Garcia Victor
Hum Organ. 2008;67(1):12-24.
We present research finding son problem drinking among transnational Mexican migrants employed in the mushroom industry of southeastern Pennsylvania. Our research explored the relationship between situational factors-living arrangements, social isolation, and peer pressure to drink-and problem drinking. Individual characteristics of the migrants, such as age, education level, migration history, and work experience in the mushroom industry are also considered. The premise of our study is that the migrants' judicial status in the country-as foreign solo men and, at times, undocumented or illegal migrants-places them at a high risk to binge drink. The men mainly live without their families in relatively isolated, grower-provided housing or overcrowded apartment units for months, if not years, away from traditional community and kin deterrents to heavy drinking. We employed the ethnographic method in two complementary field studies: a community ethnography, designed to identify the community context of problem drinking, and a series of case studies of migrant drinkers, designed to identify the relationships between situational factors and problem drinking. Focus groups were used to explore and verify the findings being generated in the two studies. Our findings reveal that there is an alcohol abuse problem among the migrants as a consequence of situational and other factors, such as festive occasions, bad news from home, and a long workweek. Their binge drinking does not always result in negative behavior because the migrants follow drinking norms, and violators of these norms are dealt with accordingly. Nonetheless, binge drinking does place them at a high risk for negative behavior, which results in problems in their housing units and in local communities.
我们展示了关于宾夕法尼亚州东南部蘑菇产业中跨国墨西哥移民存在问题饮酒现象的研究结果。我们的研究探讨了情境因素——生活安排、社会隔离以及饮酒的同伴压力——与问题饮酒之间的关系。我们还考虑了移民的个人特征，如年龄、教育水平、移民历史以及在蘑菇产业的工作经历。我们研究的前提是，这些移民在该国的法律地位——作为单身男性，有时还是无证或非法移民——使他们面临酗酒的高风险。这些男性大多在没有家人陪伴的情况下，在相对孤立的、种植者提供的住房或拥挤的公寓单元中生活数月甚至数年，远离传统社区和亲属对酗酒的威慑因素。我们在两项互补的实地研究中采用了人种志方法：一项社区人种志研究，旨在确定问题饮酒的社区背景；另一项是对移民饮酒者的一系列案例研究，旨在确定情境因素与问题饮酒之间的关系。焦点小组被用于探索和验证两项研究中得出的结果。我们的研究结果表明，由于情境因素和其他因素，如节日场合、家中的坏消息以及长时间的工作周，这些移民中存在酗酒问题。他们的暴饮并不总是导致负面行为，因为移民遵循饮酒规范，违反这些规范的人会受到相应处理。尽管如此，暴饮确实使他们面临负面行为的高风险，这在他们的住房单元和当地社区引发了问题。
