The Trump administration has paid increased attention to immigration enforcement and deportations. The climate in today’s country has caused a large increase in fear, stress, and overall uneasiness among immigrants, because of these enforcements and deportations. This is something that becomes a complex challenge for many as the uneasiness regarding enforcements and deportations leads to negative health issues overall. Since the rise of immigration raids, detentions and investigations, there has not been a strong focus by state or federal officials, on how Latin American immigrants, specifically Mexican immigrants, are racially profiled regarding their citizenship and overall immigration status. Officials such as these need to address this issue due to the effects it is having on an individual’s mental health and their concern needs to be focused on making everyone in this country feel safe and included, for a more united and productive country. What also needs to be investigated by leaders and federal officials of this country is the effect of worry and concern about deportations on individuals, which may lead to poor mental health, including anxiety and depression. This thesis uses racial profiling and stress theory to examine how being viewed as undocumented affects the mental health of foreign-born Mexicans. Using an innovative survey funded by the Institute for Clinical and Translational Research at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (n=517), Latino adults mostly consisting of first generation immigrants, in this study have been questioned about being worried about deportation, their self-reported physical and mental health, as well as various self-reported indicators of stress. These respondents were also asked how accurately they think non-Hispanic/Latino people can guess their immigration status. A series of logistic regressions were conducted to understand how others view of respondent’s immigration status being correctly profiled, and whether these results affect if they worry about being deported. Mediation analysis is used to explain how the stress of deportation influences physical and mental health outcomes. The preliminary findings suggest that the more accurately respondents believe non-Latinos can guess their immigration status the higher likelihood of reporting poor physical and mental health, thus affecting them in their daily lives.

Food security literature has a heavy emphasis on physical barriers, often employing spatial analysis or market-based approaches, but the human dimensions of food security remain unexplored. This has resulted in a disconnect between the understanding of the problem and proposed interventions, as the contextual factors and lived experiences of residents are not considered. There are many barriers and opportunities for food security that are not spatially fixed (e.g. family relations, social capital) that may be important but are unrepresented in these types of studies. In order to capture these barriers and opportunities, community stakeholders need to play a fundamental role in the problem analysis and visioning stages. This study utilized community-based participatory research methods to engage an important stakeholder in the future food environment, youth, to 1) understand how the youth of Canyon Corridor describe their food environment, and thus capture contextual aspects of food security 2) adapt CBPR methods to engage youth in a visioning session to elicit their ideal community food environment and 3) determine if these applications of CBPR can empower youth of Canyon Corridor to mobilize towards a more secure food environment. I found that while the youth did identify many barriers to food security (i.e. transportation, cost, availability), this community also had significant strengths, particularly social capital, that allowed them to overcome what would be food insecurity. Despite their conclusions on food security, youth did desire many changes for the future food environment and felt increased empowerment after the workshops. Thus this shows the need for incorporating methods that also acknowledge the role of social and individual factors and how they interrelate with the physical environment in relation to food security.

Contemporary urban food security in the US is influenced by complex, multidimensional, and multi-scale factors. However, most assessment methods and intervention efforts in food security research are: 1) narrowly focused on environmental factors (i.e. the presence or absence of quality food outlets), 2) divorced from the human dimension and, 3) ultimately disempower communities to affect change at the local level. New approaches are needed to capture the lived experiences and unique perspectives of people potentially most vulnerable to food insecurity, while also empowering people to become change agents in their lives and in the wider community. This thesis argues that sustainability problem solving frameworks such as transformational sustainability research (TSR), and community-based participatory research (CBPR) provide promising bases from which to address these deficiencies. Through interactive workshops with youth in Canyon Corridor, a neighborhood in Phoenix, Arizona, I demonstrate the potential of concept mapping, sketch mapping, and intervention mapping methods that prioritize participation and co-production of knowledge to: 1) better understand the contextual, community-identified factors that contribute to food security or food insecurity, 2) identify and adapt interventions for the local context and, 3) promote community agency and action. Workshop outcomes suggest the relevance of these frameworks and methods, and the potential for more people- and place-based approaches to food security research.