Peer-Reviewed Articles, Book Chapters, and Other Written Works

PUBLISHED

Robles, Jozef C., and Devon Thacker Thomas. 2023. “Placing Mexican Ethnic Enclaves: Toward a Recursive Model of Place Attachment.” Critical Sociology 1-17.

Place attachment, the emotional bond between person and place, facilitates well-being and belonging for Mexicans in the U.S. However, place attachment research concentrating on Mexican populations has not explored a key site for placemaking—the ethnic enclave.  Thus, we draw on twenty interviews with Mexicans in the U.S. to examine how individuals form close connections to La Cuatro, an ethnic enclave in California. Despite the overall positive nature of their emotional connections within the enclave, our model uncovers paradoxical and recursive outcomes. While place attachment promotes a sense of belonging within La Cuatro, these emotional bonds are deeply tied to broader experiences of social alienation in areas outside the enclave. This alienation stems from three primary factors: (1) legal status or lack thereof, (2) racialization, and (3) pervasive anti-immigrant socio-political ethos. We propose a recursive model of place attachment that considers social context to explain the placemaking processes of marginalized racial and ethnic groups in public social spaces. This model problematizes the experiences of marginalized communities, such as Mexican immigrants and their descendants, and provides a theoretical framework to examine the interplay between place and broader society.

Robles, Jozef C. 2023. “Navigating the Path to Legal Status: A Three-Part Series.” Contexts Magazine.

In this three-part series, I share the deeply personal journey as an undocumented immigrant obtaining U.S. legal residency. This series captures the emotional and psychological toll of legal violence and the dehumanizing aspects of the U.S. immigration system. Through my experiences — from invasive medical examinations in Ciudad Juarez to the anxiety-ridden immigration interview – I shed light on the systemic barriers and enduring stigma faced by immigrants, culminating in a bittersweet triumph that leaves invisible scars and a continued sense of alienation in the United States.

UNDER REVIEW

Robles, Jozef C. “Remnants of Illegality: DACA, Legal Status, and Unlearning Illegality.

This paper examines transitions between “illegal,” liminally legal, and legal statuses as an ongoing negotiated process between undocumented embodiments and legal realities. Rather than viewing legal statuses as mutually exclusive states of existence, I contend that transitioning through statuses leaves behind what I call remnants of illegality— spillover effects of previous legal designations that continue to shape a person’s behavior and worldview even after the person is no longer in that status. Interviews with formerly undocumented and DACA-mented California residents who are now legal in the United States reveal that participants encounter the remnants of illegality across their lives in three ways. Specifically, participants report that the remnants of illegality drastically alter their (1) understanding of legal status, (2) everyday behaviors, and (3) understandings of the self. Although the formerly undocumented are aware of their remnants of illegality and actively work to unlearn them, many struggle with bridging the gap between their undocumented embodiments and legal realities. Broadly, these findings propose a new theoretical concept for understanding the impact of illegality across a wide range of formerly undocumented populations. The remnants of illegality also challenge assumptions about legal status as an idealistic end goal solution to the condition of illegality.

IN PROGRESS

Irene I. Vega, and Jozef C. Robles. “Immigrants and Legal Controls.”

Selected Research Presentations

  • Commercializing Ethnicity: Latina Herbalife Entrepreneurs & the Dissemination of Health Knowledge. Latinx Studies Association Conference. Tempe, AZ, forthcoming April 2024.

  • Remnants of Illegality: The Transformative Effects of US Immigration Law Post Status Regularization. CINETS - Crimmigration Control Conference. Portland, OR, forthcoming March 2024.

  • Remnants of Illegality: DACA, Legal Status, and Unlearning to be Illegal. American Sociological Association Conference, Philadelphia, PA, August 2023.

  • It’s Not La Cuatro Anymore, it’s Downtown Santa Ana: Explorations of Latinx Placemaking and Place Disruption. Pacific Sociological Association, San Diego, CA, March 2021.

  • Losing Place: The Impacts of Gentrification on Mexican Ethnic Enclaves. California Sociological Association, Riverside, CA, November 2020.

Supplemental Research Experience

  • Banking & Minority Groups Project. Principle Investigators – Rocio Rosales & Anthony Alvarez. Department of Sociology. Summer 2023.

  • Racialized Social Ladders Project. Principle Investigator – Irene I. Vega. Department of Sociology. Summer 2022.

  • Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Community-Centered Archives Practice: Transforming Education, Archives, and Community History. Principle Investigator – Audra Eagle Yun. UC Irvine Libraries. Summer 2022.