Central Americans Research Articles

Misrepresented Insecurities: An Annotated Interview about Displacement and Resistance of Central America’s “Eternos Indocumentados”

Central Americans are widely misrepresented in United States mainstream media as one-dimensional peoples always associated with insecurities. In a powerful counter-representation, Director Jennifer A. Cárcamo released her documentary, Eternos Indocumentados: Central American Refugees in the United States in 2018.1 The film lays bare the root causes of forced migration, criminalization, displacement, and multiple insecurities while highlighting stories of resistance in the isthmus and the United States. This article uses an annotated interview format based on an iterative process to analyze the film’s key themes as they inform and are informed by the growing scholarly field of Central American Studies. We call for critical analysis of Central America and its people within broader processes of neoliberalism and global capitalism to better contextualize insecurities and allow for more complex and accurate representations of Central American realities.

시마네현 다케시마문제연구회의 연구 경향 분석 -평화선 및 독도 어업 관련 연구에 대해서-

In the study of the Peace Line and fishery issues of Genji Fujii in the Takeshima Issue Research Society, it is notable that the Peace Line is not a system for protecting Dokdo fishing grounds and strengthening territorial sovereignty, and it proved that this is not a fishing dispute in the Dokdo area. It was mainly led to fishing in the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea, where fisheries are abundant, and the Japanese government strengthened regulations and guided fishing grounds to the East China Sea and the Yellow Sea to cause disputes in coastal fishing because steamer trawl fishing is profitable. Shimane Prefecture also migrated to this fishing area to fish, but it is said that the damage of captured fishing boats in this area was large, and it was analyzed that the damage consciousness was inherited by the Peace Line. From the late 1960s, the waters around Dokdo became a fishing ground for Japanese squid fishing boats, and Korea also participated in the East Sea fishing industry in earnest by the 1970s. It is said that the confrontation between Korea and Japan over the Dokdo issue led to the Dokdo issue and the fishing issue. In response to this criticism, however, the waters around Dokdo are not so important fishing grounds that both Japan and South Korea should discuss together in terms of the country’s total catches. Since May 1978, Korea has cracked down on the fishing of Japanese fishing boats within 12 nautical miles of Dokdo, and Japanese fishing boats withdrew themselves, and due to a sharp rise in heavy oil, deteriorating fishery resource conditions, and inadequate profits even if they fished, they moved to the waters around Dokdo. It is analyzed that the number of fishers has drastically decreased. The Peace Line was based on the Truman Declaration(1945) and the claim of 200 nautical miles of territorial waters or fishing waters, which spread around the Central and South Americans (the Santiago Declaration of the three countries of Chile, Peru, and Ecuador(1952.8), Chile and Peru(1947)). It was a detonator introduced into the region. The concept of an exclusive language zone, which Japan accused of being illegal, became an EEZ after the 1970s, and was accepted by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea in 1982. The Peace Line, which succeeded MacArthur Line, referred to international precedents, and declared the sovereign waters of Korea externally, and should be regarded as an international legal norm with legal validity and effectiveness under International Law.

¡Qué mamada! (What a Joke!): Humor, Hostility, and Hospitality along the Central American Migrant Trail

AbstractAlong the Central American migrant trail through Mexico, jokes and teasing offer a window into a transnational border regime defined by both migrant hospitality and xenophobic hostility. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in a welding workshop in Monterrey, a city in Northern Mexico where Central Americans are increasingly waylaid on journeys to the US‐Mexico border, this article examines playfully derisive and sexually charged jokes, enacted materially through everyday objects like pickup trucks, coke bottles, and welding torches, as rhetorical strategies that migrant guests rely on to negotiate the contradictions of welcome and trespass that anthropologists have largely discussed through the lens of humanitarianism. These dynamics illuminate how intersecting migrant communities reify and reconfigure ambiguities of solidarity and suspicion that surround transit migration as ethical‐moral border regimes increasingly push migrant communities toward informal hospitality spaces at the margins of the West.

Prevalence of Rs149483638 SNP on the IGF2 Gene and Its Correlation with Type 2 Diabetes in Hispanic Populations

Overall, American adults have a 10.5% risk of having diabetes during theirlifetime but for the Hispanic American adult, the risk is over 12.5% comparedto 7.5% in non-Hispanic whites. Hispanic Americans are a mixed groupcomprising of Mexicans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, South and Central Americans,and other Spanish communities. This disease is very damaging and a challengeto manage for anyone. It is the seventh-largest cause of death in the UnitedStates in 2017. Detecting single nucleotide polymorphism (SNPs), in thehuman genome can help in determining an individual's risk of obtaining type 2diabetes. Recent studies with SNP rs149483638 have shown that the IGF2gene is associated with the identification of insulin that regulates growth andmetabolism in the human body. IGF2 is found in many tissues where it issynthesized and released into the periphery, with the highest levels in theliver. IGF2 facilitates ß-cell proliferation and survival in the pancreas. Thealleles shown in this SNP is the C>T allele change. The goal of this research wasto detect the prevalence of SNP rs149483638 by buccal swab samples in 25controls and 26 patients. DNA extraction followed by PCR and restrictionfragment length pattern using the BstNI enzyme was used to detect theprevalence of this SNP and its association with Diabetes. We found the allele C& T very predominant in the diabetes group. The allele C was also found in thecontrol group. We need to increase the sample size in the control group inorder to assess the risk of this SNP in diabetes type 2.

The case of migrant women from the Central American Northern Triangle: How to prevent exploitation and violence during the crossing

Abstract Violence and inequalities suffered by Central American women force their migration. Once the process has begun, they are exposed to greater violence because they are migrants, poor, indigenous or mestizo, women and, sometimes, minors. The journey is the space in which Central Americans, particularly women, are exposed to violence perpetrated by criminal organizations. Orderly and regular mobility would protect them from the dangers to which they are exposed; to this end, migration governance is needed. This analysis works with intersectionality as a theoretical approach and the methodology used was qualitative, based on interviews and a bibliographic review.

Editorial Introduction

Editorial Introduction Patti Duncan It is exciting to introduce our winter 2021 issue, featuring a special dossier on #MeToo and Transnational Gender Justice, curated by Chaitanya Lakkimsetti and Vanita Reddy. This dossier engages an important set of questions regarding the transnational dimension of #MeToo, as authors reflect both on how it poses a critique of the notion of "global sisterhood" as well as how it reproduces normalizing discourses of gender and sexuality. This exciting collection includes an introduction by Lakkimsetti and Reddy, eight essays, and an afterword by Ashwini Tambe. As part of the dossier, our Poesía for this issue features two powerful poems by Choi Young-Mi, "Monster" and "To The Pigs." As Lakkimsetti and Reddy discuss in their introduction to the dossier, "Monster" has been credited with igniting the #MeToo movement in South Korea. They write, "Choi's poem calls attention to the power of cultural representation not only in igniting social movements, but also its power in reimagining feminist strategies for addressing sexual violence." And it is this process—the reimagining of feminist strategies for addressing sexual violence—that comes to life throughout the dossier. Alongside the dossier, we include eight timely articles, beginning with "Abolishing the Broom Closets in Omelas: Feminist Disability Analysis of Crisis and Precarity" by Jess Whatcott and Liat Ben-Moshe. Whatcott and Ben-Moshe take as their point of departure Ursula K. Le Guin's well-known story, "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas," to argue that attending to disability and the carceral institutionalization of disabled people is critical to our understanding of precarity under gendered racial settler capitalism. Within capitalist systems that devalue gendered, racialized, and Indigenous populations, Whatcott and Ben-Moshe write that "disability is key to understanding the capitalist crisis because disablement and the construction of the ability/disability binary has been a key mechanism for constructing disposability in the crisis of capitalism." In her article, "Political Times: The Multiple Temporalities of Activism in Feminist Print Culture," Agatha Beins examines the 1970s feminist publication Distaff as an artifact to help us understand how different textual forms shape political transformation and possibilities in feminist activism. Through a study of temporal shifts, Beins demonstrates how imagining different futures is intertwined with temporality, writing: "Because most social movement activism [End Page ix] takes linear-time politics as its basis, considering another form of time in which politics operate potentially broadens our revolutionary repertoires." Alana Bock also engages temporality in "Out of Place and Out of Time: Andrew Cunanan, Darren Criss, and Queer Filipinx Haunting," in order to trouble the temporal paradigm that places some queer Filipinx figures (in this case, Andrew Cunanan) in a distant "primitive" past and others (here, Darren Criss) in a "multicultural" present without recognizing the ways that we continue to be haunted by the violence of US empire. Relying on a queer of color critique, Bock explores "what these queer Filipinx ghosts always already desire and speak in excess of imperial forms of knowledge production." Kristen Kolenz, in "A Central American Mestiza Consciousness: Rebeca Lane, Interruptive Choreography, and Rehearsing Change in the Borderlands," discusses the music of Guatemalan queer feminist hip-hop activist, Rebeca Lane, through the writings of Gloria Anzaldúa, demonstrating how Lane claims her Indigenous ancestry and spirituality through engagement with Anzaldúa's theories of the borderlands and mestiza consciousness. Through an analysis of Lane's songs, Kolenz suggests that she revises Anzaldúa's mestiza consciousness "to generate a liberatory and creative vision for Central Americans who build coalition through their shared histories, contemporary struggles, and tireless, decolonizing resistance." And in "'Anyone can be Pussy Riot': Exploring the Possibilities of Transnational Digital Feminism," Jessica Gokhberg considers the work of Russian feminist punk rock performance art group Pussy Riot to explore what is at stake in mobilizing transnational, anti-authoritarian, queer feminist art and activism, especially when using social media as a movement platform. They argue that Pussy Riot creates a "digestible feminism" and critique of state violence, often by mobilizing whiteness and familiar tropes of liberalism, while also enacting possibilities for coalition. Through analysis of a live performance and two online videos, Gokhberg aims "to bring the group's legitimate and...

The Winter Olympics: A Century of Games on Ice and Snow

The Olympic Winter Games, although younger than their summer counterpart, nonetheless have a long and storied history. From the first iteration in Chamonix, France, in 1924, through the first off-set games in Lillehammer, Norway, in 1994, to the most recent edition in PyeongChang, South Korea, the Olympic Winter Games are truly a mega-event. This introduction to a winter Olympics anthology considers the nearly one-hundred years of the Olympic Winter Games, including its growth in athletes and events, and the broader impact of that expansion. The sports on the winter Olympic program are at least not easy and in many places largely impossible to practice in at least half of the world’s countries. These challenges make the Olympic Winter Games a compelling event to study because its sports are not universally practiced by people in every country across the globe. How the Olympic Winter Games have grown in scale and size from an event for northern and central Europeans, Americans, and Canadians to include participants from countries that lack snow and ice is itself a testament to the global power of the Olympic brand. The essays in the winter games collection take a broad view of topics related to the Olympic Winter Games, including new approaches to understanding the history and historical significance of athlete eligibility and inclusion, youth culture, demonstration sports, and legacy.

Manners of Exclusion: From the Asiatic Barred Zone to the Muslim Ban

From the moment President Donald Trump signed it into effect, the Muslim ban would become the focus of outrage. Thousands gathered at airports across the country to protest the executive order. Lawyers filed challenges. Universities and CEOs issued public condemnations. Earlier that same week, the President signed another executive order, calling for the creation of a massive deportation force which, within a few months, rounded up hundreds of thousand of undocumented immigrants, terrorizing millions more. Another executive order halved the number of refugees annually admitted to the country and cancelled the protected status previously extended to displaced Haitians and Central Americans. Those orders generated far less outrage, few protests, no corporate press releases. Why does the Muslim ban seem to betray “everything we stand for,” as Dick Cheney announced, while the other orders are received with relative complacence? This essay attempts to answer that question by tracing a set of shifts in the rhetorical norms and legal architecture governing immigration law and policy over the past century. The controversial enactment of the Muslim ban is particularly resonant with failed attempts to pass a “Hindu” ban, almost exactly one hundred years before. Constrained by a shift in global norms governing racial discourse, Congress hoping to exclude Indian immigrants from the United States eventually succeeded in passing a law to exclude “Hindus” not “by name” but through the invention of a geographic designation, the “Asiatic Barred Zone.” In the post-colonial era, the exclusion of immigrants on the basis of racial identity is no longer tolerable, but the exclusion of immigrants on the basis of nationality or place of origin has become entirely normative—as the Supreme Court’s decision upholding the Muslim ban demonstrates.

A History of Latinx Immigrant Activism

A History of Latinx Immigrant Activism

Author’s Response

Author’s Response

Abstract 16591: The Impact of African Ancestry on the Pooled Cohort Equation Atherosclerotic Cardiovascular Disease Risk Estimation: Insights From the Hispanic Community Health Study/study of Latinos

ACC/AHA 2018 guidelines recommend using Non-Hispanic (NH)-White pooled cohort equations (PCE) to estimate 10-year risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) among Hispanics. If African ancestry is present, the PCE for Blacks is recommended. African ancestry estimates among Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos (HCHS/SOL) background groups have been reported. 1 We applied the PCE based on fractional African ancestry to HCHS/SOL participants and compared risk estimates from NH-White and NH-Black PCE in these groups. HCHS/SOL participants aged 40-75 years were divided into two groups based on median fractional African ancestry of ~10%: groups with >=10% or higher African Ancestry (Puerto Rican, Central Americans, and Dominicans) and those with <10% or lower African ancestry (Mexicans, South Americans, Cubans). Mean predicted ASCVD incidence using both PCE's was assessed. ASCVD risk frequencies are weighted using survey methods. Differences were determined by Rao-Scott Chi-square test. The PCE was applied to 9091 HCHS/SOL participants. (mean age 53.5, 48% F) Applying the NH-White PCE to lower African ancestry groups led to 38% of participants being classified as intermediate/high (>7.5%) ASCVD risk compared to 45% using the NH-Black PCE. Using the NH-White PCE in groups with higher African ancestry led to 36% of participants being classified as intermediate/high risk compared to 46% using the NH-Black PCE. ASCVD risk estimates per Hispanic background groups are shown. (Figure 1C ). Our study is the first to apply both NH-Black and NH-White PCE to Hispanics and assess differences based on fractional African ancestry. The NH-Black PCE provided consistently greater estimates in both groups with slightly greater differential of estimates relative to NH-White PCE in those with higher African Ancestry. Further studies with outcomes data are needed to determine optimal application of PCE in Hispanics based upon fractional African Ancestry.

Mexico’s migrant policy and the incoming US administration

After electing a new president in 2018, Mexico implemented a series of new migrant policies that changed the way it handles both the inflow of Central Americans across its southern border and those seeking to enter the United States across its northern border (including migrants who entered the US and have been returned). Mexico increased enforcement of its immigration laws following demands and threats made by the Trump administration, but the policy has proved popular domestically, and is unlikely to change even as a new US president takes office seeking to reverse many of Trump’s policies.

2.3 ACROSS THE BORDER: EXPERIENCES FROM A CHILD AND ADOLESCENT PSYCHIATRIST AND A TRAINEE ON WORKING WITH REFUGEES IN TIJUANA

Thousands of Central Americans arrived in Tijuana in the fall of 2018 with hope of seeking asylum in the United States. Due to controversial US policy, asylum seekers add their name to a list and wait in Mexico for months to years for their asylum hearing. Amid a surge of arrivals, this list has stretched to thousands of names, and the length of waiting time keeps getting longer. Overall, it is estimated that there are 58,000 migrants awaiting asylum in Mexico. Tijuana has the largest group of asylum seekers, with an estimated number of 10,000. Most of these refugees are living in shelters subsidized by the Mexican government, religious organizations, and other nonprofit organizations. Some of these shelters offer medical and mental health services staffed by volunteers, but as the number of refugees grows, so do their medical and psychological needs.

Regional variation in COVID-19 disparities: connections with immigrant and Latinx communities in U.S. counties

PurposeTo evaluate associations between counties’ COVID-19 cases and racial-ethnic and nativity composition, considering heterogeneity across Latin American-origin subgroups and regions of the United States. MethodsUsing county-level data and multilevel negative binomial models, we evaluate associations between COVID-19 cases and percentages of residents that are foreign-born, Latinx, Black, or Asian, presenting estimates for all counties combined and stratifying across regions. Given varying risk factors among Latinx, we also evaluate associations for percentages of residents from specific Latin American-origin groups. ResultsPercentage of foreign-born residents is positively associated with COVID-19 case rate (IRR = 1.106; 95% CI: 1.074–1.139). Adjusted associations for percentage Latinx are nonsignificant for all counties combined, but this obscures heterogeneity. Counties with more Central Americans have higher case rates (IRR = 1.130; 95% CI: 1.067–1.197). And, in the Northeast and Midwest, counties with more Puerto Ricans have higher case rates. Associations with percentage Asians are nonsignificant after adjusting for percentage foreign-born. With the confirmation of prior evidence, the percentage of Black residents is positively and robustly associated with COVID-19 case rate (IRR = 1.031; 95% CI: 1.025–1.036). ConclusionsCounties with more immigrants, as well as more Central American or Black residents, have more COVID-19 cases. In the Northeast and Midwest, counties with more Puerto Rican residents also have more COVID-19 cases.

La migración centroamericana a los Estados Unidos en tiempos del COVID-19

Resumen La pandemia del COVID-19 y las medidas para enfrentarla han trastocado innumerables procesos sociales. La migración hacia los Estados Unidos está lejos de ser la excepción. Después de aportar cifras que apoyan la hipótesis del descenso del flujo migratorio hacia los Estados Unidos en 2020 debido al temor al coronavirus y a una contracción del mercado laboral, este texto compara la situación de los migrantes centroamericanos en dos ubicaciones: los suburbios de Virginia y la ciudad de Los Angeles. Cuatro centroamericanos proporcionan información fresca sobre cómo están lidiando con las restricciones impuestas por los diferentes niveles del Estado y la reducción de las oportunidades de empleo. Sus declaraciones permiten identificar algunos factores de elevada influencia en un incremento de riesgos y daños en la ciudad de Los Angeles: densidad poblacional, desacuerdos entre las autoridades estatales y un estilo de vida de intensa socialización típico de una megalópolis. Por esta razón el impacto del COVID-19 en los lugares aquí mencionados es una historia de dos ciudades con fuertes contrastes. Quedan muchas preguntas para seguir investigando. Este texto ante todo muestra un retrato de cómo los asuntos relacionados con la pandemia son enfrentados por los migrantes en la vida cotidiana, según sus propias palabras.

Central American Asylum Seekers in Southern Mexico: Fluid (Im)mobility in Protracted Migration Trajectories

The search for safety among asylum seekers worldwide is seldom circumscribed to a linear trajectory. Central Americans who arrive in Mexico seeking protection engage in prolonged journeys whether as a part of a predetermined plan or as a result of the changing circumstances they encounter along the way. As people await a response to their claim, they enter a pause that immobilizes them, which influences the decision to stay put or to move on. Difficult conditions in Mexico, the hurdles that the procedure to access asylum imposes on claimants, and the intended plans for ongoing mobility engender fluid migration trajectories

HPV vaccine coverage across Hispanic/Latinx subgroups in the United States.

Research on HPV vaccine coverage in the United States has typically aggregated Hispanic/Latinx individuals into a single group for analyses, an approach that has potentially masked variation between Hispanic/Latinx subgroups. To address this limitation, we examined HPV vaccine coverage across Hispanic/Latinx subgroups. We analyzed data on Hispanic/Latinx adolescents ages 13-17 (n = 16,335) from the 2012-2016 National Immunization Survey-Teen. Each adolescent was categorized into a subgroup: Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican, Central American, South American, other Spanish origin, or multi-subgroup. We examined HPV vaccine initiation (receipt of one or more doses) and completion (receipt of three doses) for males and females separately. Analyses used weighted logistic regression. Vaccine coverage among males was highest among Central Americans (initiation: 57.5%; completion: 31.1%) and lowest among multi-subgroup males (initiation: 46.3%; completion: 19.9%). Among females, initiation ranged from 63.4% among Cubans to 71.2% among Puerto Ricans, and completion ranged from 33.6% among multi-subgroup females to 48.7% among South Americans. Hispanic/Latinx subgroups were similar on these outcomes in regression models. However, within several subgroups, vaccine coverage was higher among adolescents whose parents' preferred language was Spanish (i.e., potentially less acculturated) compared to those whose parents' preferred language was English. Modest variation in HPV vaccine coverage exists across Hispanic/Latinx subgroups, with differences found by preferred language within several subgroups. Findings provide insight into HPV vaccine coverage among Hispanic/Latinx subgroups and can help guide future surveillance efforts and vaccination interventions.

The digital life of the #migrantcaravan: Contextualizing Twitter as a spatial technology

The Central American migrant caravans of 2018 are best understood as having been precipitated by entangled multi-scalar geopolitical histories among the United States, Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. Unsurprisingly, the migrants traveling north to the United States garnered widespread attention on social media. So much so that the reaction to the caravan accelerated plans to deploy troops to the US southern border and deny Central Americans the opportunity to seek asylum. This example showcases how the digital world can have exponential material effects. While coverage on border security and migration has been extensive, within political geography, such concerns have rarely been paired with social media. In this article, we take as our object of analysis the digitality or “digital life” of the migrant caravan. Mapping the patterns of migrant caravan-related tweeting paired with the exploration of Twitter’s networked dimensions reveals the platform to be a fundamentally spatial technology. Rather than reflect, refract or distort, Twitter produces and (its power) is in turn produced through spatial mechanisms. We present multiple cartographic visualizations in support of this claim and highlight the ways in which a contextual knowledge of the subject under study—the migrant caravan—can further inform analyses of Big Data.

The Real Crisis at the Mexico-U.S. Border: A Humanitarian and Not an Immigration Emergency.

Misguided U.S. Policies since 1980 have created a large undocumented population within the United States. Border militarization curtailed circular undocumented migration from Mexico and Cold War politics precluded the acceptance of refugees from Central America fleeing violence and economic turmoil unleashed by America's intervention in the region. Although undocumented migration from Mexico has ended, resources devoted to border apprehensions and internal deportations continue to rise, pushing an ever larger number of Central Americans into an immigrant detention system that is ill-equipped to handle them. Although the Trump Administration portrays the situation as an immigration crisis, what is really unfolding along the border and within the United States is an unprecedented humanitarian cross that in so many ways is one of our own making.

Dirty Work, Dangerous Others

While Mexico has been openly critical of US immigration enforcement policies, it has also served as a strategic partner in US efforts to externalize its immigration enforcement strategy. In 2016, Mexico returned twice as many Central Americans as did the United States, calling many to criticize Mexico for doing the United States’ “dirty work.” Based on ethnographic research and discourse analysis, this article unpacks and complicates the idea that Mexico is simply doing the “dirty work” of the United States. It examines how, through the construction of “dirty others”—as vectors of disease, criminals, smugglers, and workers—Central Americans come to embody “matter out of place,” thus threatening order, security, and the nation itself. Dirt and dirtiness, in both symbolic and material forms, emerge as crucial organizing factors in the politics of Central American transit migration, providing an important case study in the dynamics between transit and destination states.