The Impact of State Immigration Policy on Immigrant Communities: Political Engagement and Child Well-Being

This dissertation is set in the context of a 21st-century America undergoing rapid immigration-driven demographic change accompanied by highly polarized debates about immigrants and immigration policy. With this research I seek to answer questions related to the impact of contemporary immigration policymaking in the U.S. states on the political participation of adults and the well-being of children from immigrant communities nationally. I focus on the impacts of state immigration policy enacted during the decade 2003-2012 among legal immigrants, naturalized immigrants, and U.S.-born children of immigrants from among the four largest U.S. racial/ethnic groups. I place this research in the theoretical tradition of policy design-social construction theory and also draw heavily from the literatures of immigrant political incorporation and immigrant political behavior. Findings confirm that for some subpopulations within immigrant communities public policy is an active social structure conferring benefits and burdens that impact adult political engagement and child wellbeing, with effects persisting even after statistically controlling for other known individual-level predictors. Taken together, the findings reveal a pattern of between-group differences in which the greatest impacts of state immigration policy are occurring in the Hispanic immigrant community, followed by the Asian and White immigrant communities. I find little impact of state immigration policy on the Black immigrant community. Within the Hispanic immigrant community the findings reveal a pattern across generations, with state immigration policy producing little effect on political engagement among new legal immigrants, a modest effect among naturalized immigrants, and its strongest effects among children of Hispanic immigrants. This research makes important contributions to the knowledge base of political incorporation of immigrant communities and of policy design-social construction theory that will inform future research in these fields. In addition to the main findings, this research reveals important variation among states in the strength of the impact state immigration policy is exerting on political participation, extends knowledge of target group contestations of social constructions contained in public policy, and deepens our understanding of the important role that values play in the recursive cycles of political participation and policymaking

Differential Influence of the Great Recession on Political Participation among Race and Ethnic Groups

Our study seeks to understand the role of perceived economic stress of the Great Recession on political participation among blacks, whites and Latinos. Methods. We use the 2012 Collaborative Multi-Racial Political Study and negative binomial regression to examine the impact of financial hardship on black, Hispanic, and white political participation. Results. We find that political participation among whites is unaffected by the Great Recession and is largely motivated by political interest. Blacks are mobilized by financial hardship even after controlling for political enthusiasm and linked fate. Hispanics have the lowest level of political participation. Conclusion. Overall, we conclude that the Great Recession did affect political behavior but differently across race and ethnic groups; specifically, Hispanics were least likely to politically engage if they experienced negative consequences of the Great Recession

Perceptions of environmental and occupational health hazards among agricultural workers in Washington State

This study describes agricultural workers' perceptions of environmental and occupational health issues. Interviews were conducted with 389 agricultural workers in the Yakima Valley of central Washington State in the summers of 2004 and 2005. Undergraduate students from the community conducted interviews in Spanish or English. Environmental and occupational health issues were ranked by frequency of concern, and differences by demographics were evaluated using multivariate analyses. In both 2004 and 2005, agricultural workers expressed high levels of concern about working in hot weather, agricultural injuries, pesticides, and pediatric asthma. Agricultural workers' perceptions of environmental and occupational health issues differed by specific demographics, particularly age and ethnicity. Consideration should be given to these issues when designing research studies, creating educational materials, and developing interventions related to environmental and occupational hazards among agricultural workers

Differential Influence of the Great Recession on Political Participation among Race and Ethnic Groups

Our study seeks to understand the role of perceived economic stress of the Great Recession on political participation among blacks, whites and Latinos. Methods. We use the 2012 Collaborative Multi-Racial Political Study and negative binomial regression to examine the impact of financial hardship on black, Hispanic, and white political participation. Results. We find that political participation among whites is unaffected by the Great Recession and is largely motivated by political interest. Blacks are mobilized by financial hardship even after controlling for political enthusiasm and linked fate. Hispanics have the lowest level of political participation. Conclusion. Overall, we conclude that the Great Recession did affect political behavior but differently across race and ethnic groups; specifically, Hispanics were least likely to politically engage if they experienced negative consequences of the Great Recession

Negotiating survival: undocumented Mexican immigrant women in the Pacific Northwest

Current analyses of Mexico–U.S. migration theory generally are based on socioeconomic contexts and decision-making processes of male respondents. Further, limited data available on undocumented Mexican immigrant women mainly address the Mexico–U.S. border area, and adjacent U.S. urban centers. Our qualitative study focuses on undocumented Mexican immigrant women residing in central Washington State, where the regional economy is dominated by agribusiness development and dependent on immigrant and migrant farm labor. This paper assesses propositions of neoclassical economic and social capital theories of international migration in explaining the women’s migration decision-making processes. Project data indicate that while the Pacific Northwest has been a primary migration destination for sometime, it now may be increasingly a second-stage U.S. migration site, following initial migration to more traditional destinations such as California

Perceptions of Environmental and Occupational Health Hazards among Agricultural Workers in Washington State

The purpose of this study is to describe perceptions of environmental and occupational health issues among agricultural workers. Interviews were conducted with 389 agricultural workers in the Yakima Valley in central Washington State in the summers of 2004 and 2005. Undergraduate students from the community conducted interviews in Spanish or English. Environmental and occupational health issues were ranked by frequency of concern, and differences by demographic characteristics were evaluated using multivariate analyses. In both 2004 and 2005, agricultural workers expressed high levels of concern about working in hot weather, agricultural injuries, pesticides, and pediatric asthma. Perceptions of environmental and occupational health issues among agricultural workers differed by certain demographic characteristics, particularly age and ethnicity. Consideration should be given to these issues when designing research studies, creating educational materials, and developing interventions related to environmental and occupational hazards among agricultural workers