Matching Items (2)
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- All Subjects: Families
- Creators: Diaz McConnell, Eileen
Description
In 2012, President Obama presented an executive order, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), which primarily defers the deportation of unauthorized immigrants who are under the age of 31 and who arrived to the US before the age 16, among other things. This study examines the impact DACA has had on the identity formation, interfamilial relationships, and future plans of 15 Mexican-origin adults (18-27 years old, 47% female) who were approved for DACA in Arizona. Participants were recruited using flyers and the snowball sampling method. Interviews were conducted using a semi-structured interview guide by a bilingual, culturally competent interviewer. The interviews were recorded and then a transcript-based pragmatic, thematic analysis of the interviews was conducted. Findings show that participants who arrive to the U.S. at a younger age (under 5) identify as American, while those who arrive at an older age (over 8) do not feel like they can identify as an American because they spent more time in Mexico and are more attached to their home culture. Physical characteristics also played a factor in whether or not participants felt like they could identify as American. Participants describe their financial responsibility in their families increasing since receiving DACA. They also describe how they are now seen as role models to other undocumented youth in their families. Despite the uncertain future of DACA, these participants continued to have ambitious goals such as becoming lawyers and working at robotics companies. Future studies should include larger sample sizes and formally test theories of identity.
ContributorsLopez, Alejandra (Author) / Diaz McConnell, Eileen (Thesis director) / Martinez, Airin (Committee member) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / School of Transborder Studies (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
This study examines the social construction of the border by researching how frequently select issues are written about by the media of both countries, and in what light two different groups of actors (Mexico and the US) are portrayed. The Dallas-based The Dallas Morning News, and the Monterrey-based, El Norte are the two newspapers chosen to perform the content analysis. Furthermore, this study seeks to examine differences in the way both newspapers portray the US-Mexico border in 1994, or the year NAFTA began, and 2012, the most recent year for which data is available. A major find of this study is the discovery of how even though the frequency that select issues are brought up in the border vary drastically by year and newspaper, portrayals of the actors around the border stay fairly consistent. More specifically, with the exception of NAFTA in 1994, border issues outside of crime, illegal immigration, drug violence, and the economy, are rarely mentioned by the two selected newspapers a significant amount of the time. Also, issues at the border such as crime, drug violence, and national security are often portrayed as the fault of Mexico and Mexican actors, while immigration issues at the border are often blamed exclusively on each newspaper's host countries.
ContributorsCelis-Aguirre, Ignacio (Author) / Lara-Valencia, Francisco (Thesis director) / Diaz McConnell, Eileen (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law (Contributor)
Created2014-05