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This paper is part of a larger ethnographic study of the implications of living undocumented on the mental health and wellbeing of Mexican men. For this analysis of undocumentedness, I followed a descriptive phenomenological approach, which seeks to comprehend the subjective understanding of the people’s lived experiences of a phenomenon (Dowling, 2007). Phenomenology is a qualitative research methodology used to explore in-depth the lived experience of a phenomenon by thoroughly describing it (Grbich, 2007; Vagle, 2014). Phenomenology is also interested in understanding

intentionality, which refers to the internal experience of being conscious of the phenomenon, and how a phenomenon is constructed and understood (Dowling, 2007).

In terms of intentionality, I explored how participants talked about and related to their own undocumentedness, and I considered the culture, social and historical context in the analysis of the phenomenon as required by some phenomenologists (Dowling, 2007). Vagle (2014) encourages phenomenologists to link everyday lived experiences with the social and structural worlds, which can help make phenomenology “concrete and actionable”, make it dialogue with other theories, and make it critical of the structural forces that affect the individuals whose phenomenological experiences are being researched (Vagle, 2014). This is a key aspect of our study that I addressed in the discussion of this paper.

5.2.1 Study settings and participants

This study was conducted in NC in the US and the Mexican states of Guanajuato and Hidalgo. NC has one of the fastest growing Latino populations in the US over the last thirty years, with Latinos currently representing almost nine percent of the state population, an increase of 800% from 1990 (US

2015); over 90% of the Latinos under 18 years old living in NC were born in the US or are naturalized citizens (US Census Bureau, 2015). It is estimated that 43% of Latino adults in NC are undocumented, of which 60% are Mexican (Pew Research Center, 2017). Thirty percent of Latinos in NC live under the poverty level (US Census Bureau, 2015). This means that the Latino population in NC is very young, and the families have a mixed status composition. NC has the highest number of DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a special relief presidential order implemented under the administration of President Obama) applications in the country and holders relative to those eligible in the state (Gill, 2016).

I selected the two states in Mexico, Guanajuato and Hidalgo, because they are the top sending states to NC. Guanajuato has a longer tradition of migration to the US, having established many migratory pathways across the country while Hidalgo has a more recent migration tradition. Men interviewed in Mexico had migrated mostly to Texas and NC, two states with slightly different Latino migration patterns. Texas has a longer tradition of migration from Mexico and other Latin American countries, which has resulted in a large Latino community, whereas demographic changes in NC in the last 30 years due to Latino migration is recently showing in its population. Nonetheless, both NC and Texas have implemented similar federal and local policies and programs to restrict, detain and deport undocumented immigrants (ICE, 2017).

Data for this study comes from multiple sources including in-depth interviews, oral histories, and participant observation (Table 2, Appendix J). First, I conducted multiple in-depth interviews with Mexican men living in central NC (N=8), Guanajuato (N=11), and Hidalgo (N=7). Eligibility criteria included being living undocumented or had lived undocumented in the US, older than 18 years old. I also interviewed close family members of men interviewed to triangulate what men shared about their experiences of living undocumented (NC, N=5; Guanajuato, N=6; Hidalgo, N=3) (Table 1, Appendix I). Close family members included mostly wives/partners, sisters and/or mothers. Several women

to be interviewed. Participants from NC were identified through local organizations working with Latino immigrants and personal networks. Participants from Guanajuato and Mexico were identified through local organizations and institutions working on the topic of migration.

I conducted almost all interviews in Spanish. A research assistant helped with the collection of interviews in Mexico. In NC, men received a gift card of $40 and women received $20 for their

participation in the study. Participants in Mexico received an oral health kit for their participation. All but one of the interviews were audio recorded. I reviewed and revised all interviews were transcribed by professional transcribers for accuracy.

The second source of data is comprised by oral histories from the digital oral history archive New Roots/ Nuevas Raíces: Voices from Carolina del Norte (New Roots, 2017). This archive has collected oral histories of Latinos in NC since 2007. I selected all oral histories of Mexican men that had migrated to the US as adults that were available in the archive (n=10) (Table 1).

A third source of data comes from over two years of participant observation that I conducted at a day laborer’s work center in Central NC between 2014 and 2016. This center offers a space where day laborers, mostly Latino men, come to seek jobs. During the participant observation, I helped the center’s staff to solve problems related to operations, strategic planning, applying for grants, and provided information about health and work safety to day laborers. Observation occurred during the mornings when the center operated, between 7 am and noon, and happened at least once a week. Other

observation occurred at meetings with staff from the workers center. Data from participant observation includes field notes of observation and unstructured audio recorded conversations with day laborer men (N=8).

The Institutional Review Board of the University of NC at Chapel Hill and the Comisión Fronteriza de Salud in Mexico reviewed and approved the protocol for this study.

5.2.2 Data analysis

The main analytical strategy in phenomenology, and common to the different

phenomenological approaches, is the “whole – part – whole” process (Vagle, 2014; Roulston & Flick, 2014). This process entails first having a holistic understanding of the “whole” by getting familiarized with all the data, usually by engaging in reading and some note taking, to then move into identifying the “parts” of the whole, or the units that provide meaning to the phenomenon. Finally, by analyzing the “parts”, we produce a new analytical “whole” that provides meaning to the phenomenon (Vagle, 2014). I implemented this process in this study by reading all the interviews, including transcripts of non- structured conversation with day laborers and oral histories, and developing analytical summaries of the transcripts for each participant interviewed. I also incorporated women’s perspectives in each man’s summary, when available (the first “whole” step). For the “part” step, I developed a codebook based on the analytical summaries and I included descriptive codes, -which I use to label everyday experiences of living undocumented-, and interpretative codes, -which I use to label the lived experiences of

undocumentedness as a phenomenon and intentionality. I imported the transcribed interviews, oral histories, and non-structured conversations, and field memos into Atlas.ti 8. I coded the material using the codebook and generated new codes as needed. For the final “whole” step of the process, I used matrices to display groups of codes to identify patterns in the data across participants. Throughout the analysis process, from conducting interviews to populating matrixes, I engaged in memo writing; some of the memos became part of the final interpretation of the data for this manuscript. The last step of the process, the new “whole”, is reflected in the discussion of this manuscript, where I re-engaged with the literature on this topic.