In Brief

• I was reluctant to engage in scholar-activism, fearing its impact on tenure and professional success.
• Mexican immigrants in Montana were facing multiple challenges to human rights and well-being.
• Participating in a community–university partnership enabled us to conduct meaningful collective action for migrant health and justice.
• Anti-immigrant legislation passed in Montana, but our partnership challenged its legality and won.
• As a scholar-activist, I am most fulfilled when my scholarship results in legal and policy changes for the benefit of families on the margins.

When I arrived at Montana State University in 2002, I was not a scholar-activist. Far from it. I was on the tenure track. My head was down and I was trying to stay out of trouble for fear of not getting tenure, as so many assistant professors do in the academy. As a family policy scholar, I also held a neutral "policy education" stance as I taught policy courses and served as director of the Montana Family Impact Seminar. But over time, I found myself at a scholar-activist crossroads—do I remain silent and on the margins on issues of human rights and social justice, or do I take a stand and actively fight against discrimination, inequalities, and injustices? I remember watching Howard Zinn: You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train and being inspired.

I joined the Montana Human Right Network (MHRN) and became a member of the board, and later president, of the Gallatin Valley Human Rights Task Force (GVHRTF). It was through these nonprofit organizations that I learned about Mexican migrant families settling in Montana—a new, nontraditional settlement of approximately 5,000 migrants statewide seeking a better life for themselves and their families in Big Sky country.

But their path to prosperity and the American dream was met by nativist and racist hostilities and an anti-immigrant movement, language barriers, limited services, racial profiling by highway patrol, and a heightened Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) presence. Indeed, in my local community, with an estimated population of 500 migrants from Mexico, federal ICE officers were known to position themselves outside of the food bank where migrants would come for food and leads on shelter and work. ICE officers were known to pick up migrants in the parking lot, and those without papers were often sent immediately to Salt Lake City or another destination for processing and deportation. And just like that, families were separated.

Building a Community–University Partnership

As MHRN and GVHRTF fielded calls for help from the migrant community, my colleagues, students, and I served as university liaisons with the community organizers already working to support migrant families. We reached out to a local Catholic Church offering Sunday mass in Spanish. We were invited to a Friday-evening Bible study with members of the Mexican migrant community, and we used the time to discuss the possibility of a community–university partnership, rooted in liberation theology, to study the lived experiences of migrant families while also fighting for migrant justice.

Our first community event at the church was a Know Your Rights training led by the only two immigration attorneys working in the entire state. At this meeting, we learned about the treatment of Mexican migrant community members by employers who were refusing to pay for work performed or refusing to cover workers' compensation for injuries on the job. We learned about the fears—particularly of family separation—and the isolation endured by migrants, which resulted in poor health outcomes and human suffering. We learned about the treatment of migrants by the police, who were working closely with ICE agents to deport those without papers, and by service providers who were refusing to enroll children and families in services for which they were eligible. In my capacity as a researcher, I asked if I could work with the community and my research team to document their experiences, their mistreatment, and the institutional disregard for the rule of law, due process, and the human dignity of immigrant families.

Engaging in Community-Based Participatory Research

Over time, as we engaged in community-based participatory research (CBPR), we established a community advisory board called Salud y Comunidad: Latinos en Montana (Health and Community: Latinos in Montana), which was made up of Mexican migrants, community organizers, and our research team. Following CBPR principles, this board guided our research and action steps in the community. We developed our mission, vision, and goals, and we wrote research grants and sought social justice funding to carry out our work. Our student partners formed a student organization called Tías y Tíos (or "Aunts and Uncles"), which matched university students with migrant families to promote a cultural exchange program, Spanish and English language learning, sports and outings for children, and mentoring of migrant family members interested in furthering their education. These dedicated students also provided child care at all of our community events.

As we built relationships of trust, the research team began conducting in-depth interviews with community members, which led to the development of a survey protocol designed to be culturally and contextually sensitive to Mexican migrants in Montana. Over two years, we hired, trained, and supervised bilingual community members (several of whom were the adult children of Mexican migrants) to conduct 225 interviewer-assisted surveys documenting the lived experiences, health, and well-being of documented and undocumented migrants to this new settlement in the Rocky Mountain West. With our board members, we analyzed the data and shared our research findings with local and statewide agencies and government officials. We presented at conferences and published our research in journals. In partnership with MHRN and other allied organizations, we also lobbied the state legislature whenever legislators tried to pass anti-immigrant laws (upward of 25 anti-immigrant bills have been introduced per session since the early 2000s).

Findings From Our CBPR Approach

Our research findings were in many ways consistent with the growing literature on the health and well-being of immigrants to new settlements. For example, we found that migrants tended to be young (averaging 32.7 years) and had low levels of formal education (averaging 8.8 years). Migrants to Montana settled as "traditional" family units, the majority partnered with children (who often had been born in the U. S.). The majority of respondents reported having limited to no access to health care and limited employment opportunities (especially for Latinas), and experiencing high levels of fear (76.7% fearful) and isolation (61.4% lonely). Respondents also reported experiencing significant mental health burdens, with 41.4% reporting depression symptomatology in the range for clinical concern.

Mental health outcomes and other experiences differed significantly as a function of legal status, however. In the second year of our CBPR survey work, we had built enough trust throughout the community to inquire directly about immigration status. Among 105 respondents, 62 (59%) reported lacking legal authorization to reside in the United States. As compared to their documented counterparts, undocumented migrants were significantly younger, less likely to speak English, and more likely to send remittances back home. Undocumented migrants also reported experiencing significantly more worry about police and ICE confrontations, racial profiling by police, and fear most days than did documented migrants. Perhaps not surprising, undocumented respondents also experienced significantly higher levels of depression symptomatology than their documented peers.

From Research to Action (and a Court Battle)

These research findings informed action steps and intervention strategies that were sanctioned by our community partners. To ameliorate isolation and fear, for example, we threw dance parties in spaces deemed safe by the community, such as a barn we could rent down a dirt road that would not draw much attention locally or attract law enforcement or ICE. To promote health access, we partnered with health-care providers (including mental health counselors) who offered free screenings and services to migrants, often during our dances. We also provided free legal clinics in partnership with immigration attorney Shahid Haque Hausrath to educate migrants about their legal rights, to assist them in filling out immigration paperwork, to rectify their status when feasible, and to provide legal counsel when, for example, a migrant faced deportation proceedings. We worked with the Mexican consulate to assist migrants with driver's license and passport renewals, and we educated service providers, educators, and agency officials about immigration laws and policies, migrant rights, and migrant family well-being.

In 2012, the Montana legislature placed on the November ballot a voter referendum (LR-121) seeking to deny certain state services to "illegal aliens." In response, we organized locally and joined statewide coalitions working to oppose LR-121. Our members of Salud y Comunidad and TYT wrote letters and opinion pieces published in newspapers, brought members of the migrant community to the state capital to speak with legislators, and held rallies on campus and in the community. Yet despite our collective efforts statewide, LR-121 passed, with some 80% of voters supporting the referendum.

To counter the anti-immigrant movement in Montana, attorney Haque Hausrath, who was also on the board of the MHRN and whose parents are immigrants from Pakistan, and I then cofounded the Montana Immigrant Justice Alliance, or MIJA—which also is a play on m'ija, which means "my daughter" in Spanish—and again formed a board made up of a majority of immigrants to guide our efforts. (For more information on MIJA, visit the organization's website at http://www.mija.org.) With board approval, MIJA, represented by Haque Hausrath and his legal partner, then in 2012 sued the State of Montana on the grounds that LR-121 was unconstitutional. And we prevailed. The courts—all the way up to the Montana Supreme Court—agreed that LR-121 was unconstitutional and violated the rights of immigrants. In partnership with courageous immigrants who testified in court, our legal victories prohibited the state from implementing LR-121. In 2013, to address migrant reports of racial profiling on the highways, MIJA also sued the Montana Highway Patrol. MIJA settled that suit, which required the Highway Patrol to retrain officers and change its practices on the roadways.

From Scholar to Scholar-Activist

An ancillary purpose of writing this piece is to share some of my journey from "neutral" scholar to a scholar-activist seeking to advocate legal and policy change in support of migrant justice. My transformation was inhibited by my own fears of not getting tenure, not being respected as a scholar, and not succeeding in the academy. Conducting research using a CBPR approach is time intensive, and typically not aligned with or valued in promotion and tenure processes. Engaging in both scholarship and activism, for me, has had personal and professional costs. Yet upon reflection, I am most proud of, most humbled by, and most thankful for the work I get to do with immigrant families and our community partners to actualize the human rights of those marginalized and disenfranchised in our society.

Sources

Israel, B., Eng, E., Schulz, A., & Parker, E. (2005). Methods in community-based participatory research for health. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Minkler, M., & Wallerstein, N. (2008). Community-based participatory research for health: From process to outcome (2nd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

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