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This research explores and discusses the visual symbolic imaginaries generated by four artificial intelligence (AI) programs regarding the Mexico-United States border. The visual production hinges upon six key concepts that emerge from the general theme: “Most relevant symbolic imaginaries of the wall, violence, woman, childhood, inequality, and migration related to the Mexico-United States border.” The AI programs used to produce the images are Midjourney, Leonardo.ai, Stable Diffusion, and Dall-E 2. An experimental methodology defines the key concepts and symbolic imaginaries at the border between the United States and Mexico through ChatGPT 3.5. The images have been obtained by translating the written concepts into images using such programs. The generative image programs are conceptualized based on the aesthetic apparatus theory and the posthuman vision. The images are analyzed using the theory of social, cultural, and symbolic imaginaries. The analysis reveals ideological biases and aesthetic tendencies in the visually synthesized symbolic imaginaries and rhetorical regimes of the Mexico-United States border through generative image production programs. It also builds a critical-sociopolitical perspective on three main aspects: a conceptualization of generative image programs as techno-aesthetic apparatuses, a reflection on the creative construction processes of visual discourses produced by AI devices, and an examination of the ideological and aesthetic biases of the images understood as techno-aesthetic objects obtained from this visual production technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Ecología Política is the property of Fundacio ENT and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

New Mexico is located along the U.S.–Mexico border, and as such, Spanish, English, and language mixing form an integral part of the New Mexican identity. New Mexico is often divided into a northern and a southern region with the north known for Spanish archaisms due to historic isolation, and the south associated with ties to a Mexican identity due to the location of the U.S.–Mexico border. The current study uses perceptual dialectology to capture the way in which speakers in the south of New Mexico perceive this north/south divide and communicate their identity. Overall, there is evidence of the north/south divide, but speakers in southern New Mexico focus much more on language use such as Spanglish, English, and Spanish than on their northern counterparts. Participants reference language mixing over language "purity" and borders over an explicit rural/urban divide. Like previous accounts, we see reference to the "correctness" of both English and Spanish, examples of specific terminology used in different parts of the state, and descriptions of accents throughout the state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To examine self-reported rates of driving under the influence (DUI) with and without arrest among border and non-border residents in California. Data were obtained from 1,209 adults 18 to 39 years of age resident in four counties in California: Imperial on the U.S./Mexico border; and Kern, Tulare, and Madera in California's Central Valley. Households were selected using a list assisted sample. Data were collected on the phone or online and analyzed with a heteroskedastic ordinal generalized linear model. Driving after drinking (11.1% vs. 6.5%; q = 0.04) and the lifetime DUI arrest rates were higher for men than women (10.7% vs. 4%; q = 0.001). In multivariable analysis driving after drinking and DUI arrests were not higher on the border, not higher among Hispanics than Whites, and among Hispanics, the rates were not higher among those located on the border. Income was positively associated with drinking and driving. Impulsivity was positively and significantly associated with both drinking and driving and lifetime DUI arrest. The null results suggest that DUI related risk behaviors may not be higher on the border than in other areas of California. There may be health related risk behaviors of higher prevalence in the border population than in other areas, but DUI related behavior may not be one of them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of URVIO - Revista Latinoamericana de Seguridad Ciudadana is the property of FLACSO - Ecuador (Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Papeles de Europa is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In the United States, Central American Indigenous women who seek asylum are officially classified as Latinas or Hispanic. The erasure and consequent invisibility of Indigenous identity not only causes assimilation but also jeopardizes Central American Indigenous women's procedural rights. Using a transnational feminist lens combined with a Critical Latinx Indigeneities framework, and drawing on fieldwork research, I address the complex relationships of migrants whose identities are intertwined with geography, different states, and racial representations, while I claim that the invisibility of Indigenous women from Abya Yala who cross borders responds to the white settler colonial project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our history of border wars and entrenched positions has given us officially drawn lines, that notwithstanding their obvious irrationality, are so deeply embedded in our psyches that we no longer even register them. At the same time, during the digital age, the rise of different ways of looking at the borders in Mexico and South Asia has explicit and implicit relations to these brutal histories, defining ways we continue to negotiate national and transnational identities and ideological projects. This contribution looks at theoretical and artistic examples from both continents to ask about the effects of new media on our experiences of our bodies and our sense of human agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The artist's book, Families Separated and Detained at the Border, features 10 cyanotypes that visually communicate messages about being detained and separated. The cyanotypes, presented in sheer vellum envelopes, are reminiscent of postcards that one might mail home. However, the haunting imagery suggests the story is not about a vacation, but rather, a desperate situation. The cyanotypes are flanked by a front and back cover using idealistic family imagery. The metal cage and quick links create a strong visual statement in an attempt to document the outrage, sadness, and helplessness the artist feels about thousands of asylum-seekers being held in inhumane conditions at the US/Mexico border. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of eco-frontier examines the actions of ecological actors to analyze the ways in which these contribute to transform biodiversity-rich territories. Eco-frontiers are discursive and spatial appropriations that evolve in different historical stages. This article analyzes the case of the Maya Forest as an emerging eco-frontier since the 1970s. The Maya Forest is a concept constructed by ecological actors to conserve tropical rainforest that covers the border region between Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize. Based on analysis of various first-hand materials, the article shows how the construction of the Maya Forest-concept has transformed the borderland into a scenic eco-region subject to tropical conservation. Simultaneously, the appropriation of the Maya in its scientific and touristic dimension suggests the construction of international biocultural borderlands. However, the issue of indigenous rights, multicultural context and that of multispecies remain subject to debate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Diplomatic relations between Mexico and Guatemala were less than optimal during the nineteen-thirties, defined by an environment full of suspicions and handshakes between their representatives. In this paper I study the accusation against Guatemalan President Jorge Ubico (1931-1944) of participating in the uprising of Saturnino Cedillo, which occurred in May 1938. Through archival research in both countries, I clarify interference that certain researchers have accepted without showing significant proof, and others have ignored. Did Ubico support the cedillistas that rebelled against the government of Lázaro Cárdenas? I respond to this question by examining the source of the accusation, its promotors in Mexico, and the response by the Cardenist government. These means allow me to broach an awkward and little analyzed episode of this bilateral relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past decade has seen a revival of the long-disfavored concept of frontier, which now elucidates the interdependence between political centers and their naturally rich peripheries in the Global South. "Frontier" has referred to the cyclical discovery of and competition over new resources, and the transformation of power relations in a given space. We contribute to this discussion by exploring its relation to nature conservation. Examining conservation practices along Mexico's southern border, this article addresses conservation as an unsettled process that pierces the frontier's politics of nationalizing space and communities. In this way, conservation practices become negotiations over ownerships of nature. These negotiations involve resistance, adaptation, and counter-conservation, and they also influence human-nature relationships. The article shows that conservation practices relate to spheres of both the state and local communities in ways that allow the study of the frontier beyond given binaries and oppositional forces and toward contested, multiscale deliberations about the control of, access to, rights, and attachments to nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The border society of Chetumal is studied in order to know how the speakers of this linguistic community conceive their ways of speaking Spanish in different situational contexts (home or work), before different people (employers, friends or subordinates) and with it get to check the degree of linguistic awareness they possess; that is, if the social boundaries present in their speech exist and are recognized as such by all speakers. This study is based on just over 100 questionnaires applied to the same number of Spanish-speakers born in Chetumal in 2019, who were registered according to the traditional sociolinguistic factors of age, sex, and socio-cultural level, the latter calculated basically on the individual's education index. The conclusions reflect the linguistic reality of Spanish speakers on the southern border of Mexico in which Caribbean and English elements are palpable in the lexical sector of the language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The film La jaula de oro (The Golden Dream, 2013), by Mexican-Spanish director Diego Quemada-Diez, begins in a landfill in Guatemala City and ends with one of its main characters, Juan, gathering waste in a meat processing plant, somewhere in the northern United States. Having crossed two borders, survived riding La Bestia across Mexico, and lost Sara, Chauk and Samuel on the way, Juan's transnational journey comes full circle to end pretty much where it started: at the very bottom of the consumption cycle. A strength of La jaula is its ability to make visible that main condition of undocumented migrant bodies: their disposability, the banality of their disappearance and/or death. In this paper I take this line of thought further and explore the ways in which, through its documentary-like style and neorealistic use of non-professional actors and real locations, Quemada-Diez's storytelling develops what I will call a poetics of austerity. On one hand, the film tells a story about four teenagers whose lives have been made redundant by the effects of neoliberal austerity recipes --states' disengagement from social investment and wealth redistribution--; on the other hand, its austere style counters excess by relying on the moving image and conspicuously avoiding dialogue or other non-visual ways of creating meaning--such as non-diegetic music, for instance. Weaved together, these two approaches make up a revealing poetics, capable of baring the structural verticality hidden in globalization's DNA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Confluenze. Rivista di Studi Iberoamericani is the property of Universita di Bologna, Dipartimento di Lingue, Letterature e Culture Moderne and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Ciencia y Sociedad is the property of Ciencia y Sociedad and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Background: This article reports on a test of a youth substance use prevention program conducted in Nogales-Sonora, a Mexican city on the US border. Objective: The study tested the efficacy of a version of the keepin' it REAL curriculum for middle school students that was culturally adapted for Mexico and renamed Mantente REAL. Methods: Students in 7th grade classrooms in four public schools participated in the study (N = 1,418, 49% female, mean age = 11.9). Using a clustered randomized design, two schools received the intervention and two served as a treatment-as-usual control group. Regular classroom teachers were trained to deliver the twelve-lesson Mantente REAL manualized curriculum. Parents provided active consent and students gave written assent to collect pretest and posttest questionnaire data, 7 months apart, at the beginning and end of the 2017-2018 academic year. We assessed the Mantente REAL intervention with general linear models adjusted for baseline, attrition, non-linear distributions, and school-level clustering. Results: Students who participated in Mantente REAL reported relatively less frequent use of alcohol and illicit drugs other than marijuana, compared to students in control schools. Males alone reported desirable intervention effects for marijuana use. These desirable effects were especially strong among students who reported higher initial levels of involvement in risky behaviors. Among students more at risk, both females and males receiving the program reported relative reductions in the frequency of use of alcohol and illicit drugs. Conclusions: These promising results within the Mexico-US border context support a further dissemination of the intervention and additional youth prevention research in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Nomadas (01217550) is the property of Universidad Central and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper, I, an Asian-Indian, transnational, woman faculty, working in a Hispanic serving institution (HSI), at the USA-Mexico border present my testimonio, and write to share how I found the troubled center of my privileged life and views and the subtle ways my students transformed me, as an educator and a parent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: About 30% of all motor vehicle fatalities in the United States are associated with alcohol‐impaired motor vehicle crashes. Arrests for drinking and driving (Driving under the influence [DUI]) are 1 of the most important deterrence actions to minimize DUI. This paper examines trends and population‐level correlates of drinking driving arrests (DUI) from 2005 to 2017 in California. Methods: Arrest data come from the Monthly Arrest and Citation Register compiled by the California Department of Justice. Sociodemographic and community characteristic data from the U.S. Census, alcohol outlet density, and distance to the U.S.–Mexico border from Law Enforcement Reporting Areas (LERA) centroids were aggregated at the level of 499 LERA contributing to the report. Reported arrest rates were related to area sociodemographic characteristics using hierarchical Bayesian Poisson space–time models. Results: Both among men and women rates showed an upward trend until 2008, decreasing after that year. DUI arrest rates were greater among Hispanics than Whites for the 2 younger age groups, 18 to 29 (p < 0.001) and 30 to 39 years (p < 0.001). DUI arrest rates in LERA areas are positively related to proximity to the California/Mexico border; a higher percent of bar/pub outlets; a higher percent of Hispanic population; a higher percent of population 18 to 29, 30 to 39, and 40 to 49 years of age; a higher percent of US‐born population; a higher percent of population with annual income of $100,000 or more; a higher percent of population 150% below the federal poverty line; and a higher level of law‐enforcement activities. Conclusions: Results of this analysis of spatial correlates of DUI arrests overlap well with the literature on individual‐level data and arrest rates. The decrease in arrest rates as distance to the California/Mexico border increases is potentially associated with the greater availability of alcohol in the border area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the construction of a dominant narrative around human trafficking at Mexico´s southern border, as articulated through the experiences of two specific actors: sex workers and the armed division of the State. Through ethnography and the actors' own voices, this study demonstrates the tensions and contradictions between assumptions of law and order and the women's lived experiences. Findings from field data suggest that trafficking ought to be understood not only through punitive justice and criminality, but also in terms of the effects the anti-trafficking apparatus has on lives and bodies on the Mexico-Guatemala border, without losing sight of structural forces at play. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Methaodos: Social Science Journal / Methaodos: Revista de Ciencias Sociales is the property of Departamento de Ciencias de la Comunicacion y Sociologia, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

We know little about determinants of violence and drug use in Mexican northern cities, places considered to be at high risk for alcohol, drug use, and violence, including crimes and homicides.Methods: Data are from the US-Mexico Study on Alcohol and Related Conditions (2011-2013), a survey of respondents living in the border metropolitan areas of Nuevo Laredo (n = 828) and Reynosa and Matamoros (n = 821) and in the non-border metropolitan area of Monterrey (n = 811). Associations between violence (interpersonal, direct community [such as physical attack] and indirect community violence [such as heard gunshots]), drug related activities and neighborhood insecurity with alcohol use disorders (AUD), drug misuse (illicit and out of prescription) and area-level disadvantage (ALD) were estimated with multilevel logistic models, controlling for covariates.Results: Substance use was generally related to violence regardless of ALD in these northern cities in Mexico (statistically significant odds ratios range: 0.68-4.24). AUD was associated with 3 forms of violence and also with drug-related activities, but not with neighborhood insecurity. Both illicit drug use and misuse prescription medicines seem to act in unison and were related only to indirect community violence and drug related activities. ALD in these cities was associated with physical violence and neighborhood insecurity. An inverse relationship between illicit drug use and neighborhood insecurity was an unexpected finding.Conclusions: AUD and drug use were associated with violence and drug involvement regardless of ALD. Neighborhood insecurity depended mainly on ALD and to an inverse relationship with illicit drug use that needs further study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Ars & Humanitas is the property of Ars & Humanitas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper explores the extent to which socio-political narratives about the U.S. and Mexico are circulated via Mexican headlines between the years 2000-2015, and questions if calculated jargon is orchestrated and distributed to serve national socio-political interests. It examines whether discursive formations represented by newspaper headlines function as a type of conformist, antipathetic, reproachful, and/or reclamative narrative producer that generates sentiment in the same manner that the Latino Threat Narrative, theorized by Leo Chavez, produces self-serving iterations of Latino (specifically Mexican) personification in the U.S. It then discusses the importance that geography has had in developing a political narrative within Mexico and proceeds to discuss how threat narratives are constructed with such historiography in mind. Finally, it analyzes headline jargon in the Mexican periodicals El Norte, Reforma, and Mural between 2000-2015. It is the intent of this paper to outline what function headline jargon serves in Mexican narrative arenas, and to examine whether the way they challenge the U.S. reconstitutes a Mexican identity, or establishes completely different priorities and socio-political agendas. Specific deliberation of Mexican print media geared towards a Mexican audience is absent from discussions on how the LTN and its counter-narrative effort operate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Risk for driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI) may be higher in U.S. and Mexico border cities as compared to nonborder cities in each country. We examine rates and correlates of self-reported DUI arrests or stops on both sides of the border, drawing on a large-scale survey of 4,796 Mexicans and Mexican Americans in border and nonborder cities of Texas and two states in Mexico. Findings varied by site and country and did not consistently show higher rates on the border. DUI prevention efforts should consider the heterogeneity of local conditions and needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maternal Zika virus infection (ZIKV) has serious health consequences for unborn offspring. Knowledge about prevention is critical to reducing risk, yet what women in the high-risk US-Mexico border region know about protecting themselves and their babies from ZIKV is mostly unknown. This study aimed to assess knowledge of ZIKV among pregnant and inter-conception women and to identify sources of information that might address knowledge gaps. Clients in five federally-funded, border region Healthy Start programs (N = 326) were interviewed in late 2016 about their knowledge of ZIKV prevention methods and whether they believed themselves or their babies to be at risk. Sources of information about ZIKV and demographic characteristics were also measured. Chi square tests identified important associations between variables; adjusted odds ratios (AOR) and 95% confidence intervals for knowledge and beliefs were calculated. Among the 305 women aware of ZIKV, 69.5% could name two ways to prevent infection. Only 16.1% of women named using condoms or abstaining from sex as a prevention method. While 75.3% heard about ZIKV first from TV/radio, just 9.5% found the information helpful. Women who received helpful information from health care providers had greater odds of knowing two prevention methods (AOR = 2.0; 1.1-3.7), when to test for ZIKV (AOR = 5.2; 2.1-13.2), and how long to delay pregnancy after infection in a male partner (AOR = 1.9; 1.1-3.2). Those who said web-based and social media sources were helpful had greater odds of knowing when to test for ZIKV (AOR = 2.8; 1.3-6.3). Results can inform messaging for safe pregnancy and ZIKV prevention. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to determine how marital status may have an impact on quality of life in a group of older adults living in a U.S.-Mexico border city. Two-hundred and seventy-six older adults completed the Spanish version of the World Health Organization Quality of Life Assessment, composed of four domains: physical health, psychological health, social relationships, and environment. Participants answered a measure of sociodemographic variables. In the psychological health component of quality of life, single and married older adults had the highest scores as compared to widowed and divorced. Similarly, married older adults had the highest quality of life in social relationships. Marital status may play an important role when analyzing quality of life among older adults, this study suggests that being married may offer a protective mechanism against depressive symptoms and therefore against mental illnesses during late adulthood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a small number of transborder students who reside in Mexico but go to school in the United States. Less than 2.5 percent of students residing in border cities such as Tijuana, Ciudad Juarez or Nogales, are transborder students. Pupils born in Mexico that go to school in the United states represent less than 1 percent of the student population in all educational levels. Country of birth, having parents that are international commuters, and household income are elements that enable or limit transborder membership. High earnings are the central factor for Mexicans that want to go to school del otro lado. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The US-Mexico border presents potential cultural and logistic barriers to obtaining substance abuse treatment. We compare the prevalence and correlates of wanting and getting help between border and non-border residents in both the US and Mexico. Data come from the 2011 to 2012 US-Mexico Study on Alcohol and Related Conditions which surveyed 3214 border and 1582 non-border residents in the US and Mexico. Multivariate logistic regressions estimate the effect of border residence on desire for and receipt of help. In both countries, border substance users were about half as likely as nonborder substance users to have wanted or obtained any kind of help, independent of predisposing, need and enabling factors, including migration status. Among those desiring help, however, about half had obtained it, both on and off the border in both countries. While substantial proportions of those who need help do not get it either on or off the border, lower motivation for treatment may be more important than access in explaining border/non-border differences. Future research should investigate whether there are border-specific barriers to wanting help, and how to minimize them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes the changes in two cross-border processes: employment and giving birth in the United States among the northern border populations of Mexico between 2000 and 2010. Various statistical methods are used to analyze the trends and the changes in the socioeconomic profiles of those who perform these practices. While the numbers of cross-border workers dropped, cross-border births increased; people with higher levels of education became increasingly represented in both categories. These results suggest that this border has become a more selective "blockade" for transborder interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports partial results of an anthropological study of Mexican minor migrants repatriated from the United States across the Tamaulipas/Texas border. The author's aim is to analyze some of the potential risks these young people face on their journey. The study is based on documentary sources and interviews with male and female teens between the ages of 14 and 17 from Southern and Central Mexico, who were housed at a Tamaulipas Center for the Care of Border Minors. Specifically, the study deals with risks such as being the possible victims of the region's organized crime, contacting coyotes (human smugglers), being taken by them to "safe houses," crossing the Rio Grande, and, finally, being detained by Border Patrol agents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Fentanyl has led to an increased number of overdose deaths in North America. Testing substances for fentanyl may be a harm reduction strategy to prevent overdose. Little is known about behavior change after fentanyl testing and the attitudes around fentanyl knowledge and testing along the US-Mexico border in the context of a safe consumption site.Methods: This was a pilot quantitative and qualitative study with 30 women who use drugs at an unsanctioned safe consumption site in Mexicali, Mexico. Women participated in a quantitative survey, a semi-structured interview, and fentanyl testing of substances. Injection behavior was observed after fentanyl testing results were provided. Qualitative data were collected to explore the meanings participants attributed to fentanyl and fentanyl testing.Results: Half of the substances tested positive for fentanyl (n=15, 50%), and all of them were in samples of black tar heroin. Among those participants who tested positive for fentanyl, 7 (47%) subsequently used less of the intended substance, 1 did not use the intended substance, and 7 (47%) did not change their behavior (i.e., used as originally intended). In qualitative interviews, a predominant theme was a description of fentanyl as dangerous and deadly and fentanyl testing as being helpful for modifying drug use behaviors. However, participants recognized that there could be no change in behavior following a positive fentanyl test in the context of not being able to find substances free of fentanyl.Conclusion: We observed mixed results related to behavior change after women's intended substance for use tested positive for fentanyl. Fentanyl testing was acceptable to women, but behavior change was hampered by the inability to find substances free of fentanyl. Further research is needed to maximize the potential of fentanyl testing as a harm reduction tool especially in the context of a changing drug supply. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chiapas as the border departments of Guatemala is characterized as an area of socio-economic backwardness. Since the twentieth century a significant flow of undocumented Guatemalan migrant families are temporarily employed in Mexican coffee plantations in the Soconusco region, mostly from the poorest and most marginalized rural sectors from the border Guatemalan departments. This paper estimates the marital Total Fertility Rate and explores the reproductive characteristics of Guatemalan agricultural laborers families. The Global marital fertility rate is high (5.65 children per woman on average at the end of their reproductive life) with an increasing trend. It is argued that a high number of children in these families are functional for them, since they require the family labor for their survival. In this cross-border area are articulated by child labor, high fertility of Guatemalan rural migrants, due to the political and socioeconomic conditions of Guatemala, and the development needs of the agricultural export capital coffee in Mexico, permanently driven by the Mexican government. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to find potential heritage tourism clusters in border areas. Literature about tourism destinations is essentially focused on administrative-bound areas, while little attention has been paid to functional regions. The research is based on a methodological exercise to contribute to this debate by analyzing the case of three border regions between Mexico, the USA, Guatemala and Belize, respectively. These borders have never been static but have changed throughout history, to the present day situation. It is argued that these changes have implications for the potential development of heritage tourism. The results identify a number of cross-border clusters and corridors in these areas with different levels of tourism underdevelopment, mainly because of political or legal restrictions. The results of this study contribute to an improved understanding of borderland heritages and cross-border regional clusters in the context of tourism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Every year, several hundred people die attempting to cross the border from Mexico into the United States, most often from dehydration and heat stroke though snake bites and violent assaults are also common. This article utilizes participant observation fieldwork in the borderlands of the US and Mexico to explore the experience of structural vulnerability and bodily health risk along the desert trek into the US. Between 2003 and 2005, the ethnographer recorded interviews and conversations with undocumented immigrants crossing the border, border patrol agents, border activists, borderland residents, and armed civilian vigilantes. In addition, he took part in a border crossing beginning in the Mexican state of Oaxaca and ending in a border patrol jail in Arizona after he and his undocumented Mexican research subjects were apprehended trekking through the borderlands. Field notes and interview transcriptions provide thick ethnographic detail demonstrating the ways in which social, ethnic, and citizenship differences as well as border policies force certain categories of people to put their bodies, health, and lives at risk in order for them and their families to survive. Yet, metaphors of individual choice deflect responsibility from global economic policy and US border policy, subtly blaming migrants for the danger – and sometimes death – they experience. The article concludes with policy changes to make US–Mexico labor migration less deadly. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

As has been noted by film scholars, concerns about childhood and adolescence permeate recent cinematic history in Mexico. There is certainly an abundance of evidence that children and adolescents feature prominently in Mexican cinema as agents who mediate issues of cultural identity and difference and who operate more generally as sites of cultural angst played out in the public sphere. This article will examine Al otro lado (2004) by Mexican director, Gustavo Loza, a criss-crossing global narrative that explores notions of loss, absence and displacement in the everyday tale of three 'Third World' children from three different parts of the globe - Mexico, Cuba and Morocco. In each sequence, the child protagonist is foregrounded as a central mobilizing factor in the construction of a new family unit and their function as agents or mediators of identity within a transnational imaginary is both politically charged and visually challenging. In so far as the family is defined as the ultimate signifier of belonging, it functions at different points both allegorically and metonymically as the nation state, replicating its structures and positioning its members within its homogenizing and paternalistic frameworks. Viewed from this perspective, the film also comments on the fracturing of those unifying frameworks under globalizing neo-liberal structures that dictate the patterns of transnational migration. Through its playful interrogation of time-honoured family roles, the film may ultimately be read as an innovative attempt to re-imagine traditional configurations of the 'family' that recovers previously marginalized subjects such as women and children. In this way, it can be argued that it enables different approaches to our ways of thinking about the idea of family in a modernized, globalized world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay presents a brief outlook on the main authors whose work and theory have influenced research on culture and communication along Mexico's Northeastern border, which is evidenced in academic production in Baja California. Its purpose is to determine the core themes that have grounded academic thought on culture and communication along this border with the U.S. The conjunction between Anglo Saxon and European theoretic and practical outlooks is identified; it also acknowledges that the contexts that ground cultural and communication processes in Latin America--specifically in that region of Mexico- establish particular problems and agendas that are being addressed using specific analytical and methodological practices that identify and give meaning to cultural/ communication studies in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: At international border areas that suffer from poor air quality, assessment of pollutant sources and transport across the border is important for designing effective air quality management strategies. As part of the Cal-Mex 2010 field campaign at the US–Mexico border in San Diego and Tijuana, we measured black carbon (BC) concentrations at three locations in Mexico and one in the United States. The measurements were intended to support the following objectives: to characterize the spatial and temporal variability in BC, to estimate the BC emission inventory, to identify potential source areas of BC emissions, and to assess the cross-border transport of BC. Concentrations at Parque Morelos, the campaign''s supersite, averaged 2.2 μg m−3 and reached a maximum value of 55.9 μg m−3 (1-min average). Sharp, regularly occurring peaks around midnight were suggestive of clandestine industrial activity. BC concentrations were more than two times higher, on average, in Tijuana compared to San Diego. BC and carbon monoxide (CO) were strongly correlated at the three sites in Mexico. The ΔBC/ΔCO ratio of 5.6 ± 0.5 μg m−3 ppm−1 in Tijuana, or 4.7 ± 0.5 μg m−3 ppm−1 when adjusted for seasonal temperature effects to represent an annual average, was comparable to that in other urban areas. Tijuana''s emissions of BC were estimated to be 230–890 metric tons per year, 6–23% of those estimated for San Diego. Large uncertainties in this estimate stem mainly from uncertainties in the CO emission inventory, and the lower end of the estimate is more likely to be accurate. Patterns in concentrations and winds suggest that BC in Tijuana was usually of local origin. Under typical summertime conditions such as those observed during the study, transport from Tijuana into the US was common, crossing the border in a northeasterly direction, sometimes as far east as Imperial County at the eastern edge of California. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

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At the frontline of México's "war on drugs" is the Mexican-U.S. border city of Cd. Juárez, Chihuahua, which has become internationally known as the "murder capital of the world." In Juárez, which neighbors El Paso, Texas, United States, estimates of the murders in Juárez are as high as 7,643 between 2006 and 2011, leaving approximately 10,000 orphans. Juárez has also experienced an exodus of approximately 124,000 people seeking safety, some migrating to the Mexican interior and others to the U.S., particularly along the U.S.-México border. Based on 63 in-depth interviews with Juárez-El Paso border residents, along with ethnographic observations, we examine the implications of the "war on drugs" on transnational movements and on the initial settlement of those escaping the violence. In particular, we construct a typology of international migrants who are represented in the Juárez exodus: the Mexican business elite, the "Refugees without Status," and those who resided in México but who are U.S. born or have legal permanent residency in the U.S. This article highlights the role of transnational capital in the form of assets and income, social networks in the U.S., and documentation to cross the port of entry into the U.S. legally, in easing migration and initial settlement experiences in the U.S. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The migration of Mexican immigrants to the U.S. is one of the largest bilateral migration flows in the world and remittances from these immigrants represent a crucial source of income for Mexican households. As the United States tightens controls on illegal migration, this may impact both migration durations and remittances. Tighter borders increase crossing costs, often because migrants need to pay smugglers (coyotes). Using data from the Mexican Migration Project, we find that higher crossing costs increase the probability of remitting, the remittance rate and the duration of stay as undocumented workers pay off the crossing debt. If immigrants did not incur these crossing debts then more of their earnings could be spent in the United States or by their households in Mexico on productive activities and durations in the U.S. might be lessened at the margin. This suggests some potential gain to both the U.S. and Mexican economies through expanding guest worker programs and consequently reducing the hiring of coyotes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article uses the Population and Housing Census 2000 to analyze the association between the post-basic education of the urban youth population and two indicators of transborder links on Mexico's northern border: being born in the United States and having transmigrants at home. The multivariate statistical analysis shows that although being born in the United States is positively associated with attending and completing high school, living in households with transmigrants reduces the likelihood of continuing higher education. Despite the improved socio-economic status of transborder families, household members' transborder employment may be affecting young people's educational aspirations, since it proves that a higher relative income can be achieved without investing in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article proposes quantitative and qualitative elements and parameters to delimit the Ensenada-Mexicali economic corridor. In addition to discussing the effects of its dual condition as border and peninsula and defining its composition and structure, the article establishes the corridor's dimensions and areas of influence based on a proximity analysis, in order to obtain a delimitation that goes beyond political-administrative region, which entails problems for both analysis and representation. This problem is solved through a methodological alternative which facilitates an integrated analysis from a relational and organizational perspective. The geographical unit defined is useful to support the regional competitiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Legendary Mexican heroes have reemerged in the public space to meet the varying political, artistic or commercial needs of the various sectors of both the Mexican and American society. I intend to delve into iconic figure of Pancho Villa in relation to a theoretical framework of the border region. My paper pursues answers to the following questions: what sort of relevant role does the Mexican revolutionary icon undertake for current Chicano/Latino life? To what extent does Villa still have a certain political or ideological viability that speaks for and to communal interests of Chicanos or Latinos? I want to focus on how the figure of Villa is evoked in relation to a number of border concepts because Villa himself inspires questions about the representation of images of the border, as an allegorical construct of the unrepresented/ misrepresented physical frontier. I examine the ways in which his presence is invoked, discussed, and re-appropriated in theoretical, literary, and filmic works whose thematic figurations revolve around the border. Organizing my discussion in three parts, I analyze how the figure of Villa is reincarnated in three contexts: drama, film, and folklore always in dialogue with issues of border culture, border identity and border representation. I propose that the figure of Villa signals persistent conflicts and ongoing debates involving the border region as it returns, repeatedly, as a popular icon for both the U.S. mainstream society and the Chicano/Latino community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Much peace journalism research to date has critiqued problems with mainstream media reporting-what some call 'war journalism'-through analysis of news coverage of international conflict. This study seeks to determine whether news coverage of putative allies and friends (here the United States and Mexico) during periods of non-violent interactions discursively positions the bilateral relationship as one of conflict or cooperation. We examine The New York Times' coverage of the May 2006, immigration debates. Employing textual analysis, we find that news stories privilege the perspectives of political elites, reinforce polarized notions of national identity, and set the stage for future, armed violence. News reports construct the border as a site of conflict and contestation, use stereotyped imagery and coded language to dichotomize US and Mexican identities, and portray the bilateral relationship in distinctly hierarchical terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cuadernos de Vivienda y Urbanismo is the property of Pontificia Universidad Javeriana and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Trayectorias is the property of Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)