US-Mexico Border Research Articles

Effects of free trade policy on the US-Mexico border health service

Effects of free trade policy on the US-Mexico border health service

Editorial Commentary

Editorial Commentary

La vida en la frontera: protocol for a prospective study exploring stress and health resiliencies among Mexican-origin individuals living in a US-Mexico border community

BackgroundMexican-origin adults living near the U.S.-Mexico border experience unique and pervasive social and ecological stressors, including poverty, perceived discrimination, and environmental hazards, potentially contributing to the high burden of chronic disease. However, there is also evidence that residents in high-density Mexican-origin neighborhoods exhibit lower prevalence rates of disease and related mortality than those living in other areas. Understanding the factors that contribute to health resiliencies at the community scale is essential to informing the effective design of health promotion strategies.MethodsLa Vida en la Frontera is a mixed-methods participatory study linking a multi-disciplinary University of Arizona research team with Campesinos Sin Fronteras, a community-based organization founded by community health workers in San Luis, Arizona. This paper describes the current protocol for aims 2 and 3 of this multi-faceted investigation. In aim 2 a cohort of N≈300 will be recruited using door-to-door sampling of neighborhoods in San Luis and Somerton, AZ. Participants will be surveyed and undergo biomarker assessments for indicators of health and chronic stress at three time points across a year length. A subset of this cohort will be invited to participate in aim 3 where they will be interviewed to further understand mechanisms of resilience and wellbeing.DiscussionThis study examines objective and subjective mechanisms of the relationship between stress and health in an ecologically diverse rural community over an extended timeframe and illuminates health disparities affecting residents of this medically underserved community. Findings from this investigation directly impact the participants and community through deepening our understanding of the linkages between individual and community level stress and chronic disease risk. This innovative study utilizes a comprehensive methodology to investigate pathways of stress and chronic disease risk present at individual and community levels. We address multiple public health issues including chronic disease and mental illness risk, health related disparities among Mexican-origin people, and health protective mechanisms and behaviors.

“We All Have a Job to Do in This World, It’s up to Us”: Farmworker and Farmer Mental Health in a Rural US-Mexico Border Region

ABSTRACT Improving mental health outcomes for agricultural populations is dependent on understanding the unique farming related stressors in context of the local culture and community. This study was designed to assess the prevalence of stressors and mental health risks among farmers and farmworkers in a rural, medically underserved US-Mexico border region. Of 135 study respondents, 55.6% (n = 18) farmers had clinical depression symptomatology based on the Center for Epidemiologic Studies depression screening scale (CES-D) and 40.2% (n = 117) farmworkers had stress levels that pose significant mental health risks based on the Migrant Farmworker Stress Inventory. Farmworker females were 2.3 times more likely to have a score of clinical concern. Results provide an understanding of the distinct sources of stress for both farmers and farmworkers and the mental health challenges across the industry. With an understanding that suicide is the third leading cause of injury death in Imperial County and depression associated with an increased risk of suicidality, the agricultural workforce in Imperial County is particularly vulnerable. Local farm organizations, employers, and community organizations can help increase mental health access, acceptability, and availability to achieve greater safety and health in the region’s largest workforce.

Yaquis of Southern California in-between the US-Mexico border

This article seeks to examine the “in-betweenness” of the Yaqui Nation on both sides of the US-Mexico border: the Yaqui Nation of Southern California (YNSC) and the Yaqui Nation of the Yaqui River. It presents the in-between amid the “new” and the traditional ceremonial and migration practices of the Yaqui diaspora in California. This paper concludes that the Yaquis of Southern California case is a demonstration of the collective transnational, cultural-ethnic and political practices of the Yaqui peoples. These practices are evidence of what Homi Bhabha called cultural hybridity. The YNSC case is the “beyond” culture that negotiates, redefines, and questions ethnic communities.

Vegetación de la Sierra Madre Occidental, México: una síntesis

La Sierra Madre Occidental (SMO) es el complejo montañoso más grande de México, extendiéndose por casi 1200 km desde el noreste de Sonora (30°35' N) hasta el norte de Jalisco (21°00' N). A pesar de su gran importancia ambiental y económica, es todavía deficientemente conocida. Se presenta una sinopsis de los tipos de vegetación, con datos sobre la superficie que ocupan las comunidades reconocidas, intervalos de elevación y climas donde se localizan, así como un mapa. En la zona confluyen tres regiones, albergando ecosistemas templados y semifríos (región Madrense), semiáridos (Madrense-Xerófila) y cálido-secos (Tropical), respectivamente. La región Madrense, en el macizo de la sierra, incluye bosque de pino, bosque mixto de coníferas, bosque de pino-encino, bosque de encino y manchones de bosque mesófilo de montaña, además de comunidades como chaparral (primario y secundario) y vegetación de claros de bosque. La región Madrense-Xerófila, en el piedemonte norte y oriental y estribaciones al oriente de la sierra, presenta bosque bajo abierto (de encino o de pino-encino), matorral perennifolio y zonas de ecotonía hacia pastizal y matorral xerófilo, además de ecotonías con matorral subtropical hacia el sur del Archipiélago Madrense. En la región Tropical, a lo largo de la base occidental de la sierra e ingresando a esta a través de las barrancas y quebradas, predomina bosque tropical caducifolio y matorral subtropical, con pequeñas áreas de bosque tropical subcaducifolio. La alta diversidad de la SMO se ejemplifica con los tres géneros dominantes fisonómicamente en la vegetación: 24 especies de Pinus (46% del total nacional), 54 de Quercus (34%) y 7 de Arbutus (100%).

Potency-Enhancing Synthetics in the Drug Overdose Epidemic: Xylazine ("Tranq"), Fentanyl, Methamphetamine, and the Displacement of Heroin in Philadelphia and Tijuana.

Multiple transformations-referred to as "waves" in a panoply of recent public health and law enforcement publications-have rendered North American drug markets increasingly toxic since the early 2010s. The introduction of exceptionally potent synthetic sedatives and stimulants is initiating a new generation of drug injectors into co-use of opioids and methamphetamine, catapulting rates of deadly overdoses and infectious diseases. Drawing on extensive participant-observation research in Philadelphia (2007-present) and Tijuana (2018-present), we document the experience of street-based drug users across these two North American cities to focus on regional shifts in narcotics supplies and endpoint user preferences. We link the dramatic proliferation of fentanyl, methamphetamine, xylazine, and Mexican white powder heroin to: 1) pre-existing drug supply networks on the western and eastern coasts of the North American subcontinent; 2) material characteristics of local heroin supplies in pre-fentanyl opiate markets (Mexican black tar vs. Colombian off-white powder heroin); and 3) racialized repression/incarceration of drug sellers and users on both sides of the Mexico-US border. The article combines economic and medical anthropology to develop an ethnographically-informed political economy approach to an urgent public health challenge among street-based drug users with the highest overdose mortality rates in the US Northeastern Rust Belt and the Northwestern Mexican borderland metroplex anchored by Tijuana. It foregrounds street users' experiences in real time amidst rapidly shifting narcotics supply chains, linking market-driven logics of profit-seeking to the war on drugs' prohibitionist policy context, highlighting increasing toxic impacts on vulnerable sectors across regions.

Cost of care for asylum seekers and refugees entering the United States: The case of volunteer medical providers in El Paso, Texas.

Between October 2018, and February 2020, the United States saw an unprecedented increase in the number of asylum seekers and refugees arriving unexpectedly at international crossings along the US-Mexico Border. Many of these migrants needed proper medical attention, and consequently created significant pressure on local health systems. In El Paso, Texas, volunteer clinicians, collaborating closely with religious organizations and non-governmental organizations, provided outpatient medical care for the new arrivals; the county hospital provided in-patient care at local tax payers' expense. The objective of this study was to estimate costs of healthcare services offered by these volunteers in order to formulate sustainable and appropriate healthcare policies to address the needs of refugees and asylum seekers in the United States. A mixed methods approach was used including personal interviews with stakeholders, and follow up surveys with volunteer clinicians. The cost analysis was done from the payer perspective using Medicaid reimbursement rates. Total costs of care provided to asylum seekers and refugees varied between $1.9MM to $4.4MM during the study period. The number of patient visits was estimated at 15,736 to 19,236, and cost per patient ranged between $99 and $281. Most common conditions treated by volunteer providers were abdominal pain, dermatological conditions, headaches, dehydration and hypertension. This is the first study looking at the cost of healthcare for refugees and asylum seekers provided by volunteer clinicians, in a binational context. The resources invested by volunteer providers were significant, and essential to meet medical needs of migrant populations. Without appropriate financial support, a strategy relying on volunteer and local community resources will prove unsustainable in the long term. Findings from this study will help formulate federal and local policies to support local health systems along the US-Mexico Border in providing care to future migrations into the United States.

Dearth by Lynda Schor

Reviewed by: Dearth by Lynda Schor Voyo Gabrilo (bio) dearth Lynda Schor New Meridian Arts https://www.newmeridianarts.com/dearth 380 pages; Print, $23.00 Lynda Schor's debut novel, Dearth, published by New Meridian Arts, encapsulates the innate horrors, both personal and social, of national borders. What begins as a seemingly innocuous friends' trip south of the US–Mexico border to Juárez for a bullfight is quickly transformed into a muddled, life-or-death survival between two worlds. As the plot weaves back and forth between Mexico and the United States, and simultaneously between the personal and the social, Schor unravels a narrative that blends the two at every turn, mirroring the harried lives experienced in such a space as borders. Ray, the novel's central figure, a geology professor and widower who reluctantly agrees to join his married friends Felix and Stella for the trip to Juárez, soon realizes that he (like the reader) is not quite sure what he has gotten into. Shortly after the bullfight—an event Ray can barely stomach—it becomes known that Felix is involved in "border issues." The ambiguity of these issues only raises Ray's suspicions; but, embodying the docile ignorance of unassuming Americans, he is unsure how to react: [End Page 67] In fact he doesn't recall that any of them were especially political in the old days. Mexico was Mexico. They went there sometimes to drink. And to find a cheap dentist. Texas was Texas. The border was the border. There were poor people on both sides of the border—but what did that have to do with them? Yes, they were poor too, but they knew it was temporary. He flushes, embarrassed by what he recalls. Such dichotomies the narrator continually fleshes out purposefully characterize Ray's reluctance to insert himself in the border issues. It is more than merely believing Texas was Texas and the border the border. Ray's status as widower and self-proclaimed introvert add to his incapability for concern. He is, after all, on the trip with a goal to "loosen up." And as an American from Boston, living far away from the border, he sees himself as nothing more than an innocent bystander who wishes not to get involved. However, when Felix goes missing, Ray loses the luxury of apathy and finds himself in the middle of a personal/social quest not only for his friend but also for the truth about "border issues." For most of the novel, these "border issues" remain opaque and shrouded. The world of the border is opened up slowly, painfully, and confusingly. The reader only discovers as Ray discovers. And, as a geologist, it is no wonder Ray uncovers bits and pieces of information in a stratified manner. Transformed into an ad hoc investigator, Ray unearths what he can with what he knows. But finding answers is difficult, and this is due in part to the complex character of Stella, who, though along for the investigation, seems to be withholding knowledge from Ray and the reader. Referred to as a storyteller and, metaphorically, as El Coyote—the "creator and destroyer, giver and negator, one who dupes, and the one who can be duped"—Stella substantiates the interrelationship between personal and social. Her seeming knowledge of Felix and the border issues are always almost coming to light, but as a storyteller, her words cannot be taken without some skepticism. Ray must place some trust in her as the only person left whom he personally knows, but when Stella and Ray begin having a sexual relationship, the truth (if there ever was one to begin with) becomes increasingly jumbled. Ray must find balance in separating what has become personal (his [End Page 68] newfound sexual intimacy) with what is glaringly social (the ever-mysterious "border issues"). This balance, however, is never struck, and never meant to be struck. The coeval dealing of the personal/social in an unbalanced and unfruitful way underscores the volatility that is always present surrounding borders. Just at the point Ray finally makes headway on Felix and the "border issues," his personal relationship with Stella ends. There is no room for...

Review: The Post-Screen Through Virtual Reality, Holograms and Light Projections: Where Screen Boundaries Lie, by Jenna Ng

Review: <i>The Post-Screen Through Virtual Reality, Holograms and Light Projections: Where Screen Boundaries Lie</i>, by Jenna Ng

“Anxious Desires”

AbstractIn 1961, the Mexican government launched the Programa Nacional Fronterizo (Pronaf) in partnership with the country's economic elites, a precursor to the state's more widely known border industrialization project. Pronaf was ostensibly an urban beautification program targeting nine cities at the Mexico-US border, led by former Ciudad Juárez mayor Antonio Bermúdez and with architecture supervised by Mexico City–based modernist Mario Pani. However, as this article argues, Pronaf sought to better integrate the borderlands to the national market and political structure at a moment of crisis. The state's capitalist modernization plan of import substitution industrialization, which produced the so-called Mexican Miracle in the 1940s, was showing signs of strain. Greater consumption of products made in Mexico, based on a more patriotic identification by citizens at the border, would buttress the “Miracle,” which had initially ignored these very citizens based on metropolitan perceptions of their lack of allegiance to Mexico and affinity for the US. Understanding spectacular architecture to have not only a didactic but an affective function, Pronaf deployed a network of soaring, Jet Age–inspired built environments. These parabolic hyperboloid environments, accompanied by a hyperbolic rhetoric from Bermúdez, sought to convince border residents of the “beauty” and “desirability” of national culture and the fluidity of the national market just as their socioeconomic mobility came under greater government scrutiny. Pronaf piloted an affective infrastructure that desired to channel border residents’ citizenship and consumption toward the reproduction of the political and economic status quo, eventually setting the stage for neoliberal transition.

Ten Years of Democratizing Data: Privileging Facts, Refuting Misconceptions and Examining Missed Opportunities

The Center for Migration Studies of New York (CMS) initiated its “Democratizing Data” project in 2013 to make detailed demographic information widely available on the US undocumented, eligible to naturalize, and other non-citizen populations. The paper begins by outlining top-line findings and themes from the more than 30 CMS studies under this project. It then examines and refutes four persistent misconceptions that have inhibited public understanding and needed policy change: (1) migrants never leave the United States; (2) most undocumented migrants arrive by illegally crossing the US-Mexico border; (3) each Border Patrol apprehension translates into a new undocumented resident; and (4) immigrants are less skilled than US-born workers. The paper then offers new analyses in support of select policy recommendations drawn from a decade of democratizing data. It concludes with a short reflection and a case study on the failure of data, evidence-based policy ideas, and national ideals to translate into necessary reform.

Framing of COVID-19 in Newspapers: A Perspective from the US-Mexico Border.

The degree to which the media report a health emergency affects the seriousness with which the people respond to combat the health crisis. Engagement from local newspapers in the US has received scant scrutiny, even though there is a sizable body of scholarship on the analysis of COVID-19 news. We fill this void by focusing on the Rio Grande Valley area of the US-Mexico border. To understand the differences, we compared such local news coverage with the coverage of a national news outlet. After collecting the relevant news articles, we used sentiment analysis, rapid automatic keyword extraction (RAKE), and co-occurrence network analysis to examine the main themes and sentiments of COVID-19 news articles. The RAKE identified that county-specific news or local regulations are more prevalent among the key terms in The Monitor which are absent in USA Today. The co-occurrence network shows the coverage of the disruption of sports season in USA Today which is not present in The Monitor. The sentiment analysis presents fear emotion is more dominant in USA Today, but trust emotion becomes more prevalent in The Monitor news coverage. These findings show us that, although the subject of the health emergency is the same, local and national newspapers describe it in different ways, and the sentiments they convey are also not the same.

P010Healthcare at the margins: The role of healthcare providers in self-managed abortion near the us-mexico border

<h3>Objectives</h3> To examine the role of healthcare providers in women's experiences attempting self-managed abortion. <h3>Methods</h3> This study draws from in-depth interviews with women who attempted a self-managed abortion within the past 10 years. Respondents were recruited using social media advertisements and were eligible if they were at least 14 years old, spoke English or Spanish, and lived in the US near the Mexican border. I thematically indexed transcripts and applied analytic codes to explore the role of healthcare providers in women's experiences. <h3>Results</h3> Between June 2020 and January 2021, 55 women participated in an interview. Most interview respondents (n=39) had had contact with a pharmacist, clinic staff member, or medical provider prior to or following their self-managed abortion attempt. They did so through both formal pathways (eg, clinic-based information or services such as ultrasound) and informal pathways (eg, information and medications from people in their social networks and south of the US border). Respondents who contacted a healthcare provider reported a range of experiences, including positive responses that provided comfort and validation, neutral responses that normalized self-management, and negative responses that resulted in emotional stress and led women to conceal their health needs and experiences. <h3>Conclusions</h3> As abortion becomes further restricted in the US, more people will turn to self-managed abortion. Providers should be made aware of the consequences of negative reactions toward people seeking care and understand the critical role they might play (both formally and informally) in reducing risk, harm, and stigma in this new legal landscape.

Measured and Modeled Comparisons of Chemical and Microbial Contaminants in Tap and Bottled Water in a US-Mexico Border Community.

Tap water quality concerns and advertisements often drive increased bottled water consumption, especially in communities with historical tap water quality problems (e.g., Nogales, Arizona). The study objective was to assess contamination of municipal tap and bottled water in Nogales, Arizona. Bottled (sealed, open/partially consumed bottles, and reusable containers for vended water) and tap water samples were collected from 30 homes and analyzed for chemical and microbial contaminants. Fisher exact tests and Wilcoxon rank sum tests were used to compare proportions of positive samples and contaminant concentrations between tap and bottled water samples. While none of the chemical contaminants were above MCLs, there were statistically significantly greater concentrations and proportions of positive samples for some contaminants, including arsenic, in tap vs. bottled water. E. coli concentrations were >0 CFU/100mL in some unsealed bottled water samples but not for sealed bottles. This study demonstrates that 1) the measured concentrations in tap and bottled water likely pose low risks, as they are below the MCLs, 2) more education in this community on hygiene maintenance of refillable or opened bottled water containers is needed, and 3) using tap water over bottled water is advantageous due to likely lower E. coli risk and lower cost.

A narrative-based approach to understand the impact of COVID-19 on the mental health of stranded immigrants in four border cities in Mexico.

This paper describes the impact that the different COVID-19 related restrictions have had on the mental health and wellbeing of 57 Central American and Caribbean immigrants stranded in Mexico due to the pandemic. Ethnographic data was obtained through the application of in-depth interviews centered on topics such as migration history, personal experience with COVID-19 and beliefs about the pandemic. This information was further analyzed through a narrative approach and Atlas Ti. US Title 42 and the Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) have stranded thousands of individuals in the US-Mexico border region, a situation that has overcrowded the available shelters in the area and forced many of the immigrants to live on the streets and in improvised encampments. Thus, exposing them to a higher risk of contagion. Furthermore, the majority of the interviewed Central American and Caribbean immigrants consider that Mexico is more lenient when it comes to the enforcement of sanitary measures, especially when compared to their countries of origin. Finally, vaccination hesitancy was low among the interviewees, mainly due to the operative aspects of the vaccination effort in Mexico and the fear of ruining their chances to attain asylum in the US. These findings are backed up by the discovery of five recurring narratives among the interviewees regarding: (1) The pandemic's psychological impact. (2) The uncertainty of being stranded in Mexico and the long wait. (3) Their fear of violence over the fear of contagion. (4) The perceived leniency of Mexico with the pandemic when compared to their countries of origin, and (5) their beliefs about the pandemic and vaccines. The mental health of stranded Central American and Caribbean immigrants in Mexico during the COVID-19 pandemic is mostly affected by their inability to make it across the US-Mexico border using legal means.

Trump’s Securitization of US against Aliens and Immigrants Case Study: Latin Migrants

This paper examines Trump’s securitization of Latin migrants and aliens in the United States (US) through law enforcement and legal political practice. Public citizens have divided opinion regarding immigrants, especially aliens, as they are undocumented and are deemed to destabilize internal public safety. Politicians in the US have also conduct political competitions in politicizing migrants through multitudes of official matters, and passing policies. One prominent example in politicizing migrant is Donald J. Trump, a popular unorthodox president of the US that views immigrants with hostility and skepticism. Trump antagonized the Latin migrants through the dangers they posed in the past combined with crime occurrences in his term, and justify protectionist policies by reducing border crosses through Mexico-US border and cutting down the number of Latin aliens and immigration in the country. Trump, through his famous Zero-tolerance policy, promoted attitudes that often encourage public citizens and law enforcers to view potential threats of immigrants, especially aliens. Trump’s campaign about Latin migrants changed the image of Latin migrants among Trump supporters as well as local law enforcers in viewing Latin migrants as a source of threat. This research finds that: Trump’s securitization of US against Latino migrants was lawfully and effectively projected through empowerment of federal level immigration and law enforcement agencies down to field officers.

The Effects of Teaching Undergraduate Freshmen Biology Courses in Spanish and English

This study examines the attitudes and experiences of bilingual learners across two instructional types, identifying how the language of instruction affects the context of learning, and how the experience of the learners differs. Participants included 269 predominantly Hispanic undergraduate students in a general biology course attending a Hispanic Serving Institution in a bilingual community along the US-Mexico border. A bilingual faculty member, who recognizes the sociocultural and contextual factors that affect student learning and adopts a teaching philosophy founded in Culturally Responsive Practices (CRP) and valuing students’ Funds of Knowledge taught the class. This study utilized a mixed method design including analyses of quantitative student learning outcomesa and qualitative data on students’ experiences in educational contexts. While all learners were enrolled in sections of the course in which the instructor used CRP, only half of the learners received instruction bilingually in Spanish and English, allowing a comparison of the effects of bilingual instruction. Analyses of student experiences and knowledge gained revealed significantly greater learning in the bilingual courses, compared to English monolingual sections taught by the same faculty member. Results suggest that the use of bilingual instructional approaches can lead to positive outcomes for bilingual undergraduate students. These findings can be used by educators and policy makers alike, with interest in promoting the academic and sociocultural development of bilingual undergraduate students.

Bodies on the Border: Rematerializing and Decolonizing Ecologies of Mobility in the Mexico-US Borderlands

Current human migrations and nonhuman extinctions on massive scales compel us to more carefully apply interspecies concepts of mobility to understanding the roles played by geopolitical borders, as well as the various, ongoing forms of colonialism that have produced and continue to perpetuate these borders. This essay applies bioregional, material, decolonial, and borderlands ecocriticism to historicize prevention through deterrence enforcement measures in the Mexico-US border region, and discusses several significant entanglements of interspecies actors in migratory contexts, exploring a range of ways that nonhuman nature has been and continues to be deployed materially against migrants. In historicizing US enforcement tactics, the essay tracks the distribution of human agency from settler colonial, ethnonationalist, and neoliberal US policy makers, to armed paramilitary human bodies, then into structures of the built environment, and, finally, to the ways that agency is further diffused across complex webs of multiple kinds of human and nonhuman actors—plants, animals, landforms, watercourses, climate and weather conditions, and so on. While in some instances, nonhuman animals are deployed against migrant and other indigenous and mestizo people, in other multispecies entanglements, animals participate in the revelation and denunciation of state sponsored violence, leading to larger questions of the status of other nonhuman animals in the borderlands. The essay’s primary focus is on illustrating the practical untenability of, and the severe harm done in, continuing to regard the borderlands from settler colonialist or human exceptionalist positionalities.

Multi-isotopes in human hair: A tool to initiate cross-border collaboration in international cold-cases.

Unidentified human remains have historically been investigated nationally by law enforcement authorities. However, this approach is outdated in a globalized world with rapid transportation means, where humans easily move long distances across borders. Cross-border cooperation in solving cold-cases is rare due to political, administrative or technical challenges. It is fundamental to develop new tools to provide rapid and cost-effective leads for international cooperation. In this work, we demonstrate that isotopic measurements are effective screening tools to help identify cold-cases with potential international ramifications. We first complete existing databases of hydrogen and sulfur isotopes in human hair from residents across North America by compiling or analyzing hair from Canada, the United States (US) and Mexico. Using these databases, we develop maps predicting isotope variations in human hair across North America. We demonstrate that both δ2H and δ34S values of human hair are highly predictable and display strong spatial patterns. Multi-isotope analysis combined with dual δ2H and δ34S geographic probability maps provide evidence for international travel in two case studies. In the first, we demonstrate that multi-isotope analysis in bulk hair of deceased border crossers found in the US, close to the Mexico-US border, help trace their last place of residence or travel back to specific regions of Mexico. These findings were validated by the subsequent identification of these individuals through the Pima County Office of the Medical Examiner in Tucson, Arizona. In the second case study, we demonstrate that sequential multi-isotope analysis along the hair strands of an unidentified individual found in Canada provides detailed insights into the international mobility of this individual during the last year of life. In both cases, isotope data provide strong leads towards international travel.