Structural vulnerability and problem drinking among Latino migrant day laborers in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Latino migrant day laborers (LMDLs) live under challenging conditions in the San Francisco Bay Area. This study explored day laborer alcohol use guided by a structural vulnerability framework, specifically problem vs. non-problem drinking as perceived by LMDLs and how they cope with or try to avoid problem drinking given their broader environment. The study utilized ethnographic methods including in-depth semi-structured qualitative interviews with 51 LMDLs. Findings revealed the considerable challenge of avoiding problem drinking given socio-environmental factors that influence drinking: impoverished living and working conditions, prolonged separation from home and family, lack of work authorization, consequent distress and negative mood states, and peer pressure to drink. While participants shared strategies to avoid problem drinking, the success of individual-level efforts is limited given the harsh structural environmental factors that define day laborers' daily lives. Discussed are implications for prevention and intervention strategies at the individual, community, national and international levels.

"As Good As It Gets": Undocumented Latino Day Laborers Negotiating Discrimination in San Francisco and Berkeley, California, USA.

Undocumented Latino day laborers in the United States are vulnerable to being arrested and expelled at any time. This social fact shapes their everyday lives in terms of actions taken and strategies deployed to mitigate being confronted, profiled, and possibly incarcerated and deported. While perceptions of threat and bouts of discrimination are routine among undocumented Latino day laborers, their specific nature vary according to multiple social factors and structural forces that differ significantly from locale to locale. The experience of discrimination is often tacitly negotiated through perceptions, decisions, and actions toward avoiding or moderating its ill effects. This essay examines urban undocumented Latino day laborers over a variety of sites in the greater San Francisco Bay Area, which, compared to many metropolitan areas in the U.S. is "as good as it gets" in terms of being socially tolerated and relatively safe from persecution. Nonetheless, tacit negotiations are necessary to withstand or overcome challenges presented by idiosyncratic and ever changing global, national/state, and local dynamics of discrimination. [undocumented Latino laborers, social exclusion, discrimination, tacit negotiation].