Dissertation Information for Patricia A. Blaine NAME: - Patricia A. Blaine
- (Alias) Trish Blaine
DEGREE:
- Ph.D.
DISCIPLINE:
- History
SCHOOL:
- Arizona State University (USA) (2008)
ADVISORS: - Peter Iverson
COMMITTEE MEMBERS: - Jannelle Warren-Findley - F. Arturo Rosales
MPACT Status: Fully Complete
Title: "I had to come here for my family:" Mexican migrant deaths in the Arizona desert, 1990--2005
Abstract: This dissertation documents the deaths of Mexicans who risked their lives crossing the desert for a better life but did not survive. It looks at the role of immigration policy, politicians, the Border Patrol and humanitarian aid groups. It also considers the conditions encountered by individuals, families--men, women, and children--who met death attempting to improve their lives and the lives of their families.
Mexicans have been migrating to the United States since the mid-nineteenth century. Most often the focus of the migration is jobs. American companies offer work to individuals from Mexico who are willing to labor for wages below the prevailing norms in the U.S. American businesses enjoy the use of Mexican labor because they are available, cheap and enjoy few legal rights in the U.S.
People have died in the harshness of the Arizona desert for centuries. This dissertation argues that in the late 1900s and early 2000s deaths of Mexican migrants in the Arizona desert became an apparently acceptable price to pay to enable politicians to stoke the fires of nativism while at the same time ensuring the continued supply of undocumented Mexicans workers to U.S. businesses. In the early 1990s U.S. immigration policy effectively shut down the border crossing at El Paso/Ciudad Juarez and San Diego/Tijuana. This forced migrants to cross in the middle--the Arizona desert. Few deaths occurred through the early 1990s. From the mid-nineties through the early two thousands, however, after the new policy went into effect, hundreds began dying each year.
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MPACT Scores for Patricia A. Blaine A = 0
C = 0
A+C = 0
T = 0
G = 0
W = 0
TD = 0
TA = 0
calculated 2010-06-22 13:16:35
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