Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation
 

Critical Links: Exploring the Connection between Community Assets and Latinx Social Capital for Disaster Resilience along the Oregon Coast

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https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/concern/graduate_thesis_or_dissertations/bv73c7775

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  • The Pacific Northwest Region, which includes Washington, Oregon, and Northern California, is at risk of significant structural and economic damage and widespread loss of life from a massive subduction zone earthquake (7.0+) and resulting tsunami (Cascadia Event), which has a predicted 37% chance of occurring in the next 50 years. In Oregon, the state is unprepared for the medical care and housing needs after a Cascadia event due to inadequate leveraging of community assets. Efforts should be made to incorporate the perspectives of vulnerable groups who will experience the greatest and most long-lasting impacts, including Latinx community members, who are an ethnic minority in the state. Latinx residents comprise a small but rapidly growing population along the Oregon Coast, including in Lincoln County, where they represent 10.0% of the population. In manuscript one, I explore the connections that exist between valued locations and social support networks for the Latinx community in Lincoln County, OR and how they are utilized as Latinx residents adapt to day-to-day challenges and/or impacts from natural hazards. Data was gathered through participant observation, focus group discussions, and a novel conceptual mapping activity. Community-based organizations, churches, schools, and first responders are found to be preferred community assets that Latinx would utilize after a Cascadia Event. I further utilize a framework of social capital, defined as one's networks of connections to people and organizations and classified in this research as either bonding, bridging, or linking social capital, to identify that these community assets are preferred because they support important bonding and linking social capital. Bridging social capital, which can be a source of critical adaptive capacity to disasters, was found to be largely absent for Latinx participants in this research. For some Latinx, bridging social capital available through churches helped improve their ability to receive vital financial support during the COVID-19 pandemic. Linking social capital provided by preferred community assets served a key role for Latinx community members in disasters to supplement for more prevalent bonding social capital that may be best suited for daily needs. To conclude, I offer policy recommendations that can utilize the connection between community assets and social capital to support disaster resilience among Latinx community members to a future Cascadia event and that may also increase their ability to adapt to day-to-day challenges they face as a ‘marginalized’ group. In manuscript two I draw from focus group discussions with community members and individual interviews with community leaders and apply Tuttle’s (2022) framework for the racialization of space to investigate the racialized processes present at schools and employment and how they impact the forms of social capital available to Latinx. Social capital is approached using a framework to account for the differences in access to power supported by different types of social connections. In workplaces, Latinx are constrained because of immigration status and English-speaking ability, as well as through more overt racialized practices by companies themselves. This racialization limits the overall ability for Latinx to actively engage in other spaces in their community. In schools, Latinx parents experience negative Racialized Emotions (REs) that dissuade them from engaging with their children’s education and fully utilizing schools as a valued space for building and deploying social capital. These REs are the result of both individual actions and larger systems that limit Latinx inclusion and position them as more socially vulnerable. How these processes play out in the future along the Oregon Coast will be influenced by the growing population of Latinx overall and developing opportunities for Latinx youth to engage with these racialized spaces as adults. Overall, this research provides new insights regarding the types of adaptation strategies that may reduce the impacts of natural hazards for particularly vulnerable community members while supporting important social networks and capital. This work may further support the framing of marginalized communities as ‘resilient and vulnerable’.
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  • Pending Publication
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  • 2023-06-12 to 2024-07-17

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