Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: Newspapers, among other forms of media, are a forum for representing and constructing a unified imagined community. How a newspaper accomplishes this amidst ethnic conflicts over language is the focus of this study. Miami, in particular, has been a key site for such language struggles as some English speakers feared the increasing prominence of Cuban-Americans and Spanish in Miami. Through a discursive analysis of how the Miami Herald represented ethnic relations, this study shows that Cuban-Americans emerged as Americans for the first time precisely through the discourse that attempted to position them as foreigners.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: National surveys and monitoring systems have recently begun to document widespread abuse of a variety of prescription medications, particularly among adolescent and young adult populations. Recent data collected by the authors of this paper indicate that there has been a significant incursion of prescription drugs into the club culture, and that young club drug users have been significantly impacted by health consequences associated with prescription drug abuse. Structured interviews with 186 ecstasy users in Miami found that over 80% reported lifetime non-prescribed use of sedatives, opioids or stimulants without a prescription, and more than half (56.7%) had misused a sedative or opioid medication in the past year. In the past 12 months, 23% of respondents had misused OxyContin, 33% other oxycodone products, 40% hydrocodone, and 8% morphine. Polydrug use was common in that 29% of the sample reported using one or more prescription medications together with ecstasy. Compared to non-users, prescription drug abusers used more different types of drugs on average (mean of 8 compared to 4, p=.000); exhibited higher depression scores (mean 15.5 vs. 11 on the CES-D, p=.068); and were more likely to have sought treatment for drug or alcohol problems (p=.008). Forty-three percent of prescription opioid abusers reported withdrawal symptoms from those drugs, including depression, nausea, anxiety and craving. To further investigate the unexpected findings of widespread prescription drug abuse among this population, a new 5-year research study was initiated to assess the extent of prescription drug abuse among a large sample of club drug users, to examine changes in users’ drug and drug combination preferences, and the health and social consequences of prescription drug abuse over time. This study will recruit 750 club and prescription drug abusers over a 3 year period through respondent-driven sampling techniques, and conduct baseline and follow-up interviews at 6, 12 and 18 months. This paper will report on the patterns of prescription and other drug use in the club culture, the settings and mechanisms through which users purchase or otherwise gain access to club drugs and prescription drugs, and the nature and prevalence of related health and other consequences using baseline data collected between April and September 2006.

Publication Type: Session Paper
Abstract: No other contemporary newspaper in the United States has faced such changes in its reading public as those that have confronted The Miami Herald during the past five decades. In 1960, Hispanics were only 5 percent of Dade County’s population. By the year 2000, they accounted for 57.3 percent of the population, and Cubans remaining a slight majority over other Latino groups. And as the Hispanic population within the United States continues to grow, Miami represents an important case study for understanding how forces working externally and internally to news organizations—sweeping demographic change, shifts in political power, transformations in media economics and organizational restructuring, among other hypothesized variables—can affect content. How has The Herald chosen to interpret the issues for its dramatically metamorphosing publics? How has this coverage changed over time, in terms of trends and patterns? What were the critical moments for content change? Superficially, one would expect coverage of issues of import to the nascent Cuban-American community to increase, as that group swelled both in terms of numbers and political power. But the nuances of such change deserve careful examination, something not the subject of previous scholarly research. What was happening within the organization, at the same time massive changes were occurring in the greater Miami area? This paper presents a content analysis of Herald coverage of Cuba, Cubans, and issues of import to the Cuban community, from 1959-2007 in order to present an instance of institutional and organizational transformation that can serve in comparison as other communities continue to experience change.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper examines neighborhood-level predictors of ethnic-specific aggravated assaults and robberies. In particular, social disorganization theory, including the role of recent immigration, is used to examine community (census tract) counts of ethnic-specific non-lethal violence. We also test the merits of the racial/ethnic invariance hypothesis, which suggests that predictors (e.g., disadvantage) should have similar effects on violence across racial (and ethnic) groups. Violence data include those assault and robbery incidents reported to the police in the city of Miami, Florida, for 2000 to 2004. Neighborhood predictors (based on 2000 Census data) of ethnic-specific counts of aggravated assaults and robberies are examined and compared for Haitians, African Americans, and Latinos in the city of Miami, FL. Negative binomial regression analyses, with corrections for spatial autocorrelation, are used to examine the factors associated with community counts of non-lethal violence. Tests of equality of coefficients are used to assess whether predictors have similar effects on violence across the racial and ethnic groups.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: The educational and economic attainment of today’s immigrant is contingent upon the context in which they are incorporated. Chances for the social mobility of Cuban and Nicaraguan young people in Miami are framed within a distinctive city with a powerful, self-sustaining Hispanic (mostly Cuban) majority. This paper utilizes the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS), which surveyed a group of immigrants around the country including over 1000 Cubans and Nicaraguans in Miami. This data is supplemented with a qualitative component: face-to-face ethnography of 20 Cuban and Nicaraguans drawn from the CILS Miami sample. In sum, it finds that many of these young people strongly recognize Miami as a place where they can take full advantage of the local educational and occupational opportunities. While this perception will keep them in Miami to help maintain the influence of their immigrant community, it also limits them to the Miami job-market and closes doors to more distant opportunities they aspire toward.