Part 3: Planning Documents for Semi-Structured Interviews with Mexican Immigrant Women

Disasters are increasing in frequency and intensity. Much of the current disaster literature adopts a social vulnerability perspective, which considers how political, social, and economic factors influence pre-disaster preparation and post-disaster recovery. Even with this focus, however, there remains a dearth of literature on immigrant populations and their long-term recovery trajectories. As such, my dissertation is an intersectional, multi-level analysis of Mexican immigrant women and their disproportionate vulnerability in post-disaster recovery. Specifically, I will strive to answer four main research questions:

1. How does current U.S. disaster policy address issues related to gender, ethnicity, and citizenship status?
2. How do service providers from community-based organizations navigate disaster recovery systems to assist Mexican immigrant women and their families in their long-term housing recovery, particularly in the context of cumulative disaster impacts?
3. How are Mexican immigrant women navigating the system of disaster recovery to move forward in their long-term housing recovery?
4. How does cumulative exposure to multiple disasters impact long-term housing recovery among Mexican immigrant women in disaster-affected areas?

My dissertation data consists of three parts. For Part I, I collected organizational reports as well as current federal, state, and local disaster recovery planning and policy documents (n=172) in the U.S to understand the larger context of disaster recovery. In Part II, I conducted qualitative, semi-structured interviews with service providers in community-based organizations in 2019 (n=16) and again in 2021 (n=8) to assess the progression of Mexican immigrant recovery—with a specific focus on women’s experiences—in the four years since Harvey, particularly in the context of cumulative disaster impacts. For Part III, I conducted qualitative, semi-structured interviews with Mexican immigrant women (n=56) in 2022 to understand their recovery from their own point of view, with a focus on how gender stratification, ethnicity, housing tenure, and access to organizational assistance affect recovery trajectories.