at baseline is examined as a predictor of physical illness and mortality at follow-up.Item "The face of god has changed" : Tejana cultural production and the politics of spirituality in the borderlands(2010-08) Sendejo, Brenda Lee; Flores, Richard R.; Menchaca, Martha; Strong, Pauline; Martinez, Anne M.; Zamora, EmilioThis ethnography of spirituality explores the production of cultural practices and beliefs among a group of Texas Mexican women (Tejanas) of the post-World War II generation. These women have been involved with various social justice initiatives since the 1960s and 1970s in Texas, such as the Chicana feminist and Chicano civil rights movements. This study explains how race, ethnicity, and gender intersect and interact in these women’s geographic and spiritual borderlands to produce a pattern of change in the ways they choose to engage with religion, particularly Catholicism. While the Tejana spiritual productions examined here are in many ways distinct from the religious practices of these women’s Catholic upbringings, they also recall religious rituals and traditions from their imagined, constructed, and engaged pasts. Some women have left Catholicism for other forms of spiritual fulfillment, including earth-based, indigenous, and/or Eastern religious practices, while others have remained Catholic-identified, yet altered how they practice Catholicism. A common theme in the narratives is that of spiritual agency – the conscious decision women make to reconfigure their spiritual practices and beliefs. I explore the meaning of such acts and what they indicate about the construction of spiritual and religious identities in the borderlands. I argue that because gender structures Tejana religious experiences to such a wide extent, a critical gender analysis of religious and spiritual practices will provide deeper insight into the making of Texas Mexican culture and social relations. I examine the women’s life experiences through a methodological framework I call mujerista ethnography, which draws on oral history and research methods employed by feminist, indigenous, and Chicana/o Studies scholars. In order to further illustrate how the women’s material and spiritual needs have changed so as to require new forms of spiritual engagement, I engage in a critical self-reflection of my own spiritual journey as a Tejana raised in the Catholic faith through the use of autoethnographic research methods and testimonio. I argue that these Tejanas have extended the political, feminist, and historical consciousnesses that they cultivated in Mexican American social causes into the religious and spiritual realms. For instance, these women transferred their critique of gender politics and hierarchies of power into the social setting of organized Catholicism with new spiritual practices and understandings, effectively remaking religion and subsequently engaging in processes of self-making by changing the ways they interact with Catholicism and are affected by it. Religion, as a site of social struggle for women, is political, that is, these Tejanas transformed the spiritual into a site of resistance, resolution, and reconciliation where they disrupt and challenge hierarchies of power and create strategies for healing themselves, their communities, and the earth.Item Freaks of the industry : peculiarities of place and race in Bay Area hip-hop(2010-05) Morrison, Amanda Maria, 1975-; Hartigan, John, 1964-; Flores, Richard R.; Stewart, Kathleen; Perez, Domino; Wakins, CraigThrough ethnography, I examine how hip-hop’s expressive forms are being used as the raw materials of everyday life by residents of the San Francisco Bay Area, home to what many regard as one of the most stylistically prolific, politically charged, and racially diverse hip-hop “scenes” in the world. This focus on regional specificity provides a greater understanding of the impact hip-hop is having on the ground, as an aspect of localized lived practice. Throughout, I make the case for the importance of ethnographically grounded localized research on U.S. hip-hop, which is surprisingly still relatively rare. Most scholars simply stress its continuity within a set of deterritorialized Diasporic African and African-American verbal-art traditions. My aim is not to contest this assertion, but to add to the body of knowledge about one of the most significant cultural inventions of the twentieth century by exploring hip-hop’s racial heterogeneity and its regional specificity. Acknowledging this kind of diversity allows us to reconceive what hip-hop is and how it matters in U.S. society beyond the ways it is usually framed: as either an oppositional form of black-vernacular culture or a co-opted and corrupted commodity form that reinscribes hegemonic values more than it actually contests them. Examining hip-hop within a specific, regionally delineated community reveals how hip-hop’s role in American life is more nuanced and complex. It is neither a pure vernacular expression of an oppressed class nor merely a cultural commodity imposed upon consumers and alienated from producers. In the Bay Area, hip-hop “heads” simultaneously consume mass-produced rap while producing homespun forms of music, dance, slang, fashion, and folklore. Through these forms, they construct individual and group identities that register primarily in expressive, affective terms. These novel cultural identities complicate rigid social markers of race, gender, and class; more specifically, they challenge the widely held perception that hip-hop is solely the terrain of inner-city young African-American men. More fundamentally, a sense of belonging is engendered through localized modes of expression and embodied style that manifest through shared practices, discourses, texts, symbols, locales, and imaginaries.Item The immigrant as an adolescent consumer(2011-05) Sanchez, Magaly Torres; Henderson, Geraldine R. (Geraldine Rosa), 1963-; Rivera, MariaThis report examines the role of Latino consumers, specifically looking at Mexican-Americans and their first generation experiences. It looks at how these experiences influence their consumption patterns. While observing the idea that first generation Latinos are much like ‘adolescent consumers’, a concept stemming from the idea that much like teenagers Latino immigrants are in a sense coming of age in this country. They are under a whole different set of social norms, cultural expectations and values different from their country of origin. This report proposes a reconsideration of the heuristics that marketers hold for Latino consumer spending habits. It maintains the idea that Latino consumer behaviors should be attributed and conceptualized as a process of maturation, not just based on culture and class. Lastly it re-examines the Customer Based Brand Equity model and places it in the context of the Latino consumer while keeping in mind the above framework about Latinos as adolescent consumers.Item Latina ambassadors : the Benito Juárez Squadron and Pan-Americanism during World War II(2016-09-13) Martínez, Valerie Ann; Zamora, Emilio; Martínez, Anne M., 1966-; Butler, Matthew; Rivas-Rodríguez, Mary; Walker, Juliet E.K.Situated within the theoretical framework of Pan-Americanism and the Pan American ideal in the 1930s and 40s, "Latina Ambassadors" examines an unprecedented collaborative recruitment effort between Women's Army Corps officials and leading Latin-American organizations to solicit 200 women of Latin American descent from San Antonio and its environs. Based on research conducted at twenty archives, my dissertation argues that the creation of the Benito Juárez Squadron represented a pivotal point in the history of U.S-Latin American relations when political and military leaders in the U.S and Mexico were building a system of unity and reciprocity in the Americas. The project uncovers how Mexican American community leaders and WAC recruiting agents strategically utilized Latina bodies and their cultural heritage to purposely promote them as the embodiment of hemispheric democracy. The women however, also consciously participated in the promotion of amicable international relations and had their own gendered reasons for enlisting in the WAC. This work demonstrates the importance of understanding the impact of international politics at the local level and adds an additional layer to the growing scholarship on Mexican American civil rights, with its emphasis on the symbolic and real roles of women.Item The LIBERATOR Archive, May 2017(University of Texas at Austin, 2017-05) University of Texas at AustinItem Living arrangements of the U.S. Mexican origin older adult population(2019-12) Cantu, Phillip; Angel, Ronald; Hayward, Mark D.; Angel, Jacqueline L; Powers, Daniel; Ward, PeterThis dissertation examines late life living arrangements for the US older Mexican origin population. Among older adults, Mexican Americans are less likely than non-Hispanic whites to use formal long-term care services. Instead, Mexican Americans stay in their homes even after they become seriously impaired. While most frail older adults prefer to live at home or in the community rather than in long-term care facilities extended life expectancies require new empirical research on living arrangements. My dissertation builds on previous related research in several important ways. By focusing on Mexican in particular, I am able to examine a more homogenous group of Latinos than previous living arrangement research. The specific life expectancies and preferences for living arrangements of the Mexican American population make them a unique case for understanding the relationship between cognitive impairment and living arrangement. My research reveals substantial economic and health vulnerabilities among very old parents who live with children, but not as the head of household. In late old age, elderly parents in households in which they are not the head are highly dependent and experience high levels of ADL disability and cognitive impairment. Wealthier more established adult child caregivers make it possible for their elderly parents to co-reside. Thus, moving in with one’s children may serve as a functional alternative to a nursing home for the Mexican-origin oldest-old. I find that the extended lives of older Mexican American women relative to men are spent mostly living either alone or in extended households with other family members and not in non-family living care. Additionally, men spend nearly 40% of their years after age 65 living with their spouse only. Men spend only 13% of their years alone and another 13% living in extended households without a spouse. The differences in living arrangement by nativity status were generally along lines of household extension, foreign born men spent more time living in married extended households compared to US born men and foreign born women spent more time in single extended households compared to US born women. These findings are in line with previous research showing that foreign born Mexican Americans tend to have greater preference for household extensions in the case becoming incapacitated, however this research is the first to estimate to what extent those preferences result in greater duration living with others. Older Mexican adults in the US are twice as likely to live alone as people in Mexico. Nearly one in four people with dementia in the US and one in ten people with dementia in Mexico are living alone. Given rapid population aging trends, a lower mortality and fertility regime, Mexico is likely to mirror patterns of living arrangements in the US in the future. Although community care can increase the period of at least marginal autonomy, increasing life spans will mean a growing burden on public budgetsItem Low fertility among intermarried Mexican-Americans : an assessment of three hypotheses(1995-05) Berg, Ruth Roanna, 1961-; Not availableItem Making the modern migrant : work, community, and struggle in the federal Migratory Labor Camp Program, 1935-1947(2009-12) Martínez-Matsuda, Verónica; Zamora, Emilio; Green, Laurie B.; Falola, Toyin O.; Gutiérrez, David G.; McKiernan-González, JohnDuring the New Deal, the Farm Security Administration (FSA) developed what is arguably one of the most provocative and far-reaching programs for farm workers undertaken by the U.S. federal government to date. Through the Migratory Labor Camp Program the FSA promised to efficiently funnel workers to fulfill the agricultural industry’s labor demands while providing migrants modern, up-to-date housing and services to alleviate the well-documented substandard conditions many faced. Most scholars have analyzed the camps primarily as sites of labor, capital, and state regulation. Rather than view the camp program as simply a government effort to more efficiently coordinate the nation’s farm labor market, this study argues that the services, programs, and activities FSA officials administered in the camps sought to regulate and transform significant and often intimate social and cultural aspects of migrants’ daily lives. By examining the role of the camps’ architecture, medical clinics, nurseries and elementary schools, as well as the “self-governing” camp committees and councils, this dissertation engages in a gendered analysis of labor to reveal how the federal camps were unique dual-purpose domestic and labor spaces. Analyzing the camps as simultaneous productive and reproductive sites allows us to see them as part of a contested terrain in which complex issues of identity, community, citizenship, and labor were negotiated on a daily basis, affecting U.S. farm labor and race relations well beyond the perimeters of the federal camps.Item The mediating effect of acculturation on the effectiveness of culturally adapted cognitive behavioral therapy with Mexican Americans suffering from depression(2009-05) Villalobos, Griselda; Padilla, Yolanda C.; Holleran, Lori K.The purpose of this research study is to explore the role of culture in how Mexican Americans respond to mental health treatment. Cultural background is likely to affect not only the meaning attributed to mental illness, but also help-seeking and responses to treatment. Creating a match between treatment modalities and people's cultural backgrounds requires consideration of a person's cultural context. Cultural characteristics can vary not only across cultural groups, but even within groups can change across time. This study used a quasi-experimental pretest/posttest comparison group design to analyze culturally adapted cognitive behavioral therapy (CACBT) with Mexican Americans diagnosed with depression. A purposive nonprobability sample of 81 adult Mexican Americans diagnosed with depression was recruited from a mental health agency in El Paso, Texas. Forty-eight participants were assigned to a treatment group, which received CACBT, and 33 to a comparison group, which received treatment as usual. Depression was measured using the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9). Participant acculturation level was measured using the Acculturation Rating Scale for Mexican Americans-II. Independent and paired t tests were used to examine the effectiveness of the culturally adapted intervention. OLS regression analyses examined whether acculturation mediated the relationship between the culturally adapted intervention and depression. No direct effect was found between CACBT and depression relative to treatment as usual. The results showed that CACBT and treatment as usual both decreased depression scores. However, the interaction effect between acculturation and group assignment was significantly related to posttest depression scores. Thus, the effect of CACBT varied according to acculturation level. This study demonstrates the role that acculturation plays in how Mexican Americans respond to mental health treatment. An implication for social work practice is the need to use evidence-based practices that have been tested for their cultural appropriateness with Mexican Americans.Item The Mexican American Archival Enterprise: Assessing the Legacy of the Benson(LLILAS Benson Latin American Studies and Collections, 2013) Martinez, Valerie; Villarreal, DavidItem Mexican American in Texas: Notable Works, 1985-1989(Benson Latin American Collection, 1990-05) Gutiérrez, MargoThis short, multidisciplinary bibliography brings together an array of recently published works on various aspects of the Chicano community in Texas. With a few exceptions, the publications listed here fall within the social sciences. Many of these works share a common theme--mexicano attempts to redress a legacy of maltreatment and denial of fundamental civil rights. All titles cited are located in the Benson Latin American Collection.Item Mexican Americans in Texas: Notable Works, 1990-1996(Benson Latin American Collection, 1997-05) Gutiérrez, MargoThis bibliography updates Biblionoticias No. 55, Mexican Americans in Texas: Notable Works, 1985-1989 and, with few exceptions, lists only published works that treat historical and social science topics relating to the Mexican American presence in Texas, from the Spanish colonial period to the present. Other titles that treat topics integral to the Mexican American cultural landscape are also included.Item Mexican Americans Show Educational Progress Across Generations When Measurement Limitations Are Overcome(University of Texas at Austin Population Research Center, 2020) Duncan, Brian; Grogger, Jeffrey; León, Ana Sofia; Trejo, Stephen J.Item Psychosocial influences of acculturation and acculturative stress on leptin, adiponectin, and gestational diabetes in Mexican American women during pregnancy(2013-12) Muñoz, Silvia Esquivel; Kintner, EileenThe purpose of this biobehavioral study was to explore relationships between psychosocial stressors of acculturation, acculturative stress, and metabolic markers of leptin and adiponectin in Mexican American women with and without gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM). A case control design was used for this secondary analysis which included a sample of 38 pregnant women with GDM and 38 healthy controls without GDM, who were matched on age and BMI status. Subjects completed two surveys—the Multidimensional Acculturation Scale II (MASII) and the Multidimensional Acculturative Stress Inventory (MASI)—which measured acculturation and acculturative stress. Descriptive statistics, Pearson r correlations, and independent sample t-tests were used to analyze the data. The results from this study indicated that significant relationships do exist between some of the variables of interest; however, there were no overall significant differences found between women with and without gestational diabetes. These mixed results may be an indicator of a need to further explore these concepts.Item Qualitative descriptive study of Mexican Americans health-seeking experience during myocardial infarction(2013-12) Sanderson, Jennifer Dawn MaLyssa; Carter, Patricia A.Premature death due to cardiovascular disease, including myocardial infarction, is higher in Hispanics (23.5%) than non-Hispanic White (16.5%) adults. Delaying treatment over 60 minutes increases the risk of sudden death by 50%. The purpose of this study was to describe the perceived benefits and barriers to seeking cardiac emergency care including emergency medical services (EMS) activation during an acute myocardial infarction (MI) in Mexican American adults. A qualitative descriptive design was used wherein semi-structured interviews and sociodemographic questionnaire were conducted with 12 Mexican Americans who had experienced an MI in the last two years. Qualitative conventional content analysis was used to uncover unique perceptions of Mexican Americans seeking emergency care. The overall theme that arose was degree of perceived threat leads to action. This theme was comprised five categories: perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived barriers, perceived benefits, and learned behavior. Perceived severity was closely intertwined with perceived susceptibility. Recent appointments with HCPs facilitated low perceived susceptibility to an MI and acted as a barrier leading to ix decreased initiation of emergency services for MI. Participants attempted self-treatment and evaluation which was a barrier to immediate emergency care. Perceived benefits to initiation of emergency care were using EMS to achieve rapid treatment of MI symptoms. Though several participants initially stated they would activate EMS, further inquiry revealed calling EMS was considered a last resort if the participant were alone. The findings suggest education of lay people and HCPs needs to emphasize that MIs can present in a variety of ways from slow-onset to fast-onset. A goal for nursing practice is to include regular screening on cardiac risk factors along with interventions and evaluation among patients and family. Future research should aim at finding the most successful format to provide public education to Mexican Americans on MI symptom and rapid initiation of EMS.Item Saint Town(2020-05) Torres, BrianaSaint Town is a collection of short stories that focus on Mexican American women living in a fictional United States town. This thesis examines the generational gaps between immigrants/first generation Latinx people and second/third generation Latinx people. The themes touched on in this work include class, mental health, gender, religion, immigration, and culture. This thesis explores the more ‘Americanized’ experiences second- and third-generation Latinx people undergo. By framing these stories through a first-person lens, the reader will be able to perceive the disparities between the generations and understand how culture dictates characters’ decisions. Saint Town attempts to illustrate the rise of individualism within this community and its clash with the Latinx expectations that surround the characters. The terms Latinx and Mexican American will be used interchangeably throughout this thesis. Mexican Americans fall under the category of Latin-American people. Latinx is the gender-neural and non-binary umbrella term for people of Latin American origin. It is used in order to account for everyone in the community and to respect their identities.