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Faculty Member Continues Research in Mexico
under Rockefeller Fellowship
For Maria E. Fernandez-Esquer, Ph.D., a Rockefeller Foundation Resident Fellowship comes at an ideal time to expand her research with immigrants moving to the U.S. from Mexico.
Maria E. Fernandez-Esquer, Ph.D., from the UT School of Public Health, is using a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship to study the relationships between social change and Mexican immigrants. Photo by Nora K. Shire
“I feel very fortunate to be part of this program because Mexico is currently going through many transitions – political, economic and social,” Fernandez-Esquer said. She will participate in a seminar series attended by an international group of sociologists, anthropologists, demographers and other social scientists interested in these transitions, and will present her current research on sexual risk-taking and social norms. “I will develop an original manuscript that will be included in the seminar series,” she said. “The research question that I will approach is: Can we understand the changes experienced by Mexican immigrants by knowing the social changes that are happening in Mexico?”
Fernandez-Esquer has been working with Mexican and Central American immigrants as part of her cancer prevention research funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). In 2002, she completed “GIRASOL (Sunflower): Community Outreach to Prevent Cervical Cancer Among Latinas at High Risk,” a fiveyear study funded by NCI.The target population was at risk for both cancer and sexually transmitted diseases.
“The target group was immigrant women working in bars or cantinas patronized mostly by Latino men, where the females earned a salary by drinking with bar customers, and traded sex to supplement their income,” she explained. “Many women did not know the relationship between multiple sex partners and cervical cancer, and did not get a regular Pap smear, believing that the exam was painful and embarrassing. Some women said they were uncomfortable asking a man to wear a condom, and some reported verbal and physical abuse from bar customers and sex partners.”
About 900 women were interviewed as part of this study and some of these results have already been published. During the course of GIRASOL, Fernandez-Esquer and her team observed that although men and women in cantinas got together to drink and sometimes have sex, their dating practices were similar to those common in more traditional parts of Mexico. Despite their non-traditional work in cantinas, the women still held Old World beliefs about sex and relationships. The apparent contradiction between these customs and non-traditional practices is the reason why Fernandez-Esquer became intrigued by gender norms in Mexico and wants to know how moving to the U.S. changes the immigrants.
“We have evidence that among this group, health behavior changes over time – some for the better and some for the worse,” she said. Another question she wants to explore is: Does the stress of migration change gender dynamics and increase physical and sexual violence against women?
During her residency in Mexico, she will collaborate with Mexican colleagues in exploring the relationship between gender norms and partner violence in a national database of women interviewed in Mexico three years ago.
“This fellowship will provide the opportunity for me to work with a group of researchers who share my interests,” Fernandez-Esquer said. She expects to publish the research developed during her residency and to establish new collaborations with social scientists interested in the migration experience of Mexicans living abroad.
By Nora K. Shire