A study was released by the Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and Services. The study was conducted over a period of seven months; it was one of the first of its kind in the nation.
The study focused on undocumented women immigrants in the Bay Area who lived in San Francisco, Alameda and San Mateo counties.
Most previous studies that focused on undocumented immigrants have centered on families or men. Women in most previous studies have been seen simply as "appendages" of the men they immigrated with, according to Karen Rosen, one of the study's authors.
The study noted, however, that women make up more than half of all undocumented immigrants now in the United States.
The study, which was based on interviews with more than 400 Bay Area women from Latin America, the Philippines, China and Hong Kong, produced these findings:
1. Some 64 percent of the Latinas and 57 percent of the Filipinas surveyed said they feared deportation and thus they avoided using public services such as medical care or welfare. Interestingly, some of the women said they fear even leaving the house to get items such as groceries.
2. Some two in five Latinas in the study
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said they came to the Bay Area by themselves; 23 percent said they brought children with them.
3. Nine percent of the Latinas interviewed had graduated from high school; 77 percent of the Filipinas had graduated. Twenty-nine percent of the Filipinas also had a college degree.
The authors of the study said they were alarmed at the findings. They said that the results show that the children of the women, many of them born U.S. citizens, are in jeopardy.
The study also found that the undocumented women immigrants in the Bay Area are a growing and neglected population.
Some direct quotes:
From Leni Marin, who heads the San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women: "Our misconceptions and ignorance about the life experiences, the hopes and the dreams of undocumented women have been challenged by this report."
From Chris Hogeland, co-author of the study: "One woman we talked to, typical of many, was afraid to go to (San Francisco) General Hospital because she thought the hospital would immediately call the INS (U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service) and deport her."
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Exercise 19.3
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2007 McGraw-Hill Higher Education