Under the supervision of Dr. Alaka Wali, Ruth Gomberg, doctoral candidate in anthropology, will investigate the social strategies that Mexican immigrants use to navigate the terrain of work and society in the United States. This project will focus on the agency of immigrant workers in overcoming challenges and establishing themselves as workers and members of households and communities in the U.S. Gomberg's ethnography is a micro-level look at how Mexican immigrant workers create and use social networks, attain resources, combat economic insecurity, nurture dignity and self-esteem, and promote norms that cultivate and help sustain markets for their labor. This study will complement existing research which has focused on the structural conditions that encumber immigrants, by showing how immigrants themselves react and adapt to these conditions.
The focus of this ethnography is a cohort of Mexican immigrants who work in the service/hospitality industry on Chicago's south side. Research will involve ethnographic interviews and participant observation that will take place at jobsites, households, and in the larger south-side immigrant community, as well as in the home communities in Mexico.
As globalization continues to generate international migrations and immigration is increasingly a critical issue for policy, Wali and Gomberg hope to make a timely contribution to both scholarly and policy debates. This project will localize these broad debates, demonstrating how Mexican workers in Chicago confront, change, and manage the circumstances of their lives as immigrants in the U.S. The research also will contribute significantly to the education of a social scientist.
