James Loucky

Plasticity, political economy, and physical growth status of Guatemala Maya children living in the United States

Migration of Maya refugees to the United States since the late 1970s affords the opportunity to study the consequences of life in a new environment on the growth of Maya children. The children of this study live in Indiantown, Florida, and Los Angeles, California. Maya children between 4 and 14 years old (n = 240) were measured for height, weight, fatness, and muscularity. Overall, compared with reference data for the United States, the Maya children are, on average, healthy and well nourished. They are taller and heavier and carry more fat and muscle mass than Maya children living in a village in Guatemala. However, they are shorter, on average, than children of black, Mexican-American, and white ethnicity living in Indiantown. Children of Maya immigrants born in the United States tend to be taller than immigrant children born in Guatemala or Mexico. Families that invest economic and social resources in their children have taller children. More economic successful families have taller children. Migration theory and political economy theory from the social sciences are combined with plasticity theory and life history theory (parental investment) from biology to interpret these data.

Economic and Anthropological Assessments of the Health of Children in Maya Immigrant Families in the US

Immigration from developing countries to the US generally increases access to health care and clean water, but it also introduces some unhealthy lifestyle patterns, such as diets dense in energy and little regular physical activity. We present a transdisciplinary model of child health and examine the impact of immigration on the physical growth and health of Maya children in Guatemala and the US. Maya-American children are much taller and have longer legs, on average, than their counterparts in Guatemala. This suggests that immigration to the US improves their health. However, the Maya-American children also are much heavier than both Guatemalan Maya and White American children, and have high rates of overweight and obesity. Quantile regression analysis indicates that Maya are shorter except in the upper tail of the stature distribution, and have higher Body Mass Index (BMI) in the tails, but not in the middle of the BMI distribution. Leisure time spent in front of a television or computer monitor tends to raise BMI in the middle and lower tail of the distribution, but not in the upper tail.

How Genetic Are Human Body Proportions

Children tend to resemble their parents in stature, body proportions, body composition, and rate of development. It may be assumed that barring the action of obvious environmental influences on growth (such as chronic illness or long-term malnutrition) these resemblances reflect the influence of genes that parents contribute to their biological offspring. A study published by Prokopec and Lhotska (1989), based on a sample of 81 boys and 78 girls, is an example of this view. The subjects, all from Prague, were measured annually from birth to age 20 years. The PreeceBaines growth curve was fit to the longitudinal data of each subject. From these fitted curves for all the boys and girls, the three tallest, the three shortest, the three slowest maturing, and the three fastest maturing of each sex were selected. None of these extreme cases was known to have any major chronic or acute diseases. Neither the subject’s history of common childhood diseases, nor the occupation of the fathers had an effect, positive or negative, on growth and development. In contrast, the midparent height did predict the adult stature of offspring. Mid-parent height is the average of the stature of the mother and the father. Inspection of the Preece-Baines curves showed that tall or short stature at age 20 could be predicted from stature at age four years. The positive impact of mid-parent stature on offspring growth and the predictability of adult height from stature at age four are prima facia evidence for the role of heredity. Moreover, these findings attest to the early establishment of individual patterns of growth and their stability over time.

Does Immigration Help or Harm Children's Health? The Mayan Case

Objective. We explore how the health, as measured by physical growth, of children in Guatemalan Maya families is impacted by immigration to the United States. Methods. We analyze anthropometric data on Maya children in Guatemala and in the United States. In addition, we use survey data from the Maya–American children and their parents about lifestyle and SES to examine the factors associated with overweight and obesity. Results. The Maya–American children are on average 10 centimeters taller, indicating better health. However, nearly half the Maya–American children are overweight and 42 percent are obese. Children who report watching TV or playing computer games as one of their favorite leisure time activities face a higher chance of being overweight. Conclusion. Immigration from Guatemala to the United States improves the health of children in that they generally grow taller. However, immigration also raises the risk of weight problems, increasing the likelihood of health problems such as hypertension and diabetes.

Women's Migration Networks in Mexico and Beyond

Migration is messy—which is to say it is complicated both by multiple known influences and by unpredictable twists and turns in destinations, literally and figuratively, as well as in destinies. Women, networks, and Mexico—the topics of this book—have become anchors in burgeoning research that elucidates our understanding of, and mitigates misperceptions about, migration and immigration. As women have become more dominant in flows northward across the border with the United States as well as across the continent, the ways they initiate and persist in economic and social mobilities are critical arenas of inquiry.

Book Review: The Quetzal in Flight: Guatemalan Refugee Families in the United StatesThe Quetzal in Flight: Guatemalan Refugee Families in the United States. By VlachNorita. Westport, CT: Ptaeger Publishers, 1992. Pp. 200.

tain conditions, undocumented workers are at least as likely as others in the secondary labor market to assert themselves in labor unions. Based substantially on interviews done with workers and management at the plant, Delgados study reveals that fewworkers who crossed illegally into the United States feared apprehension once they had left the immediate border region, realizing fully that several industries relied extensively on their labor, If anything kept them from asserting themselves politically, it was their fear of losing their relatively stable employment. On the other hand, the very stability of their work world and social networks made these workers ripe for labor organizing, especially after management began a process of growth which undermined previous paternalistic practices and made employees susceptible to the whims ofplant supervisors. To besuccessful, however, the campaign to get Camagua Waterbeds to sign a labor agreement requited substantial support from the national Clothing Workers Union (CWU). Despite the fact that the Camagua organizing campaign was unique in many ways, Delgados study has important implications for work on labor organization in a time of political retrenchment and increasing immigration. For social scientists, this work points out the absolute necessity of interviewing recent immigrants and analyzing their responses before making judgments regarding their motivations and desires, somethingeven some ofthe major scholarlywork in immigration studies has neglected. This study also suggest that the distinctions made between todays immigrants, including the undocumented, and the newcomers of the early twentieth century from Europe may indeed be false, both groups relied on intensive social networking and stable employment patterns in low-income jobs to solidify their social position and to engage in political activism, including unionization. Politicians could learn from this study that attempts to restrict immigrant rights are likely to makeundocumented workers more vulnerable, thereby increasing the likelihood that employers will seek them out fur low-wage labor. For labor activists, Delgado suggests that organizing undocumented workers, while difficult and requiring substantial investment, has the possibility of significant payoff for the future of the labor movement in the United States. Delgados work could benefit from an attempt to place the conditions at Camagua into a more comparative framework. Explaining the successful organizing campaign in terms ofthose that have been defeated might further delineate those factors necessary for unionization among the undocumented. Moreover, an analysis that listened more systematically to internal discussions within unions, might also reveal the role of race and nationalism in shaping the receptivity of union officials toward this activity. Delgados work, however, will require contemporary immigration scholars to rethink their approach to undocumented workers, especially to the role of these immigrants in defining their own political and economic future in the United States.