Alex P. Oberle

RESURGENT MEXICAN PHOENIX

ABSTRACT. Popular impressions of Phoenix, Arizona perpetuate the notion that this metropolitan area is an overwhelmingly Anglo place. We challenge this assertion and demonstrate that the city has substantial Mexican roots and is presently being shaped by a vibrant, resurgent Mexican population. Employing historical records, surveys, and landscape data, we articulate the Mexican character of early Phoenix and highlight how the revival of Mexican Phoenix has transformed the urban landscape. We then relate how Phoenixs Mexican population is a more nuanced regional subculture formed through both historical and contemporary connections with specific Mexican states. We conclude with a call for greater understanding of the internal heterogeneity of Mexicans in the United States and how this can inform our geographical interpretations of the growing Latinization of American cities.

Mexican medical border towns: A case study of Algodones, Baja California

Abstract Health insurance in the United States has become increasingly expensive and unavailable to large numbers of Americans. As a result, many in the U.S. rely on less expensive foreign sources of pharmaceuticals and health services, especially Canada and Mexico. Mexicos proximity to large population centers and communities of elderly winter visitors has resulted in thriving tourist‐oriented medical retailing in several Mexican border communities. This article explores this form of cross‐border retailing by illustrating the spatial distribution of tourist pharmacies across the Sonora‐Arizona border and into adjacent areas of Baja California. We also show the typical distribution of tourist pharmacies within Mexican border communities that draw large numbers of American visitors. To elaborate on the broader spectrum of cross‐border health care retailing, we present a case study of Los Algodones, Baja California, a community that has transformed itself into a hub of health services provision and pharmaceutical retailing.

Geospatial Technologies as a Vehicle for Enhancing Graduate Education and Promoting the Value of Geography

Geospatial technologies (GSTs), such as geographic information systems, global positioning systems and remote sensing, present an avenue for expanding the already strong interdisciplinary nature of geography. This paper discusses how GSTs served as a common thread for a crosscutting faculty institute that was established to enhance graduate student teaching and learning at a comprehensive university. Results of this institute demonstrate that this effort advanced graduate education and promoted the value of geographic scholarship across the university.

The Role of a PhD Field Exam in Preparing Graduate Students for Academic Careers

Abstract The Department of Geography at Arizona State University implemented a field exam as part of its PhD program requirements. This field exam requires students to develop an independent field-based research project based on a general question in the students specialty area. A survey of current and former PhD students and faculty members document how the field exam assists students in developing skills necessary for continuing graduate research and for preparing them for the rigors of academic employment. The outcomes of the exam include both long-term, process-related benefits and more immediate tangible rewards. For some students, the preliminary fieldwork and results redirect student interests and form the basis for their eventual dissertation. The field exam is adaptable to a diversity of geography research methods, subject areas, and graduate degree programs, while remaining grounded in the disciplines vibrant, widely respected fieldwork tradition. *The authors thank ASU faculty members, PhD students, and alumni for participating in the research, especially Anthony Brazel, Patricia Gober, and Kevin McHugh who elaborated on the history of the department and the field exam. We thank Daniel Arreola, David Stea, and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions regarding an earlier draft of this article.

Geographic Education for Sustainability: Developing a Bi-national Geographical Thinking Curriculum

This bi-national project develops geographical thinking by employing sustainability as a means of incorporating physical and human geography. Enlisting the support of Chilean and North American pre-service geography/social science teachers, we developed a series of standards-based lesson plans and associated curricular materials on the theme of sustainability that link the Coquimbo region of Chile with the state of Iowa in the United States. The chapter discusses the context of geographical thinking in both countries, as well as the history of geography education in the two nations, to include how teachers in both national educational systems can support geographical thinking. We emphasise the significance of sustainability in integrating the physical and human traditions in geography. The chapter highlights the value of geography education in creating civic responsibility, developing students’ cognitive skills in geographical thinking and directing those skills towards the systemic comprehension of our contemporary, interconnected world. We assert the key international importance of sustainability and the need to connect local issues, events, and problems with the larger global context and with similar occurrences across the globe.

Developing Standards-Based Geography Curricular Materials from Overseas Field Experiences for K–12 Teachers

Abstract Overseas experiences provide educators with exceptional opportunities to incorporate field study, firsthand experiences, and tangible artifacts into the classroom. Despite this potential, teachers must consider curricular standards that direct how such international endeavors can be integrated. Furthermore, geography curriculum development is more relevant when teachers link tangible local processes and events with those occurring in distant world regions. As such, this article demonstrates how a structured international field experience for K–12 educators incorporated geography curricular standards, and population geography as a common theme, to develop widely transferable curricular materials that advance students’ understanding of Chile and Latin American area studies.

Deflecting Immigration: Networks, Markets, and Regulation in Los Angeles. Ivan Light

Recent scholarship on immigration settlement in the United States has produced outstanding research that documents and explores the changing destinations of the foreign-born population, particularly those arriving to the United States from Latin America (Zúñiga and Hernández-León, 2005; Smith and Furuseth, 2006; Singer et al., 2008). Cities such as New York, Los Angeles, and Miami are slowly losing their once exclusive status as immigration magnets as newcomers settle in places such as Minneapolis–St. Paul, Phoenix, Portland, Charlotte, and other metropolitan areas that were largely bypassed only a few decades ago, as well as small towns in states like Louisiana, Kentucky, and Iowa. Despite the solid body of research on evolving destinations for the foreignborn population, there has been less discussion regarding the shift away from the traditional immigrant hubs, especially factors in these original gateway cities that redirect settlement to new places. Ivan Light’s Deflecting Immigration: Networks, Markets, and Regulation in Los Angeles addresses this topic, with a particular focus on forces that deflect foreign-born Latinos from Los Angeles to other locales in the United States. Proposing a new thesis, Light asserts that “poverty intolerance” has steered lower income immigrants away from Los Angeles. The author argues that this lack of acceptance for low socioeconomic status groups (viz. immigrants from Mexico and Central America) resulted in stepped up efforts to create newly stringent and/or enforce existing local and state housing codes, workplace safety standards, occupational health requirements, and minimum wage laws, collectively pushing many immigrants out of the region. Light describes this process as “sequential deflection,” an emerging action that may now represent the United States’ de facto immigration policy as state and local officials increasingly establish their own regulations separate from those mandated at the federal level. Deflecting Immigration includes 10 chapters, 5 of which are entirely new, while the other 5 are variations of Light’s other published research. Together, these chapters offer both introductory material for readers who may not have a background in immigration and detailed analyses for more specialized scholars in sociology, geography, and other social science fields. Chapter 1 provides an overview of migration networks in the context of globalization and presents the rationale for centering this research in Los Angeles. Chapter 2 outlines the regional dispersion of Mexican immigrants, while Chapter 3 assesses the notion of global restructuring and demand-driven migration. Chapter 4 evaluates changes in Los Angeles’ Latino immigrant community, particularly troubling trends such as declining wages, increases in the informal economy as a means of economic survival, and growing problems with overcrowded and substandard housing. The rise and then decline of the garment industry in Los Angeles are explored in Chapters 5 and 6. Chapter 7 discusses the role of Asian entrepreneurs in creating ethnic places. The essence of Light’s argument is presented in Chapter 8, where he articulates the local and regional forces that have redirected Latino immigrants away from suburban Los Angeles. Chapter 9 addresses the origins of these forces with the author’s claim that antipathy towards lower income groups, rather than racism, has fueled efforts to create or enforce local regulations that compel foreign-born Latinos to move elsewhere. Light concludes his work (Chapter 10) with a summary piece that also introduces and outlines the notion of sequential absorption and deflection as a nascent national immigration policy that is established at the local rather than federal level. Deflecting Immigration makes a substantial contribution to the literature at the interface of immigration, urban geography, and ethnic studies. Light’s work is timely and contemporary, while also drawing on the author’s extensive expertise and history of scholarly production in these areas. The particular strengths of this book are its accessibility to readers who may not have an existing background in immigration-related areas and its contribution of sequential deflection as a