The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS), also called Mormonism, has experienced rapid changes in its US demographics due to an influx of Latinx membership. The most recent growth in the ...US church body has been within Spanish-speaking congregations, and many of these congregant members are first or 1.5-generation immigrant Latinas. Using ethnographic data from 27 interviews with immigrant members living in Utah, Nevada, and California, LDS Latinas reported that while US Anglo members did seem to appreciate certain aspects of their cultural customs or practices, they also reported frequently experiencing ethnic homogenization or racial tokenization within US Church spaces and with White family members. Our findings indicate that the contemporary LDS church, despite some progressive policy implementations within its doctrinal parameters, still struggles in its ever-globalizing state to prioritize exposing White US members to the cultural heterogeneity of non-White, global LDS identities and perspectives. Latina LDS experiences and their religious adjacency to Whiteness provide a useful lens by which researchers can better understand the ways in which ethnic identity, gender, legal status, and language create both opportunities and challenges for immigrant incorporation and inclusion within US religious spaces and add to the existing body of scholarship on migration and religion.
Photovoice involves respondents taking photographs of their environment to promote critical discussions and reflect on their experiences. Photovoice empowers marginalized communities and serves to ...reach policymakers. The Arizona Youth Identity Project (AZYIP) used photovoice with an innovative approach in a multisite research design with a large sample size and completely online research implementation using video conferencing, mobile phones, and video messages. We outline our process for other researchers interested in utilizing this dynamic method. We also reflect on the challenges and opportunities of engaging in this research design for future projects.
Based on qualitative interview data with Mexican American and White participants, this article examines the impact of immigration-related policies on the U.S.-born adult children of Mexican ...immigrants. Building on Dunn’s concept of a low-intensity conflict zone, we argue that the militarization of the border carries consequences for Mexican American border residents. Becoming collateral subjects to a system of racialized legal violence, they experience the suspension of constitutional rights through racially motivated arbitrary stops, interrogations, and searches. The frequency and intensity of these experiences lead to anxiety, frustration, and powerlessness, and chips away at their emotional well-being.
Fat talk is a self-deprecating cultural script focused on physical appearance. Among women, responses to fat talk include denial of the negative self-assessment followed by reassurance that her ...appearance is acceptable. Among men, responses to fat talk remain virtually undescribed. To address this gap, 4 studies were conducted wherein adult men responded to discourse completion tasks depicting interlocutors of similar and different size. In each task, the first speaker utters a validated fat talk prompt ("I need to lose some weight"), and the respondent writes a reply. In Study 1, the 2 men engaging in the fat talk interaction were depicted with a body mass index of 25; in Study 2, each was depicted with a body mass index of 30; and in Studies 3 and 4, each was depicted with different body sizes. Over 250 written responses were analyzed for the manner of response. Men's normative responses were to deny and reassure, but they also included solutions or advice. Manner of reply differences were cued by body size. Responses of denial and reassurance were offered toward slimmer individuals and validations toward heavier ones. Men's replies exhibit unease when men of different body sizes interact. Specifically, the data suggest that the cultural script of fat talk for men does not easily support a scenario that includes a larger sized man making self-deprecating statements to a leaner one. We demonstrate that fat talk among men is one means by which everyday masculinity and the body is negotiated.
Public Significance Statement
Fat talk, self-disparaging conversations about one's body size, has mostly been studied in women and viewed as a highly feminine phenomenon. Using a picture-based elicitation technique (discourse completion task), we clarify that U.S. men recognize and respond to fat talk uttered by other men. Like women, men's fat talk highlights body image concerns but in ways that link to cultural scripts for masculinity.
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