Tent encampments are an increasingly common form of dwelling for the homeless population in the West Coast. Recently, the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals has stated “[a]s long as there is no option of sleeping indoors, the government cannot criminalize indigent, homeless people for sleeping outdoors, on public property, on the false premise they had a choice in the matter.” However, many city residents worry about issues such as local impact on the environment and criminal activity. Oftentimes city officials are pressured into action by homeowners for encampments not sanctioned by the local government. Removing (or sweeping) encampments not sanctioned by the city eliminates their impact on the surrounding community, but also disrupts the lives of the already-vulnerable people living in them. Debates among the public, activists, and the government on how to address encampments in public spaces are salient, polarized, and evolving. However, knowledge of the number and locations of encampments is still limited. Using data from Google Street View, combined with reports from The Seattle Times and the City of Seattle reports on removals, my study will chart the spatial growth of tent encampments and measure changes in responses to the City of Seattle’s interventions from 2008 to 2021. By linking the dataset of tent encampments removals with neighborhood level US Census American Community Survey data, I will use event history analysis and spatial statistics to measure the impact of encampment removal activities on local neighborhood demographic change, gentrification, and crime rate. This study expands the scope of homelessness encampment displacement research over the last decade in Seattle. Understanding encampment sweeps in Seattle is important for policy researchers and social scientists studying West Coast urban environments.

Becoming an adult is a significant life course transition which brings much uncertainty to an individual's life. Previous studies attribute this uncertainty to navigating a growing sense of agency, with more outlets to explore emerging adulthood and personal identities. As young adults increasingly engage with these opportunities, more time is spent away from their families. As a result, they are less susceptible to the parental, familial, and cultural pressures in the home, where parents enforce their expectations for adulthood onto their children. The lifestyle of young adults of Asian immigrant parents who identify as a gender or sexual minority (AAGSM) often conflicts with their parents' ideal of a successful transition into adulthood. Yet, they find themselves poorly represented within gender and sexual minority (GSM) spaces, often downplaying their racial or ethnic identities to feel accepted. Scholars are only beginning to examine the outcomes of this identity conflict with AAGSM young adults, and so far, none have made a clear connection between the transition to adulthood literature and the (in)visibility of Asian-American coming-out narratives. The goal of my study is to understand how parental closeness and expectations for emerging adulthood affect how AAGSM young adults perceive their preparedness for adulthood. This goal will be met by conducting semi-structured interviews, asking participants to reflect on their parents' and their own expectations for adulthood with the consideration of their AAGSM identity and relational closeness. As I am using grounded theory to conduct my analysis, the anticipated results of my study have yet to be determined. Focusing on AAGSM young adulthood is a promising area for future research, as it holds important implications on how to accomodate the intersectional experiences of individuals as culture continues to evolve. 

Campus safety issues are not typically included in institutional diversity efforts. However, it's important to understand how students with diverse ranges of social identities perceive campus safety; promoting safety should be prioritized. To understand marginalized student perceptions of campus safety and policy, I analyzed focus group transcripts (31 participants) from PNW LSAMP (Pacific Northwest Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation) students and recent alumni from the University of Washington, Washington State University, Oregon State University, Portland State University and Boise State University. Data was coded deductively in NVivo by a pre-determined coding scheme guided by the research question but allowing for inductive coding as other themes emerged. My findings indicate that gender identity has a high impact on perceived safety. Women and non binary individuals tended to discuss feeling uncomfortable in campus areas at night and mentioned taking preventative safety measures like carrying tasers. Participants identified emergency blue lights and safe rides as initiatives which maintained or improved safety feelings. This indicates that on some level, universities are already protecting marginalized students. Little discussion on policy improvement emerged, but instead how universities can use clarity and police presence (or absence) to show students they value their safety. Namely, several Black/African American participants expressed preference for more detailed notifications on how to take action when safety threats are alerted to the university community. Participants generally expressed that police did not improve their safety perceptions or that police presence could detract from other students’ safety depending on their race. These findings suggest that universities are protecting marginalized student safety to some degree. Next steps include clarifying safety notifications, expanding safe ride and emergency blue light operations, and conducting broader surveys on perceptions of campus and municipal police, given police brutality incidents and mixed literature.

Universities hold expectations of students to possess forms of cultural and social capital in order to be successful in their educational careers. This may include knowledge of the financial aid process, an ability to build relationships with faculty, and an understanding of cultural norms of the middle-class. While research shows that underrepresented students may be less likely to possess this capital, institutional expectations regarding social/cultural capital, specifically among first-generation (FG) students, seems largely unexplored in educational research. The goal of our research is to identify the hidden things FG students are expected to learn in higher education, and how they are able to learn those things. We conducted focus groups of students enrolled in LSAMP (a program that supports underrepresented students in STEM) across 5 universities in the Pacific Northwest over Zoom. Our research focuses on how the hidden curriculum, through the lense of cultural norms and the Federal Application for Student Aid (FAFSA), serves as a barrier to self-identified first-generation students in STEM. Focus groups were conducted by LSAMP students across three universities affiliated with LSAMP and researchers at the University of Washington. Focus groups were recorded and transcribed through Zoom, and later coded and analyzed. Our analysis focuses on identifying common barriers among FG STEM students. In our focus groups, FG students spoke about how relationships with faculty and peers were hard to establish because of their FG background, or because of different/potentially intersecting identities, and also how the FAFSA served as a barrier to them. Our findings support the idea that knowledge of the hidden norms and processes may be expected of students by universities, and that FG students may not possess this knowledge. By developing a better understanding of the experiences of FG students with the hidden curriculum, we can better learn how to support these students.

This research examines the relationships between contact with work centers, immigration status, precarious employment, and exploitative working conditions. Work centers are non-profit organizations that developed in response to deteriorating wage and working conditions within the lower wage market. Each work center is oriented around the needs of the local community, depending on its unique cultural and economic context. They are intended to support immigrants by providing services like advocacy, organizing, policy making, and serve as intermediaries among low-wage workers, labor markets and employers. Work centers are important because low-wage, precarious, exploitative labor is linked to deteriorating health, low social and economic mobility, violations of worker and human rights, low unionization, and a lack of political voice. Unfortunately, work centers receive little attention from scholars. My study will use 8 semi-structured, qualitative interviews with employers, immigrant workers, and employees at work centers to understand the connection between work centers and the experience of immigrant workers. I will then analyze the interviews by cross-referencing prior notes, to avoid any biases. Studying the services that work centers provide to immigrant workers within the lower wage market can highlight these under researched groups, illuminating how immigrant workers are overcoming individual and structural barriers within the labor market to achieve upward mobility. My project will give us a better understanding of the effectiveness of work center services like legal, social, and cultural resources to improve the working conditions of immigrant workers, and how they can do more to empower workers to advocate and collectively fight for better working conditions, protect their legal rights as workers, and collectively fight for benefits within the lower wage market.

The stress and uncertainty posed by infectious disease outbreaks generates intergroup social conflict. In communities with disparate distributions of power, one population may blame another for spreading the disease. This social scapegoating subsequently exacerbates existing economic inequalities, medical discrimination, and harmful stereotypes. Amidst power struggles, political elites can mobilize scapegoating as a tool to unify their support base around a common enemy. In the United States, Asian Americans frequently fell victim to epidemic scapegoating, from outbreaks of smallpox in the nineteenth century to the more recent SARS outbreak of the twenty-first century. During these previous health emergencies, Asian Americans became associated with disease and cultural backwardness. The negative perceptions of Asian Americans then translated into restrictive immigration and citizenship policies. The Coronavirus Pandemic renewed anti-Asian American xenophobia. In 2020 alone, reported hate crimes against Asian Americans increased 150 percent. Racist and Sinophobic language proliferated the internet and media. President Donald Trump and other prominent politicians began utilizing location-based labels for the coronavirus, such as China Virus, Chinese Flu, and Kung Flu. This research assesses whether these location-based labels perpetuates anti-Asian xenophobia. To do so, this research analyzes the transcripts of 163 public appearances made by Donald Trump in 2020. I examined the frequency and context of Trump’s location-based terms throughout the year and compared this with the percentage of hate crimes considered anti-Asian. The data suggests that Trump’s utilization of location-based terms correlated with a rise in anti-Asian hate crimes in the early months of the pandemic. Additionally, the data shows support for the fact that the upcoming election motivated Trump’s usage of these location-based terms. By illuminating the mechanisms through which the President incited anti-Asian xenophobia during the coronavirus pandemic, this research provides insight into how to prevent social scapegoating in future epidemics.

Previous research documents the influence of colorism (discrimination based on skin tone) on multiple adverse health outcomes among Black Americans. In general, Black Americans with darker skin tones have worse physical and mental health outcomes than their peers with lighter skin tones. Among Black mothers, colorism is associated with delayed prenatal care, low birth weight, and preterm birth. However, the influence of colorism on the risk of miscarriage has not yet been explored. Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health), I investigate the association between skin tone and miscarriage among Black American women. The study also explores several potential mechanisms that may explain such an association. These include the experience of discrimination by expectant mothers, class-related variables such as education and wealth, and behavioral variables such as nutrition, exercise, and smoking. Finally, it evaluates whether disparities in risk of miscarriage increase with age as psychosocial and physiological stress accumulate at different rates between women with different skin tones. Understanding the role that colorism plays in causing disparities in miscarriage among Black women will help us to identify policy interventions to mitigate this social problem.