Sex, Loyalty, and Betrayal : Migration and the Limits of Patriarchal Privilege

This article explores the consequences of Mexican migrants’ extramarital affairs on social relations within a community of undocumented migrants in Chicago, and the ways men attempt to limit their impact. My fieldsite for this exploration is The Eatery, a small Chicago restaurant in which migrants or their natal or extended family members worked and to which all were anchored. What I found was that men’s trysts were not merely tolerated; they were understood to not count. I argue that this arrangement upheld both the affairs and the patriarchal privilege that allowed them in the first place, even as it mitigated their probable negative effects on inter-migrants social relations. Thus, it fostered an individual’s ability to have extramarital relationships and became the vehicle for containing their destabilizing effects on the entire migrant community. Only in recognizing this containment can we begin to understand the larger social and cultural dislocations and array of losses that ground unauthorized migration.Cet article étudie les conséquences des relations extraconjugales de migrants mexicains sur les relations sociales au sein d’une communauté de migrants sans-papiers à Chicago, et la façon dont les hommes essaient de limiter cet impact. Mon terrain est The Eatery, un petit restaurant de Chicago où des migrants ou des membres de leurs familles étendues travaillaient et auquel ils étaient tous liés. J’ai observé que les liaisons des hommes n’étaient pas seulement tolérées, elles étaient perçues comme sans importance. Je défends l’idée que cet arrangement confortait à la fois les liaisons et le privilège patriarcal qui les permettait en premier lieu, tout en contenant leurs probables effets négatifs sur les relations sociales entre migrants. Ainsi, il confortait la capacité d’un individu à avoir des relations extraconjugales et il était le moyen de contenir leurs effets déstabilisateurs sur l’ensemble de la communauté migrante. Ce n’est qu’en reconnaissant cet endiguement que nous pouvons commencer à comprendre les dislocations sociales et culturelles plus larges et l’étendue des pertes qui caractérisent la migration illégale.Este artículo explora las consecuencias de relaciones extramaritales de los migrantes mexicanos en las relaciones sociales dentro de una comunidad de inmigrantes indocumentados en Chicago, y las formas en que los hombres tratan de limitar su impacto. Mi terreno de investigación es The Eatery, un pequeño restaurante de Chicago, en el que los migrantes o sus familiares natales o extendidas trabajadas y al que todos estaban anclados. Lo que encontré fue que las citas de los hombres no fueron simplemente toleradas; se las consideraba sin importancia. Sostengo que este arreglo confirmó tanto las relaciones extramaritales y el privilegio patriarcal que les permitió, en primer lugar, aun cuando mitigado sus efectos negativos probables sobre las relaciones sociales entre los migrantes. Así, se fomentó la capacidad de un individuo para tener relaciones extramaritales y se convirtió en el vehículo para contener sus efectos desestabilizadores en toda la comunidad migrante. Sólo en el reconocimiento de esta contención podemos comenzar a entender los trastornos sociales y culturales de mayor tamaño y la variedad de las pérdidas que fundamentan la migración no autorizada

Obtaining Genuine Family Involvement: Unpacking the System of Care Values and Principles

Despite the federal government’s $1.5 billion investment between 1993 and 2010 to fund 164 separate community-based systems of care, there has been an extremely limited attempt to measure the impact of system of care. The impetus for this research is the struggle for how the value based concept of system of care is communicated within a community. While child mental health services researchers have published a number of randomized control trials to explore individual level supports for youth served in a system of care community, researchers have struggled to devise a way to measure system of care philosophy diffusion. While system of care is a system level intervention, this study explored the role of the system of care value: family voice as it pertains to direct practice for children and families. The goal was to assess whether specific direct practices regularly associated with system of care (i.e., wraparound or home-based services) lead to greater family voice or if the mere presence of a high-functioning system of care community leads to equal family voice for all receiving community-based services. The primary finding was a relationship between the perception of family functioning and perceived empowerment/self-efficacy. This finding suggests that as functioning improves, so does a caregiver’s perception of their personal empowerment/ self-efficacy. While the framing of this study was to “unpack” the system of care value of family voice, the findings do not support any clear cut explanation for how family voice is promoted or communicated to families. Based on the findings, it appears as if families feel more empowered as their child improves. Additional research needs to be done on the application of family voice within the practice setting to better understand how to best instruct staff to infuse family voice in their daily practice

A Comparative Study of the Effects of Hatha Yoga and Seated Meditation on Mood Elevation

Objective: The purpose of this study was to measure the extent to which a hatha yoga practice would improve mood as compared to a seated meditation practice. Methods: This was an eighteen week, cross-over design study in which forty-four hatha yoga students, largely inexperienced with seated meditation, were randomly assigned to one of two groups. One group started with an eight week practice of hatha yoga, half an hour four times a week, and the other group practiced seated meditation. After eight weeks, all subjects stopped practicing for two weeks. Then they switched practices for another eight weeks. Both quantitative and qualitative measures were taken at the beginning of the study, after the first eight week practice, again after the two week break, and finally at the end of the study. The five quantitative measures used included a modified Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS-M), and the qualitative measures asked subjects to describe their mood, cognition, level of motivation and quality of life. Results: The findings suggest that for this population, hatha yoga had a stronger effect than meditation on improving mood. After the first eight week practice period, only hatha yoga improved mood. Meditation was more effective at improving cognition. During the two week break, the subjects who had practiced hatha yoga first suffered bodily discomfort and mental unrest. Those practicing meditation did not seem to suffer. When subjects practiced seated meditation as a second practice, they too experienced an improvement in mood, and during the second practice period both groups experienced a significant improvement in quality of life. Conclusion: These results demonstrate the efficacy of introducing more active people to a personal practice of seated mediation by first having them establish a hatha yoga practice. They also illustrate the powerful effect of hatha yoga on improving mood and the need for further research on the physiological effects of hatha yoga