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1. COVID and Coraje: Negotiating Latinx Immigrant Experiences of the Pandemic,

   Duncan, Whitney; Horton, Sarah; Yarris, Kristin (April 2021, Society for Psychological Anthropology)

   null (Ed.)

   In this paper, we compare observations from engaged ethnography and participant observation with Latinx immigrants in Colorado and Oregon during the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, we focus on lived experiences of structural vulnerability, as well as the ways in which COVID-related disparities have become internalized as stigma and have amplified immigrants’ experiences of stress, anxiety, and “aislamiento,” or isolation. Indeed, Latinx immigrants in the US—especially those without legal status and those in mixed-status families—face a range of exclusions, discourses of blame and (un)deservingness, and forms of precarity that have contributed to disproportionate risk, suffering, and fear as the pandemic has unfolded. At the same time, by laying bare blatant injustices and racist exclusions, the pandemic has prompted some Latinx immigrants in our research and advocacy sites to enact new forms of resistance and contestation. We detail the range of ways which, in efforts to stay healthy and to challenge discriminatory portrayals of themselves as either disease carriers unlikely to heed public health warnings or as “public charges,” they insist upon their own rights, worth, belonging, and dignity. Finally, we conclude by discussing some of the ways in which these two U.S. states—and the health and social service organizations working with Latinx communities within them—have attempted to address coronavirus disparities among Latinx communities, showing how particular approaches can assuage short-term suffering and improve access to healthcare and other social supports, while others may create a new set of barriers to access for already marginalized communities. 

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2. COVID and Coraje: Negotiating Latinx Immigrant Experiences of the Pandemic

   Duncan, Whitney; Horton, Sarah B.; Yarris, Kristin (April 2021, Society for Psychological Anthropology Biennial Meetings (Virtual))

   null (Ed.)

   In this paper, we compare observations from engaged ethnography and participant observation with Latinx immigrants in Colorado and Oregon during the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, we focus on lived experiences of structural vulnerability, as well as the ways in which COVID-related disparities have become internalized as stigma and have amplified immigrants’ experiences of stress, anxiety, and “aislamiento,” or isolation. Indeed, Latinx immigrants in the US—especially those without legal status and those in mixed-status families—face a range of exclusions, discourses of blame and (un)deservingness, and forms of precarity that have contributed to disproportionate risk, suffering, and fear as the pandemic has unfolded. At the same time, by laying bare blatant injustices and racist exclusions, the pandemic has prompted some Latinx immigrants in our research and advocacy sites to enact new forms of resistance and contestation. We detail the range of ways which, in efforts to stay healthy and to challenge discriminatory portrayals of themselves as either disease carriers unlikely to heed public health warnings or as “public charges,” they insist upon their own rights, worth, belonging, and dignity. Finally, we conclude by discussing some of the ways in which these two U.S. states—and the health and social service organizations working with Latinx communities within them—have attempted to address coronavirus disparities among Latinx communities, showing how particular approaches can assuage short-term suffering and improve access to healthcare and other social supports, while others may create a new set of barriers to access for already marginalized communities. 

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3. Immigrant Legal Status Disparities in Health Among First- and One-point-five-Generation Latinx Immigrants in California

   https://doi.org/10.1007/s11113-021-09689-w  

   Hamilton, Erin R.; Patler, Caitlin; Savinar, Robin (December 2021, Population Research and Policy Review)

   Abstract Restrictive US immigration laws and law enforcement undermine immigrant health by generating fear and stress, disrupting families and communities, and eroding social and economic wellbeing. The inequality and stress created by immigration law and law enforcement may also generate disparities in health among immigrants with different legal statuses. However, existing research does not find consistent evidence of immigrant legal status disparities in health, possibly because it does not disaggregate immigrants by generation, defined by age at migration. Immigration and life course theory suggest that the health consequences of non-citizen status may be greater among 1.5-generation immigrants, who grew up in the same society that denies them formal membership, than among the 1st generation, who immigrated as adolescents or adults. In this study, we examine whether there are legal status disparities in health within and between the 1st generation and the 1.5 generation of 23,288 Latinx immigrant adults interviewed in the 2005–2017 waves of the California Health Interview Survey. We find evidence of legal status disparities in heart disease within the 1st generation and for high blood pressure and diabetes within the 1.5 generation. Non-citizens have higher rates of poor self-rated health and distress within both generations. Socioeconomic disadvantage and limited access to care largely account for the worse health of legally disadvantaged 1st- and 1.5-generation Latinx adults in California. 

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4. Praying for More Time: Mexican Immigrants’ Pandemic Eldercare Dilemmas

   https://doi.org/10.1111/maq.12731  

   Horton, Sarah B. (December 2022, Medical Anthropology Quarterly)

   Abstract Based on longitudinal research conducted with 21 Mexican immigrants between 2018 and 2021, this article examines the challenges the COVID‐19 pandemic posed to undocumented immigrants in the United States attempting to provide care for aging parents in Mexico. As the United States excluded undocumented immigrants from pandemic support, the pandemic undermined their ability to provide health care for their parents even as the Mexican public health care system crumbled. Meanwhile, as the pandemic hastened their parents’ demise, it thwarted immigrants’ ability to time returns to see their parents before they died. While scholars have amply documented how spatial disparities exacerbated the impact of the pandemic among marginalized groups, few have examined the temporal disruptions caused by the pandemic. This article suggests that the pandemic provoked particular distress by desynchronizing the temporalities of family life across borders and preventing immigrants’ abilities to coordinate care for their parents in time. [COVID‐19, transnational families, eldercare, death, time] 

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5. Horton, Sarah B. 2021. “Expanding Medicaid to Undocumented Immigrants in Colorado,” participation in virtual roundtable at annual American Anthropological Association conference (Zoom), November 17, 2021.

   Horton, Sarah B (August 2022, American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting (Virtual))

   The COVID pandemic drew attention to longstanding disparities in health care by race and immigration status, prompting states like Oregon, Illinois, and California to provide health insurance to undocumented immigrants with their own funds. This talk examines efforts within Colorado to expand Medicaid to undocumented immigrants and to make Emergency Medicaid more accessible. It explores the challenges that Trumpian policies have posed to these efforts as well as practices of bureaucratic disentitlement in a new receiving area, and concludes with potential counter-strategies. 

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