Category: Teresa Irene Gonzales

Immigrants and Voting

On By econnellIn Behind the Headlines, Immigration, Population, Aging, and Demography, Social Problems, Politics, and Social Change, Teresa Irene Gonzales6 Comments

TigonzalesBy Teresa Irene Gonzales

Recently naturalized immigrants have the ability influence voting outcomes in several key states, including Florida, Nevada, Virginia, and Arizona. The researchers at the University of Southern California Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration (CSII) released a report, titled Rock the (Naturalized) Vote II, which builds upon findings that CSII published in 2012. In that report, researchers highlighted the link between populations that had a high recently-naturalized population and voting trends.

For instance, in the 2012 Presidential election, Obama won with 71% of the Latin@/x vote, and 73% of the Asian vote. At that time, roughly 25% of all Latin@s/x and 66% of all Asians were naturalized citizens. Part of this support came with the passage of the Delayed Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).

Undocumented individuals who were brought to the U.S. as children can apply for DACA. This allows a two-year, renewable, protection from deportation, and grants work authorization. Over the last four years, 728,000 undocumented immigrants have been awarded DACA status. According to a report by Migration Policy Institute, although DACA does not provide an avenue for citizenship, it has improved employment, earnings, educational attainment, and social integration. Although immigrants with DACA are ineligible to vote (as they do not have citizenship), this population, particularly among Latin@s/x, is linked through social and political networks to peers who can vote.

How might a high recently-naturalized population influence the presidential election in 2016?

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Risk-Taking and the Celebration of Failure

On By econnellIn Social Institutions: Work, Education, and Medicine, Teresa Irene Gonzales4 Comments

TigonzalesBy Teresa Irene Gonzales

I teach at a small liberal arts institution. As part of the college’s ethos, we believe in working with students to focus on a holistic education that fosters creativity, critical thinking, civic engagement, and social justice. In order to facilitate a greater and deeper education, several faculty members (including me) have talked about ways to encourage risk-taking among our students. This is difficult for a variety of reasons that include the possibility for failure. As a society, we have socialized ourselves into celebrating success and admonishing failure as, well, a failure. It is something to be ashamed of, feared, and avoided. This ideology frames everything from education policy to the design of social safety nets to promotion practices to how we answer well-meaning family members’ nosy questions about our lives.

But what if we flipped the narrative on failing? What if we instead viewed failure as part of the learning process and celebrated thoughtful failure? This is something we think we inherently know; how often do we tell children to try, try again. Or how many of us have seen inspirational quotes where successful people talk about all the times they failed, before they succeeded. Yet, when put into practice the idea of failing is still very scary.

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“Who You Gonna Call?” Movies and Representation

On By econnellIn Popular Culture and Consumption, Sex and Gender, Social Institutions: Work, Education, and Medicine, Teresa Irene Gonzales3 Comments

TigonzalesBy Teresa Irene Gonzales

The summer blockbuster season, as with any year, includes everything from large-scale action films like Captain America: Civil War, to family-friendly flicks, such as Finding Dory, Secret Life of Pets, and The BFG.

Although I’m not a big moviegoer, I went to see the Ghostbusters remake of the 1984 classic during its opening weekend.   I enjoyed watching the original movie and the subsequent cartoon series as a child, but I didn’t really identify with any of the characters.   Given the controversy over the reboot of the film–particularly the critiques regarding the presence of redundant and reductive racial stereotypes–I wasn’t sure what to expect. However, I was also excited to see a movie with four female leads.  

Recent studies show that there is a persistent underrepresentation of speaking female characters (let alone protagonists) within the movie industry. The numbers are even lower for women of color and for members of the queer community. As I noted in a previous post, “Popular Culture, Race, and Representation,” these limited representations showcase the ways that our society devalues and undervalues nonwhite and female stories and experiences. A lack of representation also means a lack of role models and a missed opportunity to represent other voices and experiences.  

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Using Other People’s Things: Collaborative Consumption, Norms, and Implicit Bias

On By econnellIn Class and Stratification, Race and Ethnicity, Social Institutions: Work, Education, and Medicine, Teresa Irene Gonzales5 Comments

TigonzalesBy Teresa Irene Gonzales

Over that past few weeks, my mother and eldest brother mentioned that they could not do what I’m doing. You see, this summer I’m spending time in Chicago to finish up data collection for an on-going project. Since I’m only going to be in the city for a few months, I’m renting a furnished condo that belongs to a woman I’ve never met. In fact, I’ve never even spoken to her; all of our communication happens via email. I think she’s traveling for the summer, but I don’t really know. I sit on her couch, watch her television, use her dishes, sleep on her bed, write blog posts using her desk, et cetera. It’s this intimate interaction with a stranger’s space and things that creeps out my family members. They can’t fathom allowing a stranger to use their home while they’re gone; and they can’t imagine how I’m able to stay in a stranger’s house.

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Redevelopment, Rural Places, and Inclusion

On By econnellIn Cities and Urbanization, Class and Stratification, Social Institutions: Work, Education, and Medicine, Social Problems, Politics, and Social Change, Teresa Irene Gonzales3 Comments

TigonzalesBy Teresa Irene Gonzales

I study resident and nonprofit staff responses to large-scale urban redevelopment initiatives within low-income urban neighborhoods. As part of this work, I analyze the approaches that municipal governments and urban planning organizations utilize in order to plan and realize development plans. Within the U.S. we refer to these plans as local economic development (LED) initiatives.

LED is an approach to development that places importance on development activities in and by cities, districts, and regions. These plans receive funding from and are often managed by local and national governmental and philanthropic organizations. Local organizations (e.g. community-based organizations and community development corporations) generally work with other organizations (e.g. foundations, mediators, the city, private corporations) that provide resources in the form of cash transfers, strategies, technology, and/or staff, in order to promote local economic development. This can take the form of an affordable housing initiative, the (re)vitalization of a business district, workforce development, or the creation of an industrial corridor.

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Making the Familiar Strange: An Ingredient for Creative Genius

On By econnellIn Cities and Urbanization, Teresa Irene Gonzales, Theory1 Comment

TigonzalesBy Teresa Irene Gonzales

Creativity is a response to our environment – Eric Weiner

In my introduction to Sociology course, students and I work on developing their sociological imaginations, a sociological process and way of thinking that C. Wright Mills identified in the 1950s. Mills claims that in order to understand social issues, we must situate ourselves within our current historical context, take into consideration our personal history, and make connections between ourselves and larger social issues.. This process works in both directions: history influences us and we in turn influence history.

While we cover a breadth of content in my intro course, the sociological imagination is really the one skill that we focus on developing. We pay particular attention to making the familiar strange (a short video of what this is can be found here). But what does that mean?

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Play and Public Space

On By econnellIn Cities and Urbanization, Class and Stratification, Social Problems, Politics, and Social Change, Teresa Irene GonzalesLeave a comment

TigonzalesBy Teresa Irene Gonzales

As a sociologist, I often feel as though much of what I teach and research has a tinge of apocalyptic despair. As a result, I've started looking into topics that center on (or have an element of) joy, hope, happiness, laughter, or playfulness.

In searching for things that make me smile, I've come across a growing body of scholarship on the importance of play in social movements. The research suggests that play helps to build community, maintain interest in a social cause, invites people into the movement, fosters civic engagement, and diffuses power (e.g. clowns who confront police officers).

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Spatial Inequity and Access to Abortion

On By econnellIn Behind the Headlines, Class and Stratification, Social Problems, Politics, and Social Change, Teresa Irene Gonzales5 Comments

TigonzalesBy Teresa Irene Gonzales

Abortion and women's access to abortion are often contested issues within the United States. A recent poll by Pew Research found that 51% of Americans think that abortions should be legal in all or most cases. Yet, 49% of Americans polled think having an abortion is morally wrong. How does this difference in legality and morality impact legal decisions?

Have you heard about the Texas abortion regulations case? In 2013, the Texas solicitor general passed an omnibus abortion bill (HB2) that places additional restrictions on abortion providers. Regulations include requiring doctors to obtain hospital admitting privileges within 30 miles from the clinic where they perform abortions, and requiring abortion clinics to be retrofitted to comply with building regulations that would make them ambulatory surgical centers.

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Popular Culture, Race, and Representation

On By econnellIn Behind the Headlines, Popular Culture and Consumption, Race and Ethnicity, Social Problems, Politics, and Social Change, Teresa Irene Gonzales6 Comments

TigonzalesBy Teresa Irene Gonzales

Zahira Kelly, who writes an advice column for The New Inquiry and for the blog Bad Dominicana, was recently on my campus to talk about the lack of Afro-Latin@/x representations within American and Latin American culture, history, and popular media. In her candid conversation, Zahira spoke honestly about her frustrations with systemic racism and heterosexism, and she mentioned the hate mail that she receives because she speaks openly about her experiences as a Black Latina.

While Kelly's talk highlighted the personal ways that racial erasure in popular media affects her on an individual level, it also showcased the lack of representations of a variety of people of color within our popular American consciousness. This negation of difference among and between communities of color both homogenizes these complex lived experiences and reinforces a simplistic understanding of race and culture that relies heavily on skin color and privileges whiteness.

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Water Wars and Reliable Data: From Bolivia to Flint, Michigan

On By econnellIn Behind the Headlines, Cities and Urbanization, Class and Stratification, Crime and Deviance, Social Institutions: Work, Education, and Medicine, Social Problems, Politics, and Social Change, Statistics and Methods, Teresa Irene Gonzales1 Comment

TigonzalesBy Teresa Irene Gonzales

As an undergraduate majoring in Latin American and Latina/o studies, I remember watching a documentary about the Cochabamba protests against the World Bank's push for water privatization in the South American country of Bolivia. During the late 1990s-early 2000s, the country was the poorest in Latin America with 70% of Bolivians living below the poverty line.

Government officials attempted to remedy the economy by following a shock therapy model. This included the implementation of neoliberal reforms, such as halting state subsidies and the privatization of publicly-owned assets. Within Cochabamba, a city in central Bolivia, privatization meant transference of the publicly held water system to a private consortium led by the Bechtel Corporation.

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