Mexican Migration Field Research and Training Program
Creators: name: University Of California Office Of The President
Publisher: name: University of California Office of the President
publisherIdentifier: https://ror.org/00dmfq477
publisherIdentifierScheme: ROR
Year: 2024

description: This proposal focuses on an international migratory movement that is central to the economic health of California. More than 4,418,000 Mexican immigrants live in California, accounting for 16.4 percent of the state’s labor force. A better understanding of the human capital that Mexican migrants bring with them to California and of how they might develop that capital more effectively is vital to ensuring that the state will have a well-trained, healthy, competitive work force in decades to come. The Mexican Migration Field Research and Training Program (MMFRP) is a unique, binational, interdisciplinary program based in UCSD’s Center for Comparative Immigration Studies (CCIS). The MMFRP conducts policy-oriented, fieldwork-based research on Mexican migration to California and provides innovative research opportunities to UC graduate students, advanced undergraduates, and postdoctoral scholars. The program has four main goals: (1) to train a new generation of undergraduate and graduate students to become highly proficient and experienced field researchers in international migration studies; (2) to motivate and equip these students to pursue public service careers (in NGOs, government, public law, college and pre-college teaching) that focus on international migration, immigrant integration, or public policymaking in these areas; (3) to generate new primary, individual-level data sets on migration behavior that can be used to address key issues of public policy of concern in both the United States and Mexico; (4) using MMFRP-generated data and analysis, to educate public policymakers and the general public on key issues in immigration policy debates. Program activities include annual field studies of Mexican migrant-sending and California receiving communities using survey and ethnographic methods; a full-year field research methods training and practicum seminar for UC graduate students and advanced undergraduates (majors in any of the social and behavioral sciences, humanities, law, education, and biological and health sciences are eligible to participate); mentoring/research training fellowships for faculty members, advanced graduate students, and recent PhDs from any UC campus, who mentor MMFRP students or play a direct leadership role in MMFRP field studies; summer internships with immigration-focused NGOs for MMFRP graduates; an annual immigration research workshop for advanced graduate students and their mentors from all UC campuses; and a research dissemination program including annual book publication, placements in mass media, and briefings for public policymakers/legislators and NGO leaders. We request five years of support in the amount of $125,000 per annum, representing approximately 47% of the program’s annual budget. PI for the MMFRP is Wayne Cornelius (Director, CCIS; Distinguished Prof., Political Science, UCSD); the Co-Director is David Fitzgerald (Associate Prof., Sociology, UCSD; Associate Director, CCIS).