Elizabeth Fussell

The limits to cumulative causation: International migration from Mexican Urban Areas

We present theoretical arguments and empirical research to suggest that the principal mechanisms of cumulative causation do not function in large urban settings. Using data from the Mexican Migration Project, we found evidence of cumulative causation in small cities, rural towns and villages, but not in large urban areas. With event-history models, we found little positive effect of community-level social capital and a strong deterrent effect of urban labor markets on the likelihood of first and later U.S. trips for residents of urban areas in Mexico, suggesting that the social process of migration from urban areas is distinct from that in the more widely studied rural migrant-sending communities of Mexico.

Sources of Mexico's Migration Stream: Rural, Urban, and Border Migrants to the United States

There are three distinct sources of Mexico-U.S. migration flow: the oldest stream from rural communities in central western Mexico, an incipient stream from interior urban areas, and a small but steady stream from Tijuana, a northern border city. Using the Mexican Migration Project data with expanded geographic coverage, I identify these streams and examine how differences in the origin community in terms of family-based migration-related social capital, internal migration experience, and labor force participation shapes the likelihood that men in the community initiate and continue migratory trips. I find four patterns of Mexican migration that make up the flow from central Mexico to northern Mexico and the U.S.: (1) the well-established flow of mostly undocumented low-skill agricultural labor migrants originating in the rural areas of central western Mexico and moving directly to the U.S.; (2) a newer stream of mostly undocumented U.S.-bound migrants from urban interior communities with a greater range of human capital; (3) internal migrants who move to Tijuana as a final destination, and (4) career migrants who make Tijuana a home base for making repeated, mostly undocumented, trips to the U.S.

Explaining Pro-Immigrant Sentiment in the U.S.: Social Class, Cosmopolitanism, and Perceptions of Immigrants†

In the U.S., research on attitudes toward immigrants generally focuses on anti-immigrant sentiment. Yet, the 1996 General Social Survey indicates that half the population believes that immigrants favorably impact the U.S. economy and culture. Using these data, we analyze theories of both pro- and anti-immigrant sentiment. While we find some support for two theories of intergroup competition, our most important finding connects a cosmopolitan worldview with favorable perceptions of immigrants. We find that cosmopolitans – people who are highly educated, in white-collar occupations, who have lived abroad, and who reject ethnocentrism – are significantly more pro-immigrant than people without these characteristics.

The impact of hurricane Katrina on the mental and physical health of low-income parents in New Orleans.

The purpose of this study was to document changes in mental and physical health among 392 low-income parents exposed to Hurricane Katrina and to explore how hurricane-related stressors and loss relate to post-Katrina well-being. The prevalence of probable serious mental illness doubled, and nearly half of the respondents exhibited probable posttraumatic stress disorder. Higher levels of hurricane-related loss and stressors were generally associated with worse health outcomes, controlling for baseline sociodemographic and health measures. Higher baseline resources predicted fewer hurricane-associated stressors, but the consequences of stressors and loss were similar regardless of baseline resources. Adverse health consequences of Hurricane Katrina persisted for a year or more and were most severe for those experiencing the most stressors and loss. Long-term health and mental health services are needed for low-income disaster survivors, especially those who experience disaster-related stressors and loss.

Five years later: Recovery from post traumatic stress and psychological distress among low-income mothers affected by Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina, which struck the Gulf Coast of the United States in August 2005, exposed area residents to trauma and extensive property loss. However, little is known about the long-run effects of the hurricane on the mental health of those who were exposed. This study documents long-run changes in mental health among a particularly vulnerable group-low income mothers-from before to after the hurricane, and identifies factors that are associated with different recovery trajectories. Longitudinal surveys of 532 low-income mothers from New Orleans were conducted approximately one year before, 7-19 months after, and 43-54 months after Hurricane Katrina. The surveys collected information on mental health, social support, earnings and hurricane experiences. We document changes in post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSS), as measured by the Impact of Event Scale-Revised, and symptoms of psychological distress (PD), as measured by the K6 scale. We find that although PTSS has declined over time after the hurricane, it remained high 43-54 months later. PD also declined, but did not return to pre-hurricane levels. At both time periods, psychological distress before the hurricane, hurricane-related home damage, and exposure to traumatic events were associated with PTSS that co-occurred with PD. Hurricane-related home damage and traumatic events were associated with PTSS without PD. Home damage was an especially important predictor of chronic PTSS, with and without PD. Most hurricane stressors did not have strong associations with PD alone over the short or long run. Over the long run, higher earnings were protective against PD, and greater social support was protective against PTSS. These results indicate that mental health problems, particularly PTSS alone or in co-occurrence with PD, among Hurricane Katrina survivors remain a concern, especially for those who experienced hurricane-related trauma and had poor mental health or low socioeconomic status before the hurricane.

The Deportation Threat Dynamic and Victimization of Latino Migrants: Wage Theft and Robbery

Deportations have been increasing since the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, although the number of unauthorized migrants working in the United States has increased as well. These conditions enable the deportation threat dynamic, a social mechanism which plays out between unauthorized Latino migrants and those who seek to take advantage of them and exposes the migrants to the risk of wage theft and robbery. I use mixed methods to identify and describe this social mechanism and its consequences as it operated in New Orleans, Louisiana in 2007 to 2008 after Hurricane Katrina generated a construction boom. I find that Latino migrants who sought work as day laborers were more likely to experience wage theft but were equally likely to experience criminal victimization. These crimes occur because Latino migrants were visually identifiable by unscrupulous employers and criminals who assumed they were unauthorized and therefore felt confident that the migrants would not report them to law enforcement authorities.

Constructing New Orleans, Constructing Race: A Population History of New Orleans

How do we understand the racial and ethnic recomposition of New Orleanss diminished population in the year following Hurricane Katrina? Optimists viewing the influx of La tino migrants see in it a revival of the multicultural past of New Orleans, while skeptics suspect that delays in government assistance for residents to return to the city are an at tempt to keep out low-income blacks and make the city whiter and wealthier. The shifts in the population of New Orleans are familiar to sociologists and economists who study labor-market demand for low-skill, inexpensive, and flexible workers. The low-prestige jobs they do are reserved for those at the bottom of the social hierarchy, most often im migrants or members of stigmatized minorities.1 The sociodemographic characteristics of workers building and rebuilding the city shift only when social and market forces combine to make one group less expensive and more flexible than the other. I use this sociological insight to analyze New Orleanss population history and the way race has been socially constructed and reconstructed there. The population history of New Orleans falls into three distinct periods. In the first, from the citys founding until the end of the nineteenth century (1718-1899), migra tion-driven population growth provided the city with the labor of African slaves, their descendants, and the Irish and Italian migrants who replaced them. The second period (1900?2005) was characterized by slower growth, driven by births and longer life expec tancy rather than net in-migration, and the consolidation of a biracial society. The last period (200 5-present) began after New Orleanss population vacated the city in the wake of Katrina, pre-Katrina residents selectively returned to the city, and an influx of largely undocumented Latino migrant workers arrived. The incorporation ofthat last group into New Orleanss society will depend on the continued demand for low-wage construction and service workers, the degree to which the federal and state governments facilitate the return of the pre-Katrina population that made up the previously majority-black labor force, and the enforcement of anti-immigrant policies such as employer sanctions and deportations of undocumented workers?all factors that affect the construction of a low wage, low-skill, and disposable labor force. (See figure 1.)

The impact of housing displacement on the mental health of low-income parents after Hurricane Katrina

Previous studies in the aftermath of natural disasters have demonstrated relationships between four dimensions of displacement - geographic distance from the predisaster community, type of postdisaster housing, number of postdisaster moves, and time spent in temporary housing - and adverse psychological outcomes. However, to date no study has explored how these dimensions operate in tandem. The literature is further limited by a reliance on postdisaster data. We addressed these limitations in a study of low-income parents, predominantly non-Hispanic Black single mothers, who survived Hurricane Katrina and who completed pre and postdisaster assessments (N = 392). Using latent profile analysis, we demonstrated three profiles of displacement experiences within the sample: (1) returned, characterized by return to a predisaster community; (2) relocated, characterized by relocation to a new community, and (3) unstably housed, characterized by long periods in temporary housing and multiple moves. Using regression analyses, we assessed the relationship between displacement profiles and three mental health outcomes (general psychological distress, posttraumatic stress, and perceived stress), controlling for predisaster characteristics and mental health indices and hurricane-related experiences. Relative to participants in the returned profile, those in the relocated profile had significantly higher general psychological distress and perceived stress, and those in the unstably housed profile had significantly higher perceived stress. Based on these results, we suggest interventions and policies that reduce postdisaster housing instability and prioritize mental health services in communities receiving evacuees.

Hurricane Chasers in New Orleans Latino Immigrants as a Source of a Rapid Response Labor Force

Little is known about the Latino workers who came to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina to clean up and repair the city. The author uses data from surveys collected at the visits of the Brazilian, Mexican, and Nicaraguan consulates ( N = 253) to study the internally mobile immigrants who arrived after Katrina and who anticipate leaving New Orleans within 2 years of the survey, or what the author calls a rapid response labor force. Four hypotheses are examined: (1) that there is no difference between national origin groups in their propensity to be a member of the rapid response labor force; (2) that members are newer immigrants who have few ties to immigrants already in the United States; (3) that members are pioneers (unaccompanied working age men with weak residential ties); and (4) that members use a mobility strategy to obtain higher wages. I find that Brazilians and Mexicans are more likely than Nicaraguans to be rapid responders. Rapid responders have low levels of U.S. migratory experience, little or no English language ability, and few social network ties compared to those who are not internally mobile. These rapid responders use an internal mobility strategy to obtain higher wages and overcome their labor market disadvantages.

The Long-Term Recovery of New Orleans’ Population After Hurricane Katrina

Hurricane Katrina created a catastrophe in the City of New Orleans when the storm surge caused the levee system to fail on August 29, 2005. The destruction of housing displaced hundreds of thousands of residents for varying lengths of time, often permanently. It also revealed gaps in our knowledge of how population is recovered after a disaster causes widespread destruction of urban infrastructure and housing. In this article, I identify social, spatial, and temporal explanatory frameworks for housing and population recovery and use them to review research findings on mobility—both evacuation and migration—after Hurricane Katrina. The review reveals a need for a comprehensive social, spatial, and temporal framework for explaining inequality in population displacement and recovery.