Yale Bulletin
and Calendar

February 1-8, 1999Volume 27, Number 19




























Fulbright Fellowship winner
plans study of migrant families

Patrick Belton, a candidate for the M.A. degree in international relations, has been awarded a Fulbright Fellowship to pursue research along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Belton will spend eight months doing an ethnographic study of migrant families, documenting their access to social services, especially health care and education. He will explore how these families formulate their identity and conceptualize social relations. He hopes to find ways to encourage the U.S. and Mexican governments to cooperate on policies that improve migrants' lives.

"It seems that these people are really caught in the cracks between two countries, and my heart goes out to them," Belton says.

An honors graduate of Notre Dame University, Belton was active in student government and served as founding editor of The Notre Dame Catholic, a student-run journal of social justice and philosophy.

From October to January, Belton worked part time as an aide for Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro. He plans on a career in politics and says DeLauro is his model. "Rosa has made a difference," he says. "I really believe in the potential of the state to help people who don't have much opportunity or access to education and health care. I hope that my research will help people to understand, within the context of one particular case, how states might find themselves able to do that."

His advisers and mentors at Yale are Arun Agrawal and Leonard Wantchekon, assistant professors of political science; and Eric Worby, assistant professor of anthropology.