Women in Northwest Initiative

 

In fall 1992, CSWS began its research initiative Women in the Northwest (WNW), originally envisioned as a five-year project to promote and spotlight research on women’s lives in the Pacific Northwest. A series on Welfare and Policy was among the publications that came out of this project.

CSWS received a second large private gift in 1997 for $100,000 from Mazie Giustina, specifically endowing more work on women in the Northwest. Because of this expansion, a core group of researchers—largely from the social sciences, history, and the professional schools—developed ongoing research that linked theoretical, substantive, and policy concerns about women, work, families, economic restructuring, social policy, politics, and the law.

The Mazie Giustina gift continues to provide funding for research projects related to women in the Northwest, including:

• Gender, Families and Immigration in the Northwest Project
• First Peoples of the Northwest RIG
• Indigenous Women of the Northwest RIG

 

Gender, Families & Immigration in the Northwest

A completed  research project of the CSWS initiative “Women in the Northwest”

The work of the Gender, Families and Immigration in the Northwest (GFINW) Project continues through the Latino Roots Project, the Center for Latino/a and Latin American Studies, and the CSWS Américas Research Interest Group.

The GFINW Project generated research and analysis about gender and family dynamics among changing immigrant communities in the Northwest. It made that research accessible to and in conversation with policymakers, social service providers, and immigrant rights advocates. GFINW activities included an annual speaker series, workshops for researchers, meetings of a community-based advisory board, and a conference during 2008 that created a space for dialogue among the Northwest immigrant community, immigrant rights and community-based organizations, policymakers, and social service providers who work with immigrant communities and families. Researchers affiliated with the project engaged in research projects on Mexican immigrant youth and on the integration of immigrant families in rural Oregon.

A publication of the conference proceedings from the project’s 2008 conference on Gender, Families, and Latino/a Immigration in Oregon is available online.  The first part is in English, the second part is in Spanish followed by an appendix in English.

 

Project Participants—bios and articles

Lynn Stephen

stephenl@uoregon.edu

 

The work of Lynn Stephen, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the University of Oregon, has centered on the intersection of culture and politics. Stephen, born in Chicago, Illinois, has a particular interest in the ways that political identities articulate with ethnicity, gender, class, and nationalism in relation to local, regional, and national histories, cultural politics, and systems of governance in Latin America. During the past 8 years she has added the dimension of migration to her research. Her newest book is titled Transborder Lives: Indigenous Oaxacans in Mexico, California, and Oregon (March, 2007, Duke University Press). Her three most recent books are Zapotec Women: Gender, Class, and Ethnicity in Globalized Oaxaca (2005), Zapata Lives!: Histories and Cultural Politics in Southern Mexico (2002) and Perspectives on Las Américas: A Reader in Culture, History, and Representation (2003), co-edited with Matt Gutmann, Felix Matos Rodríguez, and Pat Zavella. She is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for Humanities, The Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard University and research grants from the National Science Foundation, The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, and the Inter-American Foundation. She has a strong commitment to collaborative research and in projects that produce findings that are accessible to the wider public. She has most recently collaborated with Pineros y Campesinos del Nordoeste (PCUN), CAUSA ( Oregon immigrant rights coalition), Rural Organizing Project, Juventud FACETA, and 12 weaving cooperatives from Teotitlán del Valle in her work. Her most recent research focuses on identity formation and the political and civic participation among Mexican immigrant youth.

Lynn Stephen, Profesora Distinguida de Antropología en la Universidad de Oregon, ha enfocado su trabajo de investigación sobre le relación entre la cultural y la política. Nacida en Chicago, Illinois, ella le interesa la manera en que identidades políticos se relacionen con clase, genero, etnicidad y nacionalismo. Durante los ultimo 8 anos ella trabaja también con el tema de migración entre México y los Estados Unidos-especialiamente del estado de Oaxaca. Su nuevo libro se llama Vidas Transfronterizas: Oaxaqueños Indígenas en México, California y Oregon. Sus últimos tres libros incluyen Mujeres Zapotecs: Genero, Clase y Etnicidad en Oaxaca Globalizada (2005), Zapata Vive! Historia y Cultura Política en el Sur de México (2002) y Perspectivas en Las Américas: Cultura, Historía y Representación (2003-co-editado con Matt Gutmann, Félix Matos Rodríguez y Patricia Zavella). Ella ha recibido becas del National Endowment for Humanities, The Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard University, the National Science Foundation, The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, and the Inter-American Foundation. Tiene un compromiso de llevar a cabo investigaciones colaborativas y de crear proyectos que resultan en conclusiones y productos que pueden interesar un publico amplio. En los ultimos cinco años ha colaborado con Pineros y Campesinos del Nordoeste (PCUN), CAUSA (coalición en Oregon dedicada a derechos de inmigrantes), Rural Organizing Project (red de 60 organizaciónes dedicadas a una política de igualdad y justicia social), Juventud FACETA, y 12 cooperativas de tejadores/as de Teotitlán del Valle, Oaxaca. Su trabajo de investigación más reciente esta enfocada en la formación de identidades y la participación cívica y política de jóvenes inmigrantes Mexicanos.

Articles by Lynn Stephen:

The Gaze of Surveillance in the Lives of Mexican Immigrant Workers

 

Latinos in Oregon

Building Alliances: An Ethnography of Collaboration Between Rural Organizing Project (ROP) and CAUSA in Oregon

Negotiating Racial Hierarchies and Promoting Indigenous Culture: Oaxacan Immigrant Youth in California and Oregon

Indigenous Transborder Ethnic Identity Construction in Life and on the Net: The Frente Indà gena de Organizaciones Binacionales (FIOB)

The New Pluralism in Woodburn Oregon

El Nuevo Pluralismo en Woodburn Oregon la reconceptualizacion de America Latina: Antropologias de las Americas

 

 

Marcela Mendoza

Dr. Marcela Mendoza is an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Oregon and Oregon State University. She has more than 20 years of experience in teaching and research at the University of Buenos Aires, and at universities in the United States.  She has conducted fieldwork with indigenous peoples of the South American Gran Chaco, and published extensively on the issue. Mendoza has also worked with Mexican immigrants in the South. From 2000 to 2005, her work as a researcher for the project “Across Race and Nations: Building New Communities in the South” has been supported by the Ford, Rockefeller, and Charles Stewart Mott Foundations. Her research on immigration has been supported also by internal and external grants at the University of Memphis. In addition, she has published three refereed articles, three book chapters, 14 broad-audience publications, and has given numerous presentations on the topic of recent Latino immigration in Tennessee, including the experience of immigrant women and families. Her latest article (in collaboration with Drs. E. Gonzales-Berry and D. Plaza) is about “One-and-a-half Generation Mexican Youth in Oregon: Pursuing the Mobility Dream.” Dr. Mendoza is a Latin American immigrant herself with an experiential understanding of the challenges and rewards of settling a family in the United States.

Articles and books by Marcella Mendoza:

Mexicanos in Oregon, bookcover

Mexicanos in Oregon: Their Stories, Their LivesErlinda V. Gonzales-Berry and Marcela Mendoza, 2010. ISBN 978-0-87071-584-6. Paperback, $22.95.“This important volume sheds new light on the stories and lives of mexicanos in Oregon: why migrants come to Oregon fields, construction sites, and warehouses, what their experiences are when they settle here, and how they adapt to life in the United States.”

“Latinas and Citizenship in Oregon” Author(s): Marcela Mendoza   Reviewed work(s):Source: Oregon Historical Quarterly, Vol. 113, No. 3 (Fall 2012), pp. 444-451   Published by: Oregon Historical Society

Latino Immigrants in Memphis… Their Local Economic Impact

New 2000 Estimates of the Hispanic Population for Shelby County Tennessee

Latino Immigrant Women in Memphis

The New Latino Workforce: Employers Experiences in Memphis

(In collaboration with E. Gonzales-Berry and D. Plaza) Segmented Assimilation of One-and-a-Half Generation Mexican Youth in Oregon. Latino(a) Research Review Volume 6, Numbers 1-2, 2006-2007 Webpage: www.albany.edu/celac

The World on Time: Flexible Labor, New Immigrants

Ghosts in the Global Machine: New Immigrants and the Redefinition of Work

One-And-A-Half Generation Mexican Youth in Oregon: Pursuing the Mobility

El Impacto de los Inmigrantes Latinos en la Economia de Memphis, Tennessee

Echando Raices: Latin American Settlement in Memphis

Latinos in Oregon

In the news:

Local Latinos are focus of project—Immigrants get attention from UO researchers

Mauricio Magana

 

Mauricio Magana

mmagana@uoregon.edu

Mauricio Magaña is working as a research assistant on the Gender, Family and Immigration in the Northwest initiative. He is a graduate student in the cultural anthropology program at the University of Oregon. Mauricio received his bachelor’s degree in anthropology from the University of South Florida in 2004. He has worked on community and occupational health issues with coffee growers in Costa Rica, as well as on human rights work in Chiapas, Mexico. His research interests include immigration, social movements in Latin America, alternative responses to neoliberalism, human rights, and land reform