In response to the growing visibility of trans communities, some countries, suchas Spain, have implemented policies designed to benefit trans individuals and grant them rights and access to medical and legal services. As such, my dissertation research centered on trans communities residing in Valencia, Spain, with a comparative focus on migrant and non-migrant trans individuals to understand how policy changes and their implementations impacted these communities’ lives. I especially looked at the effects it was having on migrant trans individuals’ experiences, as their stories are typically overlooked and under-researched. My research explored the experiences and identities of 33 trans individuals who live in Valencia, Spain, and some surrounding areas. I used a multi-method and comparative approach and analysis to understand the lives of 19 trans individuals born in Spain and 14 individuals who migrated from Latin America, Russia, Ukraine, and Belgium. Relying on intersectional qualitative methodologies, semi- structured interviews, a photovoice project, archival research, and over 100 hours of participant observation, my research documents a critical historical moment for trans communities. Situated in a historical period between 2000 till today, I show how various trans communities have endured the Franco dictatorship and the various sociopolitical challenges, including the most recent regional and national election in Spain. This research focuses on non-migrant and migrant trans individuals’ sense of belonging and incorporation into Spain’s public and private spheres. The dissertation sheds light on the immigration experience of trans individuals fleeing their countries of origin, mostly from Latin America, to escape gender discrimination in hopes of finding a safe place to live in Spain. It also shows the critical role that social relations and support systems play in their ii overall well-being. Finally, this work focuses on how trans individuals describe their gender identity, why they have embraced their identity(ies), and how they assert and display them in different spaces.

In an increasingly complex world, intergenerational collaboration is essential to address the problems the world faces with climate change, social inequity, economic change, and rapid technological development (Hibbs 2020). Research has shown that intergenerativity, or the process of adult/youth power, knowledge, and resource sharing for community development can be highly effective for building and maintaining community resilience (Ronan and Johnston 2005). This study offers a case study of the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) in the United States and Australia and how this organization has utilized the skills and leadership of people of all ages to build, grow, and maintain the organization’s community resilience. While the organization has experienced many disruptions due to external problems (such as COVID-19 pandemic and natural disasters) and internal conflicts (such as bullying, bigotry, and adults seeking power and control over young people), the organization has both maintained and grown its organization membership from 30 people in 1969 to over 60,000 organizational members in 2023 at a national and international level. Some of the community resilience building strategies the SCA utilizes have been shown to be effective with some limitations. These strategies can include developing organizational policy and leadership, offering leadership and decision-making opportunities for diverse people to share their perspectives, removing harmful community members, supporting youth leadership, and increasing SCAdian capital both inside and outside the SCA. The SCA increases its members’ capital through skills training (human capital), social networks (social capital), and opportunities for employment and business development (economic capital). Moreover, the organization’s subcultural values increase the potential for all forms of capital while building a strong resource sharing and emotional support network for its members. This dissertation shows that intergenerativity and social capital are highly useful strategies for building and maintaining community resilience and offers practical strategies for other organizations and governments looking to increased their resilience through intergenerativity.

Women of Latin American descent comprise at least 20% of the nearly seventeen million members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (also known as the Mormon or LDS Church). This dissertation study examines the lives of 69 Latina immigrant Mormon mothers living in the U.S. Southwest. With qualitative interviews, participant observation, and Photovoice (community-driven, participant-based photo collection), I investigated how race, ethnicity, gender, geography, legal status, and religion shape women's migration, marriage, and mothering decisions. Chapter One shows how Latina immigrants experienced ethno-racial belonging, exclusion, and social positionality. An "ethnoreligious hybridity" concept explains how Latinas adopted Mormonism alongside their racial and ethnic identities. Chapter Two examines participants' perceptions within Spanish-speaking LDS congregations. Latina Mormons perceived these worship spaces as beneficial for social networking, cultural preservation, and family support. There were tensions among LDS Latinx due to class differences, colorism, migration statuses, and historical political climates. I coined “congregational heterophily” to describe this congregational heterogeneity and diversity. Chapter Three examines women's dating and marriage practices by race, class, and immigration status. The Mormon Latinas in my study preferred marriage to other Latinos or co-ethnics. Ethnocentrism, racism, and gendered expectations can strain pan ethnic Latinx LDS partnerships. Another third had married white Mormon men. The relationship between Latinas and their white in-laws was often fraught with racial aggression and cultural clashes. Across Chapter Four, I examine how immigration status, culture, and race affect women's mothering. Latina Mormons is expected to be devout church members who excel at motherhood. Women felt pressure to provide social, spiritual, and financial support even after their children were adults. As a result of intersectional disadvantages caused by race, legal status, and gender, Latina Mormon immigrants experience increased maternal stress. Leaders, church members, and other mothers stigmatize Latinas when they do not meet church and motherhood expectations. I used "matriarchal policing” to describe these religious pressures and frequent social monitoring. Collectively, the results of this ethnographic study challenge stereotypes about Mormonism and add to academic knowledge about gendered migration, marriage, and motherhood while providing institutional and community solutions.

This dissertation explores how Sub-Saharan African women now resettled in the United States learn about sex. Prior to the colonization of Sub-Saharan Africa, extended family members such as paternal aunts and grandmothers were responsible for sexuality education for both men and women. Sexuality education often began at puberty and continued across the life span. This sexuality education covered menstruation, pregnancy, childbirth, child spacing and sexual pleasure. However, during colonization sexuality education was moved out of the hands of family members and community members and was now offered in schools. This school-based sexuality education was further disrupted by migration from Sub-Saharan Africa to the United States. Using a qualitative thematic analysis, I explore how sexuality education changed first with colonialism, through migration, and to resettlement in the United States. I then explore how, beginning with puberty, Sub-Saharan African refugee and immigrant women learn about menstruation and sex, and the role of social media in their sex lives. I highlight the role of consistent and comprehensive sexuality education of women in understanding and experiencing their menstruation. Additionally, I discuss how Sub-Saharan African women learn about sex and pleasure from both male and female peers. And finally, I illustrate how Sub-Saharan African women create culturally relevant and religiously specific online counterpublics to discuss and learn about sex. Understanding how Sub-Saharan African immigrant women learn about sex has implications for sexuality education policy in the United States and the role of pleasure in sexual and reproductive health.

Following mixed method ethnographic research conducted between January 2020 and January 2022, this thesis discusses how United States all-female mariachi musicians, or mariacheras, express femininity in the mariachi femenil. Mariachis femeniles are all-female mariachis. Building upon Mary Lee Mulholland’s (2013) discussion of how mariacheras in Jalisco are often valued more for their physical appearance than for their musical skills, this thesis investigates how similar phenomena manifest in the United States’ professional mariachi femenil circuit. Applying a Chicana Feminisms lens to a collection of 28 mariachera plática-interviews, generational and transborder mariachi knowledge production, visual expressions of mariachi femininity, and aural feminine expressions in the mariachi setting are complicated. Each participant details what it means to be a mariachera, breaking down concepts of purity in the face of dichotomous cultural gender expectation and the genre’s visual expectations of how female musicians should present themselves in society. These sociocultural phenomena led these women in many ways to disidentify and resignify various pieces of the mariachi tradition to “carve out” their own space in the practice, expressing the concern they want to be respected as a musician, not as just a visual object. Ultimately, the “carved out” space allows mariacheras to perform a “different” sound of mariachi—a negotiation of strength, femininity, and balancing sociocultural expectations of the mariachera in and out of performance.

This study investigates the perceptions and experiences of U.S. urban poverty among Mexican immigrant women living in La Villita, a neighborhood in Chicago. La Villita is the largest Mexican and Mexican American neighborhood in the Midwest with a population of 77% Mexican and Mexican Americans, with women making up 43% of the population, and 34% of the population living below the poverty line. Although women are less than 50% of La Villita’s population, immigrant women are more likely to experience poverty and earn lower wages than immigrant men. Using qualitative methods and a demographic survey, this study explores the ways in which immigrant women perceive and experience living in a low-income neighborhood. This study addresses the following three questions: 1) How do citizenship status, migration experience, and gender inform the ways Mexican immigrant women experience and manage poverty in Chicago? 2) How do their pre-migration experiences in Mexico influence the women’s perceptions of U.S. poverty? And 3) How do Mexican immigrant women develop and/or find resources from in their low-income neighborhood in Chicago? This study applies a transnational feminist framework to thirty-five semi-structured interviews and demographic surveys. The findings demonstrate that women’s perceptions about poverty are constructed before migrating to the U.S. Once in the U.S., these perceptions begin to change because of their continued referencing to what used to be their living situations in Mexico. However, even though some of the women might not identify as poor after years living in the U.S., their perceptions of escaping poverty in the U.S. are based on attaining basic necessities such as shelter, food, and clothing. Based on the findings of this study, the women’s experiences of poverty informs us that the lack of social opportunities in the women’s lives hinders their full participation in society, an exclusion that perpetuates poverty. Thus, this study shifts the focus from material deprivation to social exclusion as an additional factor that sustains poverty. The last finding demonstrates how women manage living in poverty and how La Villita itself is a resource that offsets some of the material and social challenges they face in the U.S.

In this creative project, I undertake the type of research that other responsible travelers should want to engage in before traveling to a new destination so that they can make the most well informed decisions during their time there. Selected parts of this report were used to create an informative website “The Ethical Tourist” that highlights Hawai’i’s history and current state, the tourism industry in Hawai’i, tourism’s impact on Hawai’i, and alternative forms of tourism. The website companion to this report can be accessed here: https://theethicaltourist.godaddysites.com/

It is estimated that 3000 Mauritian immigrants live in the Canadian province of Ontario, yet despite this relatively small number they are culturally distinct in the city of Toronto. Using ethnographic methods, this dissertation examines immigrants’ changing identities, engagement in transnational politics, and transnational relationships with family members still in Mauritius. Mauritian immigrants in Toronto tend to conceptualize of a unified Mauritian community, created out of a sense of pride that Mauritians are doing well economically, as well as through shared cultural practices like speaking the Mauritian kreol language. However, there are also divisions within the diaspora along ethnic and religious lines, mirroring those in Mauritius. Immigrants also identify as Canadian to a degree, even though what it means to be Canadian varies. Mauritian immigrants’ engagement with Canadian governance influences their likelihood of engaging in transnational politics, even though this is further mediated by the context of migration. Those who migrated as adults with a fully established social network are more likely to try and actively engage in transnational politics compared to those who migrated as young adults to pursue higher education. The latter tend to show an aspiration to engage in transnational politics or a complete lack of engagement from the Mauritian state. Finally, family relationships, including transnational family ties, are an important factor in migration decisions, both in choosing to migrate and choosing to return home. The decision to migrate to Canada is not taken simply at the individual level but is made with input from other family members, or for the children’s welfare. Immigrants retain transnational ties to other kin through internet technologies, frequent visits back to Mauritius, and the sending of remittances. Immigrants are ambivalent about returning home because they do not wish to leave behind their children or grandchildren who have an established life in Canada. This dissertation contributes to the immigration literature by showing that there are generational factors in how immigrants identify and engage in transnational relationships. It also provides policy implications both for the Mauritian government and receiving countries concerned with culturally distinct diasporic populations.

This dissertation research examines the impact of migration on the emotional well-being of temporary, low-wage workers who migrate from the Global South to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Unlike previous research in the UAE, this study’s sample reflects a far broader diversity of nationalities and occupations, and focuses on those earning in the lowest wage bracket. Their experiences revealed the systemic attributes of precarity and the violent structures that perpetuate them.

My research addresses several substantive debates. I found that rather than emigrating for rational reasons—as neoclassical theory of migration posits—the migrants in my study tended to rationalize their reasons for emigrating through processes of cognitive dissonance. Further, where previous scholarship has tended to conflate issues of national, ethnic, and racial discrimination, I disentangle the processes that motivate discriminatory behavior by showing how seemingly innocuous references to “nationality” can be driven by a desire to hide racial prejudices, while at the same time, conflating all as “racism” can reflect a simplistic analysis of the contributing factors. I show how past historical structures of colonialism and slavery are manifest in current forms of structural violence and how this violence is differentially experienced on the basis of nationality, perceived racial differences, and/or ethnicity. Additionally, my research expands theories related to the spatial dimension of discrimination. It examines how zones of marginalization shape the experiences of low-wage migrant workers as they move through or occupy these spaces. Marginalizing zones limit workers’ access to the sociality of the city and its institutional resources, which consequently increase their vulnerability.

Individual well-being is determined by stressful events that one encounters, by personal and external sources of resilience, and by perceptions of oneself and the stressful events. For the migrants in my study, their stressors were chronic, cumulative, and ambiguous, and while they brought with them a sufficient amount of personal resilience, it was often mitigated by non-compliance and lack of enforcement of UAE laws. The result was a state of well-being defined by isolation, fear, and despair.