Unemployment among Mexican immigrant men in the United States, 2003–2012

In the 1940s, curbing undocumented Mexican immigrant entry into the United States became a US government priority because of an alleged immigration surge, which was blamed for the unemployment of an estimated 252,000 US domestic agricultural laborers. Publicly committed to asserting its control of undocumented Mexican immigrant entry, the US government used Operation Wetback, a binational INS border-enforcement operation, to strike a delicate balance between satisfying US growers’ unending demands for surplus Mexican immigrant labor and responding to the jobs lost by US domestic agricultural laborers. Yet Operation Wetback would also unintentionally and unexpectedly fuel a distinctly transnational pathway to legalization, marriage, and extended family formation for some Mexican immigrants.On July 12, 1951, US president Harry S. Truman’s signing of Public Law 78 initiated such a pathway for an estimated 125,000 undocumented Mexican immigrant laborers throughout the United States. This law was an extension the Bracero Program, a labor agreement between the Mexican and US governments that authorized the temporary contracting of braceros (male Mexican contract laborers) for labor in agricultural production and railroad maintenance. It was formative to undocumented Mexican immigrant laborers’ transnational pursuit of decisively personal goals in both Mexico and the United States.Section 501 of this law, which allowed employers to sponsor certain undocumented laborers, became a transnational pathway toward formalizing extended family relationships between braceros and Mexican American women. This article seeks to begin a discussion on how Operation Wetback unwittingly inspired a distinctly transnational approach to personal extended family relationships in Mexico and the United States among individuals of Mexican descent and varying legal statuses, a social matrix that remains relatively unexplored.

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“La Idea Mueve” (The Idea Moves Us)

10.1093/oso/9780199914142.003.0008 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

Gabriela González

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Mexican American ◽

The United States ◽

Mexican Immigrant ◽

Democratic Institutions ◽

Scientific Racism ◽

Men And Women ◽

Political Beliefs ◽

Age Of Enlightenment

The concluding chapter explains how race had served defenders of slavery by providing them with an excuse to hold men and women in bondage. For their inhumane treatment of Africans during the Age of Enlightenment to be justified, their humanity needed to be ideologically stripped away—scientific racism served that purpose. Racist theories also kept other groups in subaltern positions. Mexicans with mestizo, mulatto, and Indian genealogies experienced racialization in the United States. Simply put, Americans, proud of their liberal political heritage and their democratic institutions, needed to see oppressed groups as somehow sub-human in order to reconcile their political beliefs with the nation’s less than egalitarian realities. It is for this reason that the politics of redemption practiced by Mexican immigrant and Mexican American activists merits attention.

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Domestic Violence Victimization among South Asian Immigrant Men and Women in the United States

Journal of Interpersonal Violence ◽

10.1177/08862605211015262 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 088626052110152

Author(s):

Abha Rai ◽

Y. Joon Choi

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Domestic Violence ◽

South Asian ◽

South Asians ◽

The United States ◽

Asian Immigrant ◽

Men And Women ◽

Violence Victimization ◽

Immigrant Men ◽

South Asian Immigrant

Domestic violence is a pernicious social problem in the United States and a cause of national concern. The South Asian culture disempowers individuals experiencing domestic violence from recognizing and reporting victimization. Structural inequities may also discourage reporting victimization. These issues have led to inconsistent findings of domestic violence prevalence rates. Additionally, domestic violence studies with South Asians in the United States have predominantly focused on women, omitting men from this purview of research. The purpose of this study was to examine domestic violence victimization rates as well as their correlates among South Asian immigrant men and women. The sample for this cross-sectional study included 468 South Asians across the 50 U.S. states. Descriptive statistics were used to establish rates of domestic violence victimization. Hierarchical logistic regression was used to examine the correlates of domestic violence victimization. All of the sociodemographic information was added in step 1, and acculturation and gender-role attitudes were added as covariates in step 2. The most prevalent type of domestic violence victimization was physical violence (48%), followed by emotional (38%), economic (35%), verbal (27%), immigration-related (26%), in-laws related (19%), and ultimately sexual abuse (11%). Prevalence rates were higher for women than for men in each type of violence. According to the logistic regression results, education, generational position, family type, and employment were significant correlates of domestic violence victimization. Prior to development of prevention programs by community agencies, it is essential to understand the nature and prevalence of domestic violence experiences among South Asians. The victimization of men in addition to women adds to the novelty of this research study and paves the way for practitioners and scholars to engage in conversations about providing both male and female victims of domestic violence with the needed resources and support. The article will discuss implications for research, practice, and policy.

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Review: The Sexuality of Migration: Border Crossings and Mexican Immigrant Men, by Lionel Cantú, Jr., edited by Nancy A. Naples and Salvador Vidal-Ortiz. New York, NY: New York University Press, 2009. 245pp. $22.00 paper. ISBN: 9780814758496

Contemporary Sociology A Journal of Reviews ◽

10.1177/00943061100390020607 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 39 (2) ◽

pp. 146-148

Author(s):

Héctor Carrillo

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

Border Crossings ◽

Mexican Immigrant ◽

New York University ◽

Mexican Immigrant Men ◽

Immigrant Men

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Mexican Immigrant Understandings of Empire, Race, and Gender

The Mexican Revolution in Chicago ◽

10.5622/illinois/9780252041808.003.0004 ◽

2018 ◽

Author(s):

John H. Flores

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Religious Freedom ◽

Puerto Ricans ◽

Gender Norms ◽

The United States ◽

Mexican Immigrant ◽

Race And Gender ◽

Mexican Culture ◽

And Gender

This chapter compares liberal and traditionalist understandings of empire, race, and gender to explain why liberals often declined U.S. citizenship and why traditionalists became more amenable to U.S. naturalization. Mexican liberals defined themselves as anti-imperialist mestizos and, in Chicago, they joined with Puerto Ricans and Nicaraguans to protest U.S. imperialism. Most liberals rebuffed U.S. naturalization, in part, because they were put off by U.S. imperialism, racism, and gender norms. By contrast, traditionalists celebrated the United States for granting them religious freedom, and challenged the liberals by exalting all that was Catholic and thus Spanish and white in Mexican culture. In so doing, traditionalists became more open to a U.S. understanding of whiteness and citizenship, and many traditionalists decided they could create new lives for themselves in the United States.

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