DOI: 10.17603/ds2-xqgc-va36
title: Part 1: U.S. Disaster Recovery Policy Documents
title: in Documenting the Undocumented: How Mexican Immigrant Women Navigate Long-Term Post-Disaster Housing Recovery and Cumulative Disaster Impacts

description: I utilized a curated list of databases to search for federal (U.S.), state (TX), and local (Houston) policy documents and reports. Databases included search tools like Google and Google Scholar as well as more specific databases. I focused on Harris County as it contains the largest bulk of the City of Houston and was allocated the largest amount of recovery money for Harvey from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (TGLO 2019). My aim is to explore how disaster recovery policy addresses issues related to gender, ethnicity, and citizenship status more broadly and if there have been changes over time. In specific, I aim to identify if and how policies are racialized or gendered. As such, I am not focused on a particular time frame. I deemed federal, state, and local policy documents and reports relevant if they a) discussed disaster recovery resource allocation and eligibility more broadly or b) focused on Harvey, tropical storms Imelda or Beta, winter storm Uri, COVID-19, or other disasters that have affected Houston in particular. In addition, a few service providers shared state and local policy documents on Harvey recovery resource allocation during preliminary fieldwork. These will be included in my analysis.
description: 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.