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Mexico–U.S. Migration, Social Exclusion, and HIV Risk: Multisectoral Approaches to Understanding and Preventing Infection

Jennifer S. Hirsch and Emily Vasquez

in HIV Prevention with Latinos: Theory, Research, and Practice

This chapter explores sources of HIV risk at the structural level, looking at the influence of policies across multiple sectors. The authors connect multisectoral determinants of risk to the robust ... More

This chapter explores sources of HIV risk at the structural level, looking at the influence of policies across multiple sectors. The authors connect multisectoral determinants of risk to the robust critique that has emerged of individual-level behavioral interventions, arguing that a structural approach to HIV prevention should encompass policy reform relevant to housing, transportation, urban development, occupational safety, health insurance, and immigration, all of which shape the broader context of HIV risk for Mexican migrants. The chapter also draws on a systems perspective and the authors’ ethnographic encounters with Mexican migrants to think about the research, advocacy, and policy implications of HIV being only one of many threats to the well-being of Mexican migrants. Thus, structural interventions could impact not only HIV risk but several other health outcomes of considerable importance to population health, and most likely experienced by migrant communities as more pressing priorities.Less

Why Do People Migrate?: Identifying Diverse Mechanisms of Migration

Filiz Garip

in On the Move: Changing Mechanisms of Mexico-U.S. Migration

This chapter provides an overview of the migration field, and a brief review of Mexico–U.S. migration flows up to 1965, the year the analysis here begins. It describes the data and methods that led ... More

This chapter provides an overview of the migration field, and a brief review of Mexico–U.S. migration flows up to 1965, the year the analysis here begins. It describes the data and methods that led the author to discover four groups among first-time migrants from Mexico to the United States between 1965 and 2010. The first cluster—mostly uneducated and poor men from rural communities—was the majority in the 1970s but dropped to a small minority by the 1990s. The second cluster—many of them teenage boys from relatively better-off families—peaked in the 1980s, becoming the majority group at that time, but declined consistently in size thereafter. The third cluster—mostly women with family ties to former migrants—was increasing slowly in size until it experienced a sudden spike in the early 1990s. And the fourth cluster—mostly educated men from urban areas—grew persistently over time, grabbing the majority status among all first-time migrants in the early 1990s.Less

“Your Place Is Where Your Family Is”: Family Migrants

Filiz Garip

in On the Move: Changing Mechanisms of Mexico-U.S. Migration

This chapter discuses a particular migrant group that doubled in size, as well as in its relative share among first-time migrants from Mexico to the United States, between 1987 and 1990. This group ... More

This chapter discuses a particular migrant group that doubled in size, as well as in its relative share among first-time migrants from Mexico to the United States, between 1987 and 1990. This group encompassed more than one-third of all migrants at its peak in 1991 and contained a large majority of women and migrants with family ties to previous U.S. migrants. The migrants in this group are called family migrants. The sudden increase in the number of family migrants occurred right after the enactment of Immigration Reform and Control Act in 1986, an immigration law that opened the path to legalization for more than 2 million undocumented Mexicans in the United States. Family reunification was a major factor that pulled family migrants from Mexico to the United States. The group included a large share of wives and daughters joining their husbands and fathers, who were already there.Less

“Putting Down Roots”: Urban Migrants

Filiz Garip

in On the Move: Changing Mechanisms of Mexico-U.S. Migration

This chapter discusses a particular group that continually increased its share among the first-time migrants between 1965 and 2010—from less than 10 percent to nearly 70 percent. This group, called ... More

This chapter discusses a particular group that continually increased its share among the first-time migrants between 1965 and 2010—from less than 10 percent to nearly 70 percent. This group, called urban migrants, included a large share of men, mostly from urban communities in the border, central-south, and southeastern regions of Mexico rather than the traditional migrant-sending rural communities in the central-west. Urban migrants were significantly more educated compared to the circular, crisis, and family migrants in the preceding chapters, and also relative to non-migrants at their time. The group worked mostly in manufacturing and construction in the United States, earned significantly higher wages than the other migrant groups, and made fewer return trips to Mexico.Less

“Go Work Over There and Come Do Something Here”: Circular Migrants

Filiz Garip

in On the Move: Changing Mechanisms of Mexico-U.S. Migration

This chapter discusses a particular group that dominated the migrant stream from Mexico to the United States in 1965. The group contained a large share of men—many of them household heads who were ... More

This chapter discusses a particular group that dominated the migrant stream from Mexico to the United States in 1965. The group contained a large share of men—many of them household heads who were married with children—from rural central-western communities in Mexico. Migrants in the group typically had little education, worked in agriculture in both Mexico and the United States, and took multiple trips of short duration. This group is referred to as circular migrants. Circular migrants declined both in absolute numbers and in relative size over time, accounting for less than 10 percent of new migrants by 2010. Circular migrants declined in numbers as incomes in Mexico rose, real wages in the United States fell, and the budget dedicated to securing the border grew exponentially between 1965 and 2010.Less

“We Leave to Help Our Parents Economically”: Crisis Migrants

Filiz Garip

in On the Move: Changing Mechanisms of Mexico-U.S. Migration

This chapter discusses a new migrant group that replaced the circular migrants as the predominant group among the first-time Mexican migrants to the United States between 1980 and 1990. The group ... More

This chapter discusses a new migrant group that replaced the circular migrants as the predominant group among the first-time Mexican migrants to the United States between 1980 and 1990. The group consisted mostly of young men—often the younger sons—from relatively wealthy rural households, and peaked in numbers following the economic crises in Mexico. This group is called crisis migrants. Crisis migrants accounted for just one in ten new migrants in the 1960s. The share of the group climbed to one-half in the mid-1980s, and dropped to one-fifth by the late 1990s. The trend in this group tracked almost perfectly to the inflation rates in Mexico, capturing the volatile economic environment in the country in the aftermath of the peso devaluations between 1976 and 1985. The group also responded to regional events like the coffee crisis in the early 1990s and the earthquake in 1985, increasing disproportionately fast in the affected regions compared to the rest of the country.Less

Mexicans, Canadians, and the Reconfiguration of Continental Migrations, 1915–1965

Bruno Ramirez

in Entangling Migration History: Borderlands and Transnationalism in the United States and Canada

By adopting a comparative approach and a supra-national perspective, this chapter analyses the reconfiguration of migrations that occurred on a continental scale between the First World War and the ... More

By adopting a comparative approach and a supra-national perspective, this chapter analyses the reconfiguration of migrations that occurred on a continental scale between the First World War and the late 1960s. It reconstitutes the main patterns marking the migration movements from Canada and Mexico to the United States during a period when Southern and Eastern European flows were drastically curtailed by U.S. quota regulations and the two neighboring countries became major contributors to the U.S. economy. Central to the chapter is the analysis of cross-border social spaces that emerged as Canadian and Mexican migrants gave rise to networks (based on kin and home-town relations) through which they moved in their search for economic betterment. This chapter reveals previously unknown aspects of the process whereby the socio-economies of the three North American countries became entangled—an aspect that can hardly be addressed by the single national historiographies.Less

Where Do We Go from Here?: Conditional Theories and Diverse Policies

Filiz Garip

in On the Move: Changing Mechanisms of Mexico-U.S. Migration

This chapter begins with the stories of three migrants to demonstrate the need to recognize that there might be different logics for migration, seek to identify the conditions under which each logic ... More

This chapter begins with the stories of three migrants to demonstrate the need to recognize that there might be different logics for migration, seek to identify the conditions under which each logic becomes salient, and devise diverse policies to achieve specific outcomes. It then discusses efforts to prevent undocumented migration that focus on border enforcement; the failure of alternative theories of migration to suggest straightforward policy prescriptions like the neoclassical model; ways of identifying “groups” of migrants; four contexts and four logics for migration; network effects in migration; and cultural expectations and family roles. The chapter also suggests general principles that can guide future research and policy.Less

Introduction

Filiz Garip

in On the Move: Changing Mechanisms of Mexico-U.S. Migration

The introductory chapter provides an overview of the book’s main themes. This book is about Mexico–U.S. migration flows between 1965 and 2010. It seeks to characterize and explain the diversity in ... More

The introductory chapter provides an overview of the book’s main themes. This book is about Mexico–U.S. migration flows between 1965 and 2010. It seeks to characterize and explain the diversity in the Mexican migrant stream, which, in this period, changed remarkably not only in its composition and origins in Mexico, but also in its destinations and settlement patterns in the United States. The book has three central theses. First, Mexicans may be on the move to the United States for a variety of reasons. Second, the different reasons underlying migration depend on individual interests, but these interests are shaped by the structural or cultural contexts these individuals inhabit, or seek to inhabit, by migrating. Third, different theories may be more or less relevant to explain migration behavior to the extent that the conditions they deem essential to the process are at work in a given place or period or for a specific group of individuals.Less

Agriculture and Migrants

Philip Martin

in Importing Poverty?: Immigration and the Changing Face of Rural America

This chapter is concerned with U.S. farming systems and farm labor history. It discusses how agriculture in California expanded with the arrival of Mexican migrant and seasonal workers or braceros.