Analyzing the relationship between immigration status and the social well-being of Latino immigrants

• In Event: Immigration, Communities, and Crime

Abstract

This study intends to explore the relationships between immigration status and health outcomes among immigrant groups. The study will make use of a qualitative methodology based on open-ended interviews to uncover how state power—specifically, the power to sanction a migrant’s status as “illegal”—is experienced by undocumented migrants in the San Francisco Bay Area. The focus will be on how the authority of the state (immigration control) acts in a decentralized fashion to regulate the life choices of immigrants. When legal avenues to employment, state-funded social services, and housing assistance are restricted, how do these circumstances affect the health and well-being of immigrants? Further, how do migrants subjectively respond to (and act on) such adverse circumstances? The paper is based on interviews and observations involving adult Latino migrants as this population represents the largest immigrant group in the Bay Area and has been the primary target of restrictive immigrant legislation. In the context of this research, health and well-being are defined in a broad sense to allow for physical, physiological and psychological conditions to be described by participants. Results of this study are forthcoming, and will be presented at ASC in San Francisco, California.

Author

• Eduardo Bautista Duran, San Jose State University