This study draws from twenty-six in-depth interviews to explore how Indigenous ceremonies shape the well-being of working-class Mexican Americans in Los Angeles. Through a combined strength-based and interaction ritual chains analysis, these interviews of non-participants, moderate- and high-level participants reveal how participation in sweatlodges and Danza Mexica exposes Mexican Americans to social and cultural strength-factors. These strengths include collective indigenous identities, social support systems, and micro rituals (instruments, songs, and incense) that help generate collective effervescence and enhance wellbeing. Previous research has found various health benefits associated with ethnic identity, social support, and forms of individual and collective healing resulting from participation in sweatlodges. Contributions in this study include: (1) micro rituals – traditional singing, drumming, and incense – utilized in sweatlodges and Danza Mexica, act as strength-factors that contribute to collective effervescence and well-being; and (2) the length of high emotional energy resulting from participation in sweatlodges and Danza may last a few days to a month based on the symbolism derived from rituals. This study adds to the literature on effectiveness of coping strategies for Mexican health, by identifying how Indigenous ceremonies act as strength-resources for coping with adversity.

Communities of color and lower income are disproportionately exposed to higherlevels of environmental hazards leading to adverse health outcomes and social inequalities and thus establishing a pattern of environmental injustice. Lead poisoning is an environmental justice issue affecting the most vulnerable population of children and it varies among the U.S. populations that experienced this problem. Yet, Children’s lead poisoning is understudied in sociological studies and is often reserved for investigations in epidemiological studies at the individual level and within limited areas and neighborhoods. In this paper, I bridge the literatures on environmental justice and the social determinants of lead exposure to highlight the significance of social inequalities impacting health and environmental inequalities at the county level. I use data cycles of 2012-2017 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Community Survey of the US Census to assess the social inequalities of lead poisoning across U.S. counties. Results of a multilevel analysis of over 2,100 counties nationwide demonstrate that counties characterized by higher Black and Latinx populations, lower median income, higher female-headed household populations, older housing, and lower socioeconomic positions are at higher risk of childhood lead poisoning. My results reveal variations across U.S. regions, that are detailed using additive and interactional models. These findings reveal social-spatial patterns of social inequalities driving environmental health injustices in childhood lead poisoning.

Popular understandings of the 1959 Cuban Revolution have often explained it as the outcome of the armed insurgency guided by Fidel Castro. Scholars have overlooked the role in the revolutionary triumph of the long-term clandestine resistance against Fulgencio Batista’s authoritarian regime. To address this gap, I utilize longitudinal archival data, which include police and judicial records of the criminal prosecution of political activism occurring from 1952 to 1958 in Havana. Drawing on content analysis and historical comparison, I examine how frames and narratives used by the protesters and the state varied over time. I focus particular attention on the impact of their cultural and socio-political context. My findings suggest similarities and differences in the discursive strategies of these actors across seven years while highlighting that a particular revolutionary identity was built through the discursive contentions that occurred in legal settings. This study contributes to the theoretical understanding of how framing interactions can lead to successful revolutionary mobilizations in authoritarian environments and the overlaps between social movements and revolutions. Moreover, through the examination of the criminal prosecution as a complex site of repression and contention, I advance a socio-legal comprehension of the Cuban revolution.

Modern Mexican labor migration is a result of overlapping neocolonial and internal-colonial relationships. Mexican and undocumented individuals overwhelmingly make up the farm worker labor force in the United States. Agricultural labor has historically been exploitative. Although organizing efforts by the United Farm Workers in the 1960’s and 1970’s brought about legal reforms in California, by the 1980’s the United Farm Workers had almost completely stopped organizing farm workers. This study takes a historical approach to demonstrate how cycles of protest deposit organizing templates that were later used by both documented and undocumented farm workers from a town in California’s Central Valley to organize and gain union representation in a climate of rural labor unionization decline. The findings indicate workers/organizers’ motivations in wanting fair wages, worksite safety, and to be treated with respect and dignity, along with access to salient knowledge of workers maltreatment, and heuristic use of this knowledge combined for a successful union organizing campaign at La Cuesta Verde Ginning Company. Nonetheless, a local struggle is not enough to overcome the system of interactive colonialism, as new forms of domination become established.

The Immigrant Spring of 2006, one of the largest campaigns for immigrant rights, led to widespread collective action to protect vulnerable communities against punitive legislation across the United States. More than a decade later, the 2006 mobilizations continue to shape immigrant community activism. This dissertation explains the factors that contributed to levels of mobilization during the spring of 2006 and their continuing influence for campaigns to protect immigrants. I analyze the emergence of the 2006 campaign at various levels of political life from the local level in the San Joaquin Valley of California to cities across California and explain movement emergence in the largest U.S. cities. I demonstrate the importance of negative conditions such as policy and repressive threats in the initiation of movements by immigrants and show the importance of organizing infrastructures for continued mobilization. I find that policy threats initiated immigrant resistance during 2006, but the resources available from previous campaigns mattered the most for future protest to protect immigrant communities.