Despite the overrepresentation of Mexican American women and girls or Chicanas in the juvenile and criminal justice systems, research has paid little attention to their criminalized experiences. This is a surprising gap in knowledge, given that while imprisonment rates for all racially marginalized groups have steadily declined over the past 20 years, they increased for Latinas. Oversight may be explained by the central focus on race in criminalization scholarship, which privileges the racialized experiences of boys and men of color but fails to consider the conditions that shape criminalization for girls and women. This singular focus on race defines criminalization as a process of racialization, conflates criminalization with boys and men of color, and ignores other identities through which race is experienced.

This dissertation applies an intersectional perspective to the study of criminalization by investigating how race, gender, and sexuality condition the criminalized experiences of system-involved Chicanas living in California’s rural Central Valley. Drawing on life-history interviews with 38 formerly incarcerated and system-impacted Mexican American women, this multi-level intersectional analysis asks: 1) How do race, gender, and sexuality, as distinct and intersecting systems of oppression, shape the criminalization of Chicanas? 2) How is criminalization, as a concept and process, necessarily reconfigured by an intersectional approach?

Findings reveal three unique processes or mechanisms of punishment that differentiate Chicanas’ experiences of criminalization from those of their Chicano male counterparts. First, Chicanas’ interpersonal relationships with Latino men and boys exacerbated their experiences of criminalization. Second, Chicanas’ reasonable responses to gendered and sexualized interpersonal violence were criminalized by institutions traditionally associated with support and protection (e.g., schools, social service agencies, and the police). Third, Chicanas were criminalized through the “unfit hyper-breeder” controlling image, which ascribes sexual, reproductive, and maternal deviance, and operates in the education, family court, and welfare systems.

Taken together, I argue that criminalization is a multi-level, racialized, gendered, and heteronormative process and experience that is reflected in everyday interactions, reproduced in social institutions, and embodied in larger systems of white supremacy and hetero-patriarchy. I develop an analytical framework I call intersectional criminalization to capture this process. This is a more comprehensive framework for understanding how intersecting identities and systems of oppression criminalize and reproduce inequality for previously unaccounted groups. What is more, by centering the voices of a group of women who have been traditionally overlooked, this research makes visible structures of inequality and power that go unnoticed and that uphold the carceral state.

This study focuses on how Mexican Federations of HTAs have negotiated their formal membership in Mexico and the United States. In Mexico, migrants’ market citizenship opened the channels of communication between Federations of HTAs, and the Mexican government. Once those channels were established; HTA Federation leaders were able to negotiate their passage from market to formal membership. In the case of the United States, HTA Federations have advocated for a formal inclusion in the United States, by organizing marches, lobbying and writing to their representatives and by emphasizing their economic contributions to the U.S. society in their discourse. However, these strategies have proven partially ineffective. Nonetheless, Federation leaders have sought other strategies of inclusion at the local level by emphasizing the value of migrants as market citizens, encouraging migrants to show “good character” in order to be seen as “less illegal,” and through civic activities.

Objective: This study explores the concept of recovery from severe mental disorders from the perspective of mental health service personnel working in Mexico City. Participants: For this study, 95 mental health personnel were recruited from mental health and addiction treatment facilities in Mexico City using convenience and snowball sampling techniques. Of those recruited to participate in the study, 64.2% were female. The average age of participants was 39.79 years, ranging from 24 to 68 years of age. Method: The study used semi-structured interviews lasting an average of 90 minutes in length. Transcribed interviews were coded and analyzed for thematic content (Cohen & Struening, 1962) regarding the concept of recovery and relapse of mental illness. Results: Of the respondents, 19% did not believe that recovery was possible for individuals with severe mental disorders; one-third of respondents believed that recovery was possible, and 46.6% thought recovery was sometimes possible. From the response analysis, eight categories were developed of factors affecting recovery of mental illness: treatment adherence, diagnosis type, family support, individual characteristics, social support, fatalism, treatment effectiveness, and other. Meanwhile, 12 categories were determined for factors which facilitate relapses: treatment adherence failure, lack of family support, economic factors, lack of social support, lack of mental illness knowledge, individual characteristics, stress, ineffective treatment, environmental factors, type of diagnosis, part of recovery, and other.

Intimate partner violence (IPV) remains a critical issue globally, with significant variations in its definition, recognition, and redress mechanisms across different cultural and socio-economic contexts. This dissertation, investigates how local communities in rural Michoacán, Mexico, perceive and address IPV, contrasting these local understandings with standardized global definitions provided by international organizations.

Through a combination of qualitative methods, including in-depth interviews and community-engaged research, this study explores the socio-cultural dynamics that influence the recognition, naming, blaming, claiming, and redress processes associated with IPV. The research is grounded in theoretical frameworks such as social constructionism, vernacularization, and the dispute pyramid, which help illuminate the complexities of translating global norms into local practices.

Key findings reveal that while global definitions of IPV are present in rural Michoacán, they are often adapted or resisted based on local cultural norms, patriarchal values, pervasive community violence, and economic dependencies. This adaptation process highlights the importance of culturally sensitive and community-centered approaches to IPV intervention and policymaking. The study emphasizes that the pervasive violence in the community, along with patriarchal norms and deep poverty, leads to desensitization to violence in general, including IPV, rather than suggesting that the cultureitself is inherently more violent.

The dissertation underscores the need for a nuanced understanding of IPV that takes into account local realities and advocates for the development of interventions that are both effective and respectful of cultural contexts. By bridging the gap between global human rights frameworks and local cultural practices, this study contributes to the broader discourse on IPV and offers practical recommendations for policymakers, practitioners, and researchers.

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