Hispanic Workers Research Articles

Hispanic construction workers and assertiveness training

Hispanic (Latino) construction workers experience disparities in occupational death and injury rates in the United States. The cultural value of respect for those in authority may hinder these workers from requesting safe working conditions from supervisors. To evaluate whether Hispanic construction workers in Las Vegas, Nevada found assertiveness training more useful than non-Hispanic trainees and whether or not they practiced this behavior at work after the training. An assertiveness training simulation was part of fall prevention classes offered to area construction workers. Eight weeks after the training, participants were interviewed by telephone about class topics they found most useful and whether or not they had made any subsequent behavior changes at work. More than half of the 760 fall prevention trainees completed telephone interviews. A smaller proportion of Hispanic trainees found assertiveness training to be useful (11%) than non-Hispanics (28%) (p⩽ 0.001). Only 2% of both groups identified practicing assertiveness at work. A large proportion of Hispanic trainees valued other knowledge more highly. They may weigh job security as more important than speaking up about safety issues, which might threaten their employment. Interventions to improve safety should focus instead on improving work safety climate and engineering controls.

Butterfly Boy: Memoirs of a Chicano Mariposa by Rigoberto González

Reviewed by: Butterfly Boy: Memoirs of a Chicano Mariposa by Rigoberto González Nancy Kang (bio) González, Rigoberto. Butterfly Boy: Memoirs of a Chicano Mariposa. Madison: U of Wisconsin P, 2006. The butterfly in the title of Rigoberto González’s memoir is a loaded symbol that refers first to the fiery clouds of monarch butterflies spreading northwards from Mexico. In [End Page 750] this seasonal transit to the United States, they resemble the farm laborers of the author’s extended, cross-border family. Born into a “culture of work,” the Chicano writer declares, “What of the migratory Los González, moving from one place to another and marking every stopping place with angst?” (168). The fragile insect also alludes to the Spanish epithet mariposa for a gay man, an identity which González claims and embraces, and the shape of the bruising kisses that his mentally unstable boyfriend makes all over his neck and back. Although the epithet “butterfly boy” appears initially to infantilize the autobiographical subject, the pejorative sense recedes once we understand that this coming-of-age narrative spans the period of González’s birth in Bakersfield, California, in 1970, to his journey twenty years later to Zacapú (a city nestled among mountains in southwestern Mexico) with his father. Calling himself “butterfly boy” acknowledges the awkwardness of the young cipher, a child “effeminate and demure” who “wanted to do girl things” while surrounded by a culture of machismo (88, 91). Sitting years later in a cramped and ill-ventilated bus, the memoirist flutters impatiently between present and past time in order to find a place of emotional repose, no matter how fleeting. Framed by this brief summer road trip, the narrative breaks into five short sections of self-reflection, poignant flashbacks, and imagistic vignettes of growing up in small town Mexico with numerous relatives and later, the fruit-rich Coachella Valley of California. Part of “el campo,” or a large farming community of Hispanic migrant workers (officially, denizens of the Fred Young Farm Labor Camp), González was flanked by a loving (if sickly and overburdened) mother and a charismatic, irresponsible father whose affection he particularly craved. Avelina González is notable for her participation in the grape boycotts and other forms of grassroots activism during the early 1970s under the leadership of César Chávez. Searching through his mother’s possessions upon arrival in his grandparents’ Zacapú home, Rigoberto muses, “In one picture I’m holding a red flag with the familiar UFW [United Farm Workers] logo—a black eagle, or upside down Aztec pyramid, depending on how it is viewed” (180). Suffering from a weak heart and eventually passing away unexpectedly at age thirty-one, González’s mother left behind two young sons, twelve-year-old Rigoberto and ten-year-old Alex, both of whom were subsequently abandoned by their father. An alcoholic with a larger-than-life personality, Rigoberto, Sr. exists as a source of lifelong ambivalence, especially given his choice to marry and start a new family without fully attending to the emotional and material needs of his previous family. As the memoirist confesses bitterly, “Apá, I have called my father since I was a child. My mother was Mami. I lost both. One to death, one to fear. I have forgiven only one” (24). On the bus, clipped and moody exchanges between the eager-to-please older man and chronically depressed son contrast with sections of lyrical “ghost-whispering,” or reconstructed nocturnal conversations between González and his absent lover. The recuperative search for a father figure is persistent and compelling, as the writer admits, “In Indio, I’m the son and grandson of farmworkers who have never once hugged me, but whom I miss terribly, especially when I need to run away from the man who tells me that he loves me, he loves me, he loves me” (8). The unnamed lover, like Rigoberto, Sr., is an older man, worldly and wealthy whereas the father is small-minded and cheap. In one crushing episode near the conclusion of the text, the father presents his twenty-year-old son with a birthday gift of cologne, despite [End Page...

The Blue Man

Muriatic acid (hydrochloric acid), a common cleaning and resurfacing agent for concrete pools, can cause significant burn injuries. When coating a pool with chlorinated rubber-based paint, the pool surface is initially cleansed using 31.45% muriatic acid. Here we report a 50-year-old Hispanic male pool worker who, during the process of a pool resurfacing, experienced significant contact exposure to a combination of muriatic acid and blue chlorinated rubber-based paint. Confounding the clinical situation was the inability to efficiently remove the chemical secondary to the rubber-based nature of the paint. Additionally, vigorous attempts were made to remove the rubber paint using a variety of agents, including bacitracin, chlorhexidine soap, GOOP adhesive, and Johnson's baby oil. Resultant injuries were devastating fourth-degree burns requiring an immediate operative excision and amputation. Despite aggressive operative intervention and resuscitation, he continued to have severe metabolic derangements and ultimately succumbed to his injuries. We present our attempts at debridement and the system in place to manage patients with complex chemical burns.

Risky Sexual Behaviors: The Role of Ethnic Identity in HIV Risk in Migrant Workers

Migrant workers have been shown to be at a heightened level of risk for HIV, and ethnic identity has been posited to have an impact on engagement in risky sexual behaviors. Our longitudinal study examined associations between baseline and short-term changes in ethnic identity and high-risk sexual behaviors. Baseline (n = 431) and 6-month assessment (n = 270) data were obtained from a larger HIV prevention study conducted among African American and Hispanic migrant workers. Repeated-measures multivariate analysis of covariance and multiple linear regressions were used. Ethnic identity explore, a subscale of ethnic identity, was a significant predictor of overall sexual risk [F(8, 422) = 6.953, p < .001] and unprotected vaginal acts [F(8, 422) = 8.444, p < .001] at baseline. However, ethnic identity had no bearing on changes in risky sexual behaviors. Ethnic identity explore was associated with safer sexual behaviors.

Use of Pictorial Evaluations to Measure Knowledge Gained by Hispanic Landscape Workers Receiving Safety Training

Landscape work is dangerous. In the Southeast, Hispanic workers predominate in landscape industries. The incidence of functional illiteracy in this group of workers is high. A pictorial knowledge-based evaluation instrument was developed to measure the effectiveness of the trainings. No reading skills were required to take the evaluation. The evaluation instrument was not sensitive enough to measure knowledge gain as a result of the training quantitatively but has application as a strong review and discussion tool and could be used for group evaluations to collect qualitative data.

Project Salud: Efficacy of a Community-Based HIV Prevention Intervention for Hispanic Migrant Workers in South Florida

Project Salud evaluates the efficacy of a community-based intervention to reduce risk behaviors and enhance factors for HIV-preventative behaviors. A randomized controlled trial of 278 high risk Latino migrant workers was conducted between 2008 and 2010. Participants completed an audio computer-assisted self-interview questionnaire at baseline and 3- and 9-month post-intervention follow-ups. Participants were randomly assigned to the community-based intervention (A-SEMI) or the health promotion condition (HPC). Both interventions consisted of four 2.5-hour interactive sessions and were structurally equivalent in administration and format. Relative to the comparison condition, A-SEMI participants reported more consistent condom use, were less likely to report never having used condoms, and were more likely to have used condoms at last sexual encounter during the past 90 and 30 days. A-SEMI participants also experienced a positive change in regard to factors for HIV-preventive behaviors over the entire 9-month period. Our results support the implementation of community-based, culturally tailored interventions among Latino migrant workers.

Occupational segregation of Hispanics in US metropolitan areas

This article quantifies the occupational segregation of Hispanics in the largest Hispanic enclaves of the US. Using a procedure based on propensity score, it explores the role played by the characteristics of Hispanics, such as country of origin and English fluency, in explaining the variation of segregation across metropolitan areas. Regarding the characteristics of the metropolitan areas, a regression analysis shows that the segregation of Hispanic workers tends to be higher in relatively smaller and highly educated labour markets, with a lower proportion of Hispanics, a higher growth of recent foreign-born Hispanics and in areas where they face cooler feelings from the rest of the population.

Proficiency in Condom Use Among Migrant Workers

Consistent and correct use of condoms is important to prevent the transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases. We evaluated condom use skills on an 11-point scale in which participants were observed placing a condom on a penile model. Participants were 375 sexually active African American and Hispanic migrant workers. For analysis, subjects were divided into skilled and unskilled groups by a median split of the condom use skills score. Sexual risk behaviors were analyzed between condom use skilled and unskilled groups and level of condom use skills between African Americans and Hispanics. African Americans showed better skills in using condoms, and participants in the condom-use skilled group used condoms more frequently. Finally, a logistic regression was conducted to find predictors of condom use skills. Significant predictors were ethnicity, language, and assistance-related social support (obtaining advice from people who could provide tangible assistance).

Migrant farm-workers and health

Many diseases are more common among Latinos/as than nonHispanic Whites. Rates of teenage pregnancies, sexually transmitted infections, diabetes, cirrhosis and cervical cancer are higher among Latinos/as. In particular, rates of alcohol abuse, motor vehicle accidents and interpersonal trauma are higher among Hispanic migrant farm workers. Furthermore, Latinas, including those in farming communities, use breast and cervical cancer screening services less than do women in other ethnic groups.

Fruitful and Dangerous Intersections: Race, the United Fruit Company, and Scholars of Empire Converge in Central America

Jason Colby’s The Business of Empire examines the United Fruit Company (UFCO) and race relations in UFCO’s Central American banana enclaves, with Costa Rica and Guatemala as primary examples. Explaining that the book “is about the intersection of corporate power, U.S. expansion, West Indian migration, and local aspirations in Central America” (p. 3), Colby also provides a scholarly intersection, offering original research synthesized with scholarship from diverse fields, most notably work by social historians of labor and race with that of historians of U.S. foreign relations. The result is a welcome addition to a growing literature that integrates international, national, and local histories and explores state and non-state actors. Colby opens by synthesizing the rise of U.S. influence from 1848 to 1904, narrating how U.S. government and corporate-based empire emerged as Central America’s liberal modernizers sought foreign capital to build railroads for their nation-building programs. The U.S. state encouraged private ventures like Minor Keith’s, while black West Indian workers migrated to Central America’s Caribbean coasts seeking opportunity. Colby then analyzes UFCO’s corporate colonialist mentality and emergent strategy of dividing workers by race and nationality between 1904 and 1921. Managers in public (Panama Canal) and private (UFCO) enclaves shared attitudes and personnel committed to colonialism and racialized views, practiced race-based hiring, and enforced the color line. Colby argues that this reflected not transplantation of southern Jim Crow, but national and imperial racial conceptions intensified by U.S. empire building. Managers like Ivy Leaguer Victor Cutter saw themselves as progressive “civilizers” in tropical zones, and travel writers and visitors to banana enclaves absorbed and propagated imperial racial views. Meanwhile, labor disputes advanced by West Indian workers led UFCO officials to recruit Hispanic workers to divide labor. As blacks enjoyed elevated status over Hispanic workers because of English-speaking skills developed through enclave experience or status as small business owners, Central Americans resented denigration of enclave Hispanics and imperial claims that UFCO was responsible for modernizing backward nations. Ominously for West Indians (and UFCO), Central American governments defended Hispanics over black workers during episodes of racial violence and began to restrict West Indian immigration and pass discriminatory laws.

The Facts About Referrals: Toward an Understanding of Employee Referral Networks

Using unique personnel data from nine large firms in three industries, we document five consistent facts about hiring through employee referral networks. First, referred applicants have similar skill characteristics to non-referred applicants, both observable-to-the-firm (e.g., schooling) and unobservable-to-the-firm (e.g., cognitive and non-cognitive ability), but are more likely to be hired, more likely to accept job offers, and have higher pre-job assessment scores. Second, referred workers have similar skill characteristics to non-referred workers. Third, referred workers are less likely to quit and are more productive, but only on rare high-impact performance metrics; on most standard non-rare performance metrics, referred and non-referred workers perform similarly. Fourth, referred workers have slightly higher wages, but yield substantially higher profits per worker. Fifth, workers who make referrals have higher productivity than others, are less likely to quit after making a referral, and refer those like themselves on particular productivity metrics. Differences between referred and non-referred workers tend to be larger at low-tenure levels; for young, Black, and Hispanic workers; and in strong labor markets. No leading class of theories can alone account for all or most of these results, leading us to suggest several theoretical extensions.

More than training: Community‐based participatory research to reduce injuries among hispanic construction workers

Workplace mortality and severe injury are disproportionately distributed among foreign born and Hispanic construction workers. Worker Centers (WCs) provide services and advocacy for low-wage workers and a way for investigators to reach them. The goal of this project is to prevent occupational injuries by increasing awareness of hazards and self-efficacy among foreign born, Hispanic construction workers and by expanding the agenda of WCs to include occupational health and safety (H&S). Investigators partnered with eight WCs in seven cities to train worker leaders to deliver a modified OSHA 10-hr curriculum to their peers. Thirty-two worker leaders trained 446 workers over 3 years. There was a demonstrated improvement in knowledge, hazard identification, self-efficacy, and sustainable H&S activities. This study provides evidence for successful implementation of a training intervention for low wage, low literacy Hispanic construction workers using a community-based participatory research approach.

Measurement equivalence of a safety climate measure among Hispanic and White Non-Hispanic construction workers

Research continues to expose ethnic disparities in safety and health outcomes, making comparative studies of work-related factors that may explain these disparities increasingly important. Such studies raise issues about the cross-ethnic validity of the measures used to assess the factors of interest, such as safety climate. The current study is the first to examine the measurement equivalence of a multidimensional safety climate scale. A multi-group confirmatory factor analytic approach was used to assess the equivalence of the measure across White English-speaking, Hispanic English-speaking, and Hispanic Spanish-speaking construction workers. Results indicated that the same pattern of factors and equivalent factor loadings adequately represented the safety climate items across groups. However, other differences in item parameters were identified, including non-equivalence of some error variances and intercepts. This study highlights the importance of establishing measurement equivalence before proceeding with mean comparisons among groups. Future research should continue to investigate why differences in safety-related perceptions across ethnicities might exist.

Occupational Fatalities Involving Hispanic Workers in the Construction Industry

This study examined occupational fatality cases involving Hispanic workers that occurred from 2005 to 2009 in the United States. During this period, approximately 26 percent of all fatalities in the construction industry involved Hispanic workers resulting in significantly greater odds for Hispanic workers of being the victim of an occupational fatality due to falls and contact with objects. These increased odds also occurred across most age groups. Prevention measures presented include focusing efforts on construction industry trades that employ younger Hispanic workers and expose them to fall and contact with objects hazards.

Agricultural Injury in California Hispanic Farm Workers: MICASA Follow-up Survey

ABSTRACT The authors report here results from the first follow-up survey of the Mexican Immigration to California: Agricultural Safety and Acculturation (MICASA) cohort of community-dwelling immigrant Hispanic farm workers in California's Central Valley. Among 560 participants the authors observed cumulative 1-year injury incidence of 6.6% (all injuries) and 4.3% (agricultural injuries). Increased prospective injury risk was associated with males, US birth, years lived in the United States, family income, and poor self-rated health. Agricultural injuries were associated most frequently with being struck by an object, falls, and cutting instruments, whereas over two thirds of nonagricultural injuries involved motor vehicles. Prevention should focus on safe handling of tools and materials, falls, and motor vehicle safety.

Ripples from the East Coast Stream: Contributions from Migrant Hispanic Workers to Maine’s Wild Blueberry Industry

Interviews with 46 Hispanic migrant workers in the wild blueberry industry in Maine revealed they harvest different crops in several states and come to Maine at the end of the “East Coast Stream.” Although workers varied in productivity (and hence income), overall the group earned good income and contributed significantly to the Maine economy as workers and consumers. Based on these findings, governmental laws and policies are discussed in terms of their potential impact. A consideration of Maine’s aging population and interviews with employers demonstrate these workers’ importance: without them employers say, the wild blueberry industry would not be competitive.

The Value of Hiring through Referrals

Using unique personnel data from nine large firms in three industries, we document five consistent facts about hiring through employee referral networks. First, referred applicants have similar skill characteristics to non-referred applicants, both observable-to-the-firm (e.g., schooling) and unobservable-to-the-firm (e.g., cognitive and non-cognitive ability), but are more likely to be hired, more likely to accept job offers, and have higher pre-job assessment scores. Second, referred workers have similar skill characteristics to non-referred workers. Third, referred workers are less likely to quit and are more productive, but only on rare high-impact performance metrics; on most standard non-rare performance metrics, referred and non-referred workers perform similarly. Fourth, referred workers have slightly higher wages, but yield substantially higher profits per worker. Fifth, workers who make referrals have higher productivity than others, are less likely to quit after making a referral, and refer those like themselves on particular productivity metrics. Differences between referred and non-referred workers tend to be larger at low-tenure levels; for young, Black, and Hispanic workers; and in strong labor markets. No leading class of theories can alone account for all or most of these results, leading us to suggest several theoretical extensions.

Employment Verification Mandates and the Labor Market Outcomes of Likely Unauthorized and Native Workers

As recent efforts to reform immigration policy at the federal level have failed, states have started to take immigration matters into their own hands and researchers have been paying closer attention to state dynamics surrounding immigration policy. Yet, to this date, there is not a clear understanding of the consequences of enforcing E-verify on likely unauthorized immigrants and on native-born workers across the United States. This study aims to fill in that gap by analyzing the impact that the enactment of various types of E-verify mandates may have on the employment and wages of these two populations. We find that the enactment of both universal and public-sector only mandates reduce employment of likely unauthorized workers. Meanwhile, employment verification does not affect naturalized Hispanic workers but increases the employment likelihood of native workers. Impacts on wages are positive for likely unauthorized women suggesting a large labor supply reduction. For native-born workers, hourly wages also increase and provide some evidence of substitutability of unauthorized immigrants and non-Hispanic natives.

The Impact of Legal Abortion on the Wage Distribution: Evidence from the 1970 New York Abortion Reform

Three years before the ruling on Roe v. Wade, New York became the first state to allow all women legal access to abortion on demand. In this study, I determine the extent to which this change in reproductive rights impacted the characteristics of mothers giving birth in New York, their newborns, and these children’s future wages. I first use birth certificate data and a regression discontinuity design to examine the socioeconomic status of infants conceived in the weeks before and after New York’s reform. This analysis suggests that after abortion’s legalization, children were born into families with greater resources. Next, using reported age and quarter of birth in the 2005 to 2010 American Community Surveys, I estimate the probability that a worker’s mother completed her first trimester of pregnancy after the New York reform and thus had access to legal abortion. I then compare the wages of native-born New Yorkers reporting the same age (in whole years) but with different estimates of mother’s abortion access. By allowing women to better-time their births, the legalization of abortion increased the eventual wages of black, Hispanic, and lower-wage workers.

Abstract A28: Latino farm workers and non-farm workers and their experiences in providing biospecimens for research.

Abstract Objectives: The goal of this project was to re-contact 40 of the 100 adult participants (Hispanic farm worker and non-farm workers), who participated in a pesticides exposure study, to learn about their experience providing biospecimens for research. The 40 randomly selected participants are members of a larger cohort that has been participating in pesticides exposure research for over 10 years. During their participation in the pesticides exposure study these participants were asked to provide two 10mL tubes of blood, two buccal cell samples and four urine samples during the seven-day collection period. Two dust samples were also collected from the home and a 7-day dust sample was collected from the vehicle. This protocol was repeated a total of three times (during two different pesticide spray seasons and one non-spray season) over the course of one year. Twelve of the 40 participants interviewed also provided 20 saliva samples, 2 hair samples and one blood sample over 10 weeks for a stress and cortisol study. Methods: Two months after completing the pesticides exposure study, we re-contacted a random selection of 40 participants to take part in a one-on-one interview. All participants are Hispanic farm workers and non-farm workers and all live in the Yakima Valley of Washington. Interview questions were selected to learn about the participant's feelings toward research, the barriers and facilitators to participating in research and providing biological samples, expectations surrounding their biological samples and thoughts about providing tumor samples. Results: A total of 42 participants were re-contacted; 40 agreed to participate and completed an interview, 1 refused and 1 was lost to follow-up. Each participant who completed an interview was provided a $20 gift card. Qualitative analysis is summarizing the beliefs and opinions of Hispanics about donating biospecimens and their understanding of what such donation means. Their attitudes to research are also being explored. Results will be available in mid-July, 2012. Conclusion: Speculation about Latinos giving biospecimens suggests that Hispanics are more reluctant to participate than non-Hispanic Whites. This was not our experience. The personal meaning of donation and the meaning of research is important to better understand Latinos participation in biobanking. Citation Format: Beti Thompson, Elizabeth Carosso, Ilda Islas, Genoveva Ibarra. Latino farm workers and non-farm workers and their experiences in providing biospecimens for research. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the Fifth AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2012 Oct 27-30; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2012;21(10 Suppl):Abstract nr A28.