Matching Items (10)
Filtering by
- All Subjects: Social Research
- Creators: Téllez, Michelle
- Creators: Swadener, Elizabeth
- Status: Published
Description
Wage theft is a national epidemic that only recently became the focus of increasing research, critical public questioning, and activism. Given the socio- political climate in Maricopa County, Arizona and the heightened national attention on the state, this study answers important questions about the work experiences of immigrant workers in the region. Through an analysis of interviews with 14 low-wage Mexican workers from a local worker rights center, I explore workers' access to traditional recourse, the effects of wage theft on workers and families, and the survival strategies they utilize to mitigate the effects of sudden income loss. By providing an historical overview of immigration and employment law, I show how a dehumanized and racialized labor force has been structurally maintained and exploited. Furthermore, I describe the implications of two simultaneous cultures on the state of labor: the culture of fear among immigrants to assert their rights and utilize recourse, and the culture of criminality and impunity among employers who face virtually no sanctions when they are non-compliant with labor law. The results indicate that unless the rights of immigrant workers are equally enforced and recourse is made equally accessible, not only will the standards for pay and working conditions continue to collapse, but the health of Latino communities will also deteriorate. I assert that in addition to structural change, a shift in national public discourse and ideology is critical to substantive socio-political transformation.
ContributorsSanidad, Cristina (Author) / Téllez, Michelle (Thesis advisor) / Adelman, Madelaine (Committee member) / Gomez, Alan E (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Interviews of nine managers within the U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division's Western Region were conducted by a researcher who also works as a Wage and Hour Investigator. The intention of this research was to survey the differences in trafficking-related training and experience throughout the region, to examine the role of the Wage and Hour Division in human trafficking casework, and to explore potential areas for growth. This thesis recommends that upper level agency management produces standards for training, interagency engagement, and procedures and also provides suggestions for best practices and effective enforcement.
ContributorsNorberg, Katherine Joanne (Author) / Stancliff, Michael (Thesis advisor) / Simmons, William (Committee member) / Téllez, Michelle (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
This study was done in collaboration with the Kino Border Initiative. The Kino Border Initiative is a Catholic, bi-national organization run by Missionary Sisters of the Eucharist, Jesuit priests and lay people. The organization is dedicated to providing services to recently deported migrants and migrants-in-transit through their soup kitchen, women's shelter and first aid station in Nogales, Sonora. Based on their experiences in the women's shelter, the Missionary Sisters of the Eucharist and researcher sought out to further understand migrant women's experiences of gender-based violence prior to migration. Using data collected by the Sisters, it was decided to use an analysis rooted in testimonio, and, in this way, use the women's words as a foundational basis for understanding the migration of women. The analysis is based on 62 testimonies related to women's histories of violence and their migration experiences, and the information from 74 intake questionnaires that were all analyzed retroactively. The analysis of data and testimonios has led to the realization that violence suffered by migrant women is not limited to the journey itself, and that 71% of women report having suffered some sort of violence either prior to or during migration. Often times, the first experiences of violence originated in their homes when they were children and continue to repeat itself throughout their lifetimes in varied forms. Their stories reveal how the decision to migrate is a consequence to the transnational and structural violence that pushes women to seek out ways to survive and provide for their families.
ContributorsConrad, Marla (Author) / Elenes, C. Alejandra (Thesis advisor) / Simmons, William P. (Committee member) / Téllez, Michelle (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
By drawing from six oral histories of Mexican immigrant women living in Phoenix, Arizona, this thesis builds on the current literature on Mexican immigrant women living in the United States. Through an analysis of U.S. policies that spur Mexican migration to the U.S. and its simultaneous policies that dissuade and criminalize immigrant presence in the U.S., I highlight the increased level of migration through Arizona and the ensuing anti-immigrant politics in the state. By centering women in this context, I demonstrate the obstacle Mexican immigrant women face in the crossing and upon arrival in Phoenix, Arizona. In sharing the stories of Mexican immigrant women who overcome these obstacles, I challenge the portrayal of Mexican immigrant women as victims of violence and use the work of Chicana feminist theorists and oral history methodology to highlight the experiences of Mexican immigrant women adapting to life in the U.S. in order to expand literature of their unique lived experiences and to also contribute the stories of resiliency of Mexican immigrant women in the contentious anti-immigrant city of Phoenix, Arizona.
ContributorsDel Hierro, Mariana (Author) / Téllez, Michelle (Thesis advisor) / Elenes, Alejandra C. (Committee member) / Cuadraz, Gloria H. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
ABSTRACT This thesis analyzes the discourse surrounding proposed solutions to the immigration phenomenon in the United States. I conducted two qualitative media analyses on the rhetoric and conceptual frames found in mass media newscasts reporting on the immigration debate. The first analysis covered the general immigration debate and the second covered the appearance of American southwest ranchers. Specifically the analyses contrasted the media's coverage of root economic causes to the immigration phenomenon in comparison to reactionary solutions as proposed by leading immigrant attrition organizations such as the immigration think tank, Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and Republican linguist, Frank Luntz. The main argument of this thesis is based on an analysis of how the media has used southwestern ranchers as expert witnesses for reactionary solutions on a national level. An acute qualitative media analysis was used to compare the rhetoric found in the media coverage of southwestern ranchers versus the rhetoric found in 12 in-depth interviews I conducted with ranchers in the American southwest. This thesis contends that the media has successfully turned southwestern ranchers into spokespersons for border security rhetoric, furthering the binary debates on border security and immigration reform and thus obscuring the conditions which force migrants to leave their home countries. The grounding theoretical framework for this thesis is based on David Altheide's qualitative media analysis which identifies how certain frames and common narratives ultimately construct a way of discussing the problem or the kind of discourse that will follow. This was structured on Atheide's qualitative media analysis protocols to dissect mass media newscasts covering the immigration debate and more specifically the mass media's coverage of southwestern ranchers. The qualitative media analyses were employed to determine whether the discourse found in nightly newscasts falls in line with root causes of immigration or FAIR's concern with reactionary solutions. To further assess the media's ability to shape discourse, and ultimately policy, these qualitative analyses were compared with in-depth interviews of the ranchers.
ContributorsFuente, Nicolás Antonio de la (Author) / Téllez, Michelle (Thesis advisor) / Stancliff, Michael (Committee member) / Gomez, Alan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2010
Description
This study examines the representation of Asian online brides by studying the images and profiles that are advertised on Asianonlinebrides.com. To do so, I combined the history and growth of the Human Trafficking industry, the idea of the Asian “exotic OTHER,” the power and structured/constrained agency, and social construction of gender theories. In particular, I utilized a mixed methods approach for data collection. The content and visual analysis in this study provided the two sides of the analytic coin: the written and the visual. I am particularly interested in the narrative comments offered by the prospective brides, e.g., what they state to be their preferences in their dream man/husband, and the personality traits, and characteristics that they write about themselves. The following were examined: the gender displays, picture frames, feminine touch, and the ritualization of subordination. For example, body language, clothing, skin, hair color, and texture, bone structure, posture, etc. I argue that this data alerts us to the whole host of ideas, assumptions, social, cultural, and gender constructions. The power relations that exceeds the text and inform us of these online brides. The findings have indicated that these women are vulnerable and caught within oppressive social structures. They have nevertheless utilized those structures to their advantage. By doing so, the brides have acted as assertive agents in that they have looked out for the interests of both themselves and their families. Moreover, a significant body of data was provided first hand through the written and visual narratives of the online brides. These brides have offered valuable insight into the field of Asian online brides. Their stories have presented a unique perspective to the online brides’ process that can only be captured through the narratives provided in this research.
ContributorsDai, Linh K (Author) / Cavender, Gray (Thesis advisor) / Jurik, Nancy (Committee member) / Swadener, Elizabeth (Committee member) / Tibbs, Donald (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2019
Description
Privilege is unearned advantages, access, and power reserved for a select group of people. Those that benefit from privilege manifest their power consciously and sub-consciously so as to maintain their exclusive control of the opportunities privilege affords them. The reach and power of one’s privilege rises and falls as the different social identities that one possesses intersect. Ultimately, if a society built on justice and equity is to be achieved, those with privilege must take tangible steps to acknowledge their privilege and work to end the unequal advantages and oppression that are created in order to perpetuate privilege. This thesis unpacks privilege through an autoethnographic examination of the author’s history. Through the use of creative nonfiction, personal stories become launching points to explore characteristics of privilege manifest in the author’s life which are emblematic of larger social groups that share many of the author’s social identities. The following characteristics of privilege are explored: merit, oppression, normalization, economic value, neutrality, blindness, and silence.
ContributorsBlack, Luke (Author) / Swadener, Elizabeth (Thesis advisor) / de la Garza, Amira (Committee member) / Scott, Kimberly (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
This dissertation explores the notion of Pueblo community engagement at multiple levels, from the communities’ role in engaging its members, the individual’s responsibility in engaging with the community, both the community and individual’s engagement relationship with external forces, and the movement towards new engagement as it relates to youth and community. This research recognizes both the existing and the changing nature of engagement in our Pueblo communities. Because the core value of contribution is critical to being a participant in community, both participants and communities need to think of what needs to be done to strengthen Pueblo community engagement , for community and for youth. On the community side, this dissertation examines past community programs impact to the social structures of Pueblo communities and highlights a couple of new strategies to incorporate community voice in programming efforts. In addition, this dissertation explores youth contribution to community. The notions of community recognizing and being receptive to new ideas for youth engagement and of instilling their sense of community in youth is critical to the ‘new engagement’ paradigm. This dissertation proposes that one strategy is to incorporate youth in the governance structures of community through innovative programming with the ultimate goal of instilling in youth the feeling that they belong to their community.
ContributorsChosa, Carnell Terry (Author) / Sumida Huaman, Elizabeth (Thesis advisor) / Brayboy, Bryan (Thesis advisor) / Swadener, Elizabeth (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
National mandates to decrease suspension numbers have prompted school districts across the country to turn to a practice known as restorative justice as an alternative to removing students through suspension or referral to law enforcement for problematic behavior. This ethnographic case study examines school-based restorative justice programs as potentially disruptive social movements in dismantling the school-to-prison-pipeline through participatory analysis of one school’s implementation of Discipline that Restores.
Findings go beyond suspension numbers to discuss the promise inherent in the program’s validation of student lived experience using a disruptive framework within the greater context of the politics of care and the school-to-prison-pipeline. Findings analyze the intersection of race, power, and identity with the experience of care in defining community to illustrate some of the prominent structural impediments that continue to work to cap the program’s disruptive potential. This study argues that restorative justice, through the experience of care, has the potential to act as a disruptive force, but wrestles with the enormity of the larger structural investments required for authentic transformative and disruptive change to occur.
As the restorative justice movement gains steam, on-going critical analysis against a disruptive framework becomes necessary to ensure the future success of restorative discipline in disrupting the school-to-prison-pipeline.
Findings go beyond suspension numbers to discuss the promise inherent in the program’s validation of student lived experience using a disruptive framework within the greater context of the politics of care and the school-to-prison-pipeline. Findings analyze the intersection of race, power, and identity with the experience of care in defining community to illustrate some of the prominent structural impediments that continue to work to cap the program’s disruptive potential. This study argues that restorative justice, through the experience of care, has the potential to act as a disruptive force, but wrestles with the enormity of the larger structural investments required for authentic transformative and disruptive change to occur.
As the restorative justice movement gains steam, on-going critical analysis against a disruptive framework becomes necessary to ensure the future success of restorative discipline in disrupting the school-to-prison-pipeline.
ContributorsWeeks, Brianna Ruth (Author) / Cuadraz, Gloria (Thesis advisor) / Swadener, Elizabeth (Committee member) / Lopez, Vera (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
Description
The purpose of this study is threefold: highlight the present health, self-sufficiency and integration needs and assets of asylum seekers in Phoenix, Arizona during the asylum seeking process phase (while an asylum claim is awaiting a decision); understand the City of Phoenix’s response to asylum seekers; and contextualize and compare the city’s present response to increased arrivals of asylum seekers against municipal responses in other contexts and academic discussions of the “local turn.”. Through semi-structured in-depth interviews with asylum seekers and community leaders, this study finds that asylum seekers’ physiological healthcare needs are sometimes met through emergency department admissions and referrals to sliding scale services by caseworkers in the International Rescue Committee’s Asylum-Seeking Families program in Phoenix. Mental and behavioral health service needs are less likely to be met, especially for women who want to speak with a medical professional about their traumatic experiences in Central America, trip through Mexico, detention in the United States (U.S.) and their often-marginalized lives in the U.S. This dissertation concomitantly explores how other municipalities in the U.S. and internationally have responded to increased immigration of asylum seekers and refugees to urban centers, and how certain approaches could be adopted in the City of Phoenix to better serve asylum seekers.
ContributorsSchlinkert, David (Author) / Velez-Ibanez, Carlos (Thesis advisor) / Lara-Valencia, Francisco (Thesis advisor) / Arzubiaga, Angela (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020