US-Mexico Border Research Articles

S0467 Functional Gastroduodenal Disorders in a Predominantly Hispanic Population: A Cross-Sectional Study

INTRODUCTION: The epidemiology of functional gastroduodenal disorders (FGDs) has been recently studied in the Rome IV Global Study. The prevalence of functional dyspepsia varied significantly across countries, such as 10.1% in the USA vs. 6.6% in Mexico (Sperber et al. 2020). The global study did not sufficiently explore the prevalence among specific sub-populations within those countries, such as those residing on the US-Mexico border, a population composed primarily of Hispanics with high rates of acculturation. The aim of this study was to characterize the prevalence of FGDs in this unique population. METHODS: This cross-sectional study recruited subjects from various community centers throughout El Paso, Texas—a city on the US-Mexico border, from 2019 to 2020. Validated paper-based English or Spanish versions of the Rome IV Questionnaire were used according to subjects' preference. Those with a history of peptic ulcer disease, gastrointestinal cancer, celiac disease, or inflammatory bowel disease were excluded. Subjects’ perception of their health status was rated as: poor, fair, good, very good, and excellent. Collected data is presented as prevalence (95% confidence interval (CI)) and compared using Chi-square test/Fisher's exact test. RESULTS: A total of 216 adult subjects (54.6% female; 66.2% Hispanic) completed the questionnaire. After excluding the patients with history of organic gastrointestinal disorders, 197 subjects were included in the study. The overall prevalence of FGDs was 6% (95% CI: 3%–10%) and they were more prevalent in females than in males (7.4% vs. 4.5%, P < 0.05). The most common FGDs were functional dyspepsia and rumination syndrome, both observed in 2.5% (0.8%–6%); followed by belching disorders in 2% (0.6%–5%). Chronic nausea and vomiting syndrome and cyclic vomiting syndrome were detected in 1.5% (0.3%–4%) and 1% (0.1%–4%), respectively. More subjects with FGDs rated their health status as poor/fair compared to those without FGDs (50% vs. 12.4%, P < 0.001). CONCLUSION: In this study on the US-Mexico border, we found that FGDs were relatively common. The prevalence of functional dyspepsia was lower than the worldwide prevalence, including that of the US and Mexico. The prevalence of belching disorders and vomiting disorders were statistically similar to the worldwide prevalence. In our population, the prevalence of rumination syndrome was similar to functional dyspepsia.

HPV Vaccine Beliefs and Correlates of Uptake Among Hispanic Women and Their Children on the US-Mexico Border.

Introduction:Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted infection nationally. Although preventable, uptake of the HPV vaccine is low. The purpose of this study was to describe HPV vaccine knowledge and beliefs and psychosocial correlates of vaccine uptake among adult females and their children in a US-Mexico border community.Materials and Methods:We conducted a survey of uninsured women aged 21-65 years living in Texas who were due for cervical cancer screening. We utilized descriptive statistics to report demographic and psychosocial variables. We used logistic regression analysis to identify correlates of prior vaccine uptake.Results:599 women completed surveys: mean age was 44.69 years, 97.8%, were Hispanic and 86% were Spanish speaking; 5% had been vaccinated. Awareness of HPV infection & HPV vaccine was 81.6% & 68.6% respectively. Scores for mean perceived susceptibility was low and mean perceived benefits was high; the mean score for knowledge was 3.69 out of 6. Common parental barriers to child vaccination were cost, lack of accessibility and lack of information. Correlates of past HPV vaccine uptake among adult women were younger age, monthly income of $2,500-$5,000, full-time employment, US birth, and higher perceived severity of HPV. Older age was a correlate of vaccine uptake for daughters.Discussion and Conclusion:Findings revealed low HPV vaccine uptake among adult Hispanic women, but high vaccine acceptability for their sons and daughters. Culturally tailored educational interventions are needed to improve HPV knowledge and HPV vaccine uptake among adults and their children.

Absent and present: Biopolitics and the materiality of body counts on the US–Mexico border

As the deaths of undocumented migrants expose the violence of border security policies around the globe, a complicated politics emerges between bodily death and the ways in which the migrant association of decedents (dis)appears in vital records – even as many migrants physically disappear during their border crossings. What happens between death and bureaucratic disappearance after a migrant body is discovered? How does the overwhelming material presence of migrant death, someone who dies through an unnecessary and excruciating process like drowning or dehydration during a border crossing, become not-a-migrant? This article considers these questions by exploring the materiality of body counts at the nexus of biopolitics, forensic anthropology, and material culture studies. To probe the process behind migrants’ seemingly systematized bureaucratic postmortem disappearance, this ethnographic case study of local postmortem investigations of migrant deaths at the US–Mexico border examines practices around burial or cremation and body discovery.

A new maximum size for the family Nomeidae and the third record of a longfin cigarfish, Cubiceps paradoxus (Stromateoidei: Nomeidae) from California, USA.

We report the largest specimen from the stromateoid family Nomeidae. The specimen, measuring 1283 mm total length unpreserved, was caught on hook and line from shore in Port Hueneme, California, USA in June 2019. Despite scavenging damage, the specimen was identified as a longfin cigarfish, Cubiceps paradoxus, using morphological characters and molecular techniques. This is the third record of C. paradoxus from California. We also provide an account of a previously unreported C. paradoxus collected off the US-Mexico Border in 1999 that was examined but not preserved.

Demographically adjusted norms for the Trail Making Test in native Spanish speakers: Results from the neuropsychological norms for the US-Mexico border region in Spanish (NP-NUMBRS) project

Objective Despite the wide use of the Trail Making Test (TMT), there is a lack of normative data for Spanish speakers living in the USA. Here we describe the development of regional norms for the TMT for native Spanish speakers residing in the Southwest Mexico-Border Region of the USA. Method Participants were 252 healthy native Spanish speakers, 58% women, from ages 19 to 60, and ranging in education from 0 to 20 years, recruited in San Diego, CA and Tucson, AZ. All completed the TMT in Spanish along with a comprehensive neuropsychological test battery as part of their participation in the Neuropsychological Norms for the US–Mexico Border Region in Spanish (NP-NUMBRS) project. Univariable and interactive effects of demographics on test performance were examined. T-scores were calculated using fractional polynomial equations to account for linear and any non-linear effects of age, education, and sex. Results Older age and lower education were associated with worse scores on both TMT A and B. No sex differences were found. The newly derived T-scores showed no association with demographic variables and displayed the expected 16% rates of impairment using a −1 SD cut point based on a normal distribution. By comparison, published norms for English-speaking non-Hispanic Whites applied to the current data yielded significantly higher impairment for both TMT A and B with more comparable rates using non-Hispanic African Americans norms. Conclusions Population-specific, demographically adjusted regional norms improve the utility and diagnostic accuracy of the TMT for use with native Spanish speakers in the US-Mexico Border region.

The Prevalence of Genital Human Papillomavirus Subtypes in a Cohort of Hispanic Women Presenting for Cervical Cancer Screening Along the US-Mexico Border.

Introduction : Hispanic women residing along the US-Mexico border have the highest cervical cancer incidence rates in the US. Genital human papillomavirus (HPV) is the major causative agent, but more information is needed about the prevalence and distribution of genital HPV subtypes in this high-risk population. Methods : A population-based cross-sectional study of uninsured Hispanic women along the US-Mexico border was conducted and participants had their cervical specimens undergo DNA extraction followed by HPV genotype testing using the Linear Assay from Roche® Diagnostics, to identify 37 genital HPV subtypes. Results : Among the 585 women aged 21-65 years, 584 self-identfied as Hispanic. Any HPV subtype prevalence was 53.2% (95% CI: 49.0%-57.3%) and of these 52% (i.e. 27.5% of the total) had single infections and 48% (i.e. 25.6% of the total) had multiple infections. High-risk HPV prevalence was 15.6% (95% CI: 24-31.3%). The mean number of subtypes among those testing positive was 2.1 (SD 1.6). The prevalence of any HPV and high-risk HPV showed a U shaped pattern with age; and prevalence of 16/18 and non-16/18 high-risk subtypes (e.g. 31, 33, 35, 39, 45, 51, 52, 58); also varied with age. Forty-one percent of high-risk HPV occurrences were of a subtype not covered by the current nonavalent HPV vaccine. Discussion : Our findings suggest a different high-risk HPV subtype pattern and age distribution among Hispanic women in the USA, which could have implications for future cervical cancer prevention strategies.

Stated benefits from air quality improvement through urban afforestation in an arid city – A contingent valuation in Mexicali, Baja California, Mexico

Cities in drylands are expected to experience increasing challenges when it comes to air pollution. Currently, concentrations of particulate matter in these cities frequently reach dangerous levels. Urban afforestation represents an alternative to increase human health in arid cities via air-filtering and dry deposition. By simulating a non-existing market through a contingent valuation protocol, this study estimates the willingness to contribute monetarily to an urban afforestation scenario in Mexicali –an arid city located at the US-Mexico border. We estimate an average annual willingness to pay (WTP) of (2019) USD 88 per household. Variations in WTP are associated with the respondent’s perception of air quality and the presence of respiratory symptoms in the respondent’s household. The smallest WTP (USD 75) is reported by those perceiving poor air quality in their neighborhood and with no household members affected by respiratory symptoms. Respondents perceiving good air quality and with at least one household member facing respiratory symptoms report a WTP of USD 99. The highest WTP represents around 0.8 % of the annual household income. This WTP, when extrapolated to and aggregated over the total number of households in Mexicali, justifies the implementation of an urban afforestation program supplying 30 thousand tree seedlings annually.

“Facile Gates:” Walls and Identity Across Paradise Lost and Along the US-Mexico Border

ABSTRACT This article compares the respective functions of the US-Mexico border wall and borders within Paradise Lost. Supposed threats to economic, physical, and cultural property encourage modern nation-states to continue constructing territorial borders despite a growing body of work that contests the efficacy of walls in deterring unauthorized migration. More effective are the symbolic capacities of walls and their ability to articulate the people and cultures they enclose.

Educating Across Borders: The Case of a Dual Language Program on the US‐Mexico Border. M. T.de la Piedra, B.Araujo and A.Esquinca, University of Arizona Press, 2018, pp. 1–216.

Anthropology & Education QuarterlyVolume 51, Issue 4 p. 527-529 Book Review Educating Across Borders: The Case of a Dual Language Program on the US-Mexico Border. M. T. de la Piedra, B. Araujo and A. Esquinca, University of Arizona Press, 2018, pp. 1– 216. Ashley Domínguez, Ashley Domínguez orcid.org/0000-0002-2140-3859 Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, Arizona State UniversitySearch for more papers by this author Ashley Domínguez, Ashley Domínguez orcid.org/0000-0002-2140-3859 Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, Arizona State UniversitySearch for more papers by this author First published: 12 August 2020 https://doi.org/10.1111/aeq.12350Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume51, Issue4December 2020Pages 527-529 RelatedInformation

Deported to death: How drug violence is changing migration on the US–Mexico border

Deported to death: How drug violence is changing migration on the US–Mexico border

Assessing Impact of Household Intervention on Indoor Air Quality and Health of Children with Asthma in the US-Mexico Border: A Pilot Study.

Few studies have investigated household interventions to enhance indoor air quality (IAQ) and health outcomes in relatively low-income communities. This study aims to examine the impact of the combined intervention with asthma education and air purifier on IAQ and health outcomes in the US-Mexico border area. An intervention study conducted in McAllen, Texas, between June and November 2019 included 16 households having children with asthma. The particulate matter (PM2.5) levels were monitored in the bedroom, kitchen, and living room to measure the IAQ for 7 days before and after the intervention, respectively. Multiple surveys were applied to evaluate changes in children's health outcomes. The mean PM2.5 levels in each place were significantly improved. Overall, they significantly decreased by 1.91 μg/m3 on average (p < 0.05). All surveys showed better health outcomes; particularly, quality of life for children was significantly improved (p < 0.05). This pilot study suggests that the combined household intervention might improve IAQ in households and health outcomes for children with asthma and reduce health disparities in low-income communities. Future large-scale studies are needed to verify the effectiveness of this household intervention to improve IAQ and asthma management.

What Will I Feed My Family Today? Food Decisions during COVID-19 on the US-Mexico Borderlands

Research Article| August 01 2020 What Will I Feed My Family Today? Food Decisions during COVID-19 on the US-Mexico Borderlands Guillermina Gina Núñez-Mchiri Guillermina Gina Núñez-Mchiri Guillermina Gina Núñez-Mchiri is Director of Women's and Gender Studies and Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Texas at El Paso. She teaches ethnographic and feminist research; food, culture, and society; urbanization; and cultural anthropology. Her work focuses on ethnography on the US-Mexico border, food, and culture. Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Gastronomica (2020) 20 (3): 48–49. https://doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2020.20.3.48 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Guillermina Gina Núñez-Mchiri; What Will I Feed My Family Today? Food Decisions during COVID-19 on the US-Mexico Borderlands. Gastronomica 1 August 2020; 20 (3): 48–49. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/gfc.2020.20.3.48 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentGastronomica Search This content is only available via PDF. © 2020 by the Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Reprints and Permissions web page, https://www.ucpress.edu/journals/reprints-permissions.2020The Regents of the University of California Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

The Caravan (portfolio)

Portfolio by Guillermo Arias&#x0D; The Caravan documents the journey of thousands of Central American migrants traveling in large groups of self-called caravans to the United States in hopes of a better life; the challenges they experienced during their journey through Mexico, the difficulties once they reach the US–Mexico border and finally, the struggle and desperation to cross by any means the physical border barriers to pursue their American dream.

Fall migration of radio-tagged Broad-winged Hawks (Buteo platypterus) in California

Little is known about migration patterns of Broad-winged Hawks (Buteo platypterus) in the western United States apart from small numbers that have been recorded at migration monitoring sites. To better understand their movements in coastal California, we radio-tracked 5 juveniles (1 in 1994, and 4 from 2012 to 2015) during fall migration from the Marin Headlands (near San Francisco) to the US–Mexico border. One hawk died near the Headlands within 2–3 d of release and the other 4 crossed into Baja California in 4–6 flight days with no stopovers beyond the Headlands. Daily straight-line flight distances ranged from about 110 to 265 km (mean = 189 ± 47 km SD). Migration began 2.5–3 h after sunrise and ended a similar amount of time before sunset. Flight paths along mountain ranges, and radio signal patterns, indicated slope-soaring was a primary strategy. The detailed flight paths we identified will be helpful to better evaluate proposed renewable energy facilities, given their current rapid development and potential for killing birds. More study is needed to determine complete migration routes and breeding and wintering grounds of Broad-winged Hawks on the Pacific coast.

Liberal Policies, Punitive Effects: The Politics of Enforcement Discretion on the US-Mexico Border

This article examines why deportation and imprisonment for immigration offenses rose under presidential administrations that claimed to favor more “humane” approaches to immigration enforcement. I examine the politics of enforcement discretion on the US-Mexico border during the administrations of Bill Clinton (1993–2001) and Barack Obama (2009–17). Drawing on historical and ethnographic research, I argue that the Clinton and Obama administrations took a punitive humanitarian approach to enforcement discretion aimed at punishing “illegal immigration” at the border while protecting “legal immigrants” with long-standing ties to the United States from deportation. The findings show that such an approach extended crime control to US-Mexico border enforcement. This blend of humanitarian and punitive approaches systematized criminal enforcement priorities and expanded the discretion of border agents to deport and imprison. Just as other scholars have shown how liberal reform contributed to the rise of the carceral state, this article shows how immigration policies that blended humanitarianism and security punished the very people such policies were designed to protect.

Photo-translation

Abstract This article introduces the concept of ‘photo-translation’ for studying documentary photography as a collaborative practice of visual translation. The visual-translational approach to photo documentation is applied in a novel way to the emerging field of contemporary migration photography, thus relating recent theoretical connections between translation and migration studies to explorations in visual studies. The study discusses how participatory and collaborative practices are increasingly used in contemporary photo documentation to challenge, if not remove, the relational ‘othering’ effect inherent in the photo-documentary representation of refugees, migrants and displaced peoples. The potential of translaboration as a mode of translational collaboration is explored through an in-depth analysis of two photo projects: (1) the participatory photo project Fotohistorias (Gomez and Vannini 2015), conducted by social and information scientists Ricardo Gomez and Sara Vannini in cooperation with migrants at the US–Mexico border; and (2) the collaborative photo–graphic novel project Lampedusa: Image Stories from the Edge of Europe (Migrant Image Research Group 2017), carried out by the Migrant Image Research Group under the guidance of Armin Linke. Demanding agency in visual translation proves to be essential for these participatory photo projects, since they aim to challenge dominant visual representations of how migration is narrated and represented in the media and academic discourse. For this reason, the investigation draws on new sociological approaches in Translation Studies in order to frame photo-translation as a social practice and as a form of (activist) engagement involving various agents and institutions.

“From Standing Rock to Palestine we are United”: diaspora politics, decolonization and the intersectionality of struggles

ABSTRACT This article analyses a form of diasporic activism that breaks the seeming duality between diasporic imaginaries and colonial realities, diasporas and refugees. By focusing on the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) it analyses a diasporic standpoint which is not confined to identity politics, nor to the Palestinian nationalist struggle of territorial liberation, but conceives of Palestine as one of the most visible, present-day materialisations of Western colonial modernity. The condition of this diasporic political subjectivity lies in what we call here an “intersectional ‘space of appearance’”: an affective multi-sited political space that exposes and makes visible the continuum of systems of subjugation and expropriation across liberal democracies and settler-colonial regimes, and the whiteness of mainstream activist spaces. This space encompasses key sites of Black, Indigenous, Arab and Muslim mobilization: from Ferguson to Standing Rock, from the Mexico-US border to Palestine and Palestinian camps, from Tunis to Paris.

Ongoing emergence: borderland high school DLBE students’ self-identifications as lingual people

ABSTRACT Conceptualizations of language as translanguaging (Otheguy, García, and Reid 2015) help us to render wholeness out of languages and groups of speakers socially constructed as distinct. Yet in practice teachers are still compelled to identify students by dichotomous institutional labels for discrete proficiencies in named languages: identity labels that are inevitably hierarchical and connected to inequity. This paper examines how youth in a two-way DLBE program on the US-Mexico border conceptualized themselves and their peers quite differently – as non-dichotomous – and their bilingualism as more continuously emergent. Based on interviews in a multiyear ethnography, we argue that youths’ conceptualizations of themselves as lingual (Flores 2013) people, rather than bilingual or monolingual, English learner or English proficient, are particularly important for serving our goals of equity in DLBE at the high school level.

Correlates of trichomoniasis among female sex workers who inject drugs in two Mexico-US border cities.

This paper evaluates correlates of trichomoniasis among female sex workers who inject drugs (FSWIDs) in two Mexico-US border cities. HIV-negative FSWIDs aged 18 years or older were enrolled in a study between 2008 and 2010 in Tijuana and Ciudad Juarez (Cd.), Mexico. All participants underwent a baseline interviewer-administered survey and did a rapid test for trichomoniasis. Using regression to estimate prevalence ratios, we examined sociodemographics, sex work characteristics, sexual health and behavior, substance use, and police and violence exposures as potential correlates of trichomoniasis. Of 584 women (284 in Tijuana, 300 in Cd. Juarez), prevalence of trichomoniasis was 33.6%. Factors associated with trichomoniasis in multivariable analysis were having money stolen by police in the past six months (adjusted prevalence ratio [aPR] =1.448, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.152-1.821), recent methamphetamine use (aPR = 1.432, CI = 1.055-1.944), lifetime syphilis infection (aPR = 1.360, CI = 1.061-1.743), ever use of a home remedy to treat vaginal symptoms (aPR = 1.301, CI = 1.027-1.649), and number of regular clients in the past month (aPR = 1.006 per client, CI = 1.004-1.009), while controlling for age and city of interview. Alongside the need for trichomoniasis surveillance and treatment programs, findings indicate that both structural and behavioral factors serve as primary correlates of trichomoniasis among FSWIDs in these cities.

“The Freedom of Jail”: Women, Detention, and the Expansion of Immigration Governance along the US–Mexico Border, 1903–1917

Abstract This article traces the contours of immigrant detention along the US-Mexico border between 1903 and 1917. Underfunded and undersized, privately owned but federally managed immigration stations and detention facilities forced government agencies to consider where to hold an increasing number of detained immigrant women. While debate arose over which detention location allowed the most “freedom,” some women suffered verbal, physical, and sexual abuse during their incarceration. This article draws upon US Bureau of Immigration annual and investigative reports, testimony, leasing agreements, and correspondence to argue that gender was a driving force in the construction of detention rooms and facilities along the border after 1903.