Digital Commons Network^™

Diasporic Women’S Mutability In South Asian Postcolonial Literature, Tasnim S. Halim

Theses and Dissertations

Though Western scholarship tends to homogenize South Asian experiences, researchers and novelists shed light on different classes of South Asian postcolonial and migratory women who experience mutability, or the internal and external changes as a trauma response after British colonial rule ended and the 1947 Partition abruptly fractured national identity. Though this mutability has positive and negative transformative qualities, it also allows women characters the power to remove themselves from cycles of oppression, work towards healing, and transforming their physical bodies from sites of repressed trauma to sites of expression and agency. What binds them is not only their physical …

The Bracero Program And The Exploitability Of Migrant Workers, Kayla E. Dantona

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores the exploitability of migrants working in the United States. Historically, the United States government has emphasized the economic utility of migrant workers, while ignoring their basic human rights. Policymakers have viewed these people as a disposable work force and seek to control them by generating widespread fear of deportation, racialized segregation, discriminatory treatment, and with the help of governing and policing entities willing to turn a blind eye to these injustices, as long as they continue to profit financially.

This thesis will look at the Bracero Program with a historic lens to exemplify the system of exploitation …

From Perfect Victims To Collateral Damage: How Nigerian Women Are Implicated In And Impacted By Contemporary French Anti-Trafficking Policies And Discourse, Oladunni Patricia Oduyemi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Although the Nordic Model has been embraced by the international anti-trafficking movement, recent studies, and closer examinations of France’s approach to the issue of sex trafficking reveal a strong anti-migrant and anti-sex work bias. In this thesis, I use studies of the impacts of France’s 2016 anti-trafficking bill on migrant sex workers, feminist critiques of neo-abolitionism and the Nordic Model, and examples of France’s hypocritical anti-migrant position, to explore how Nigerian women are harmed by the contemporary French fight against sex trafficking. The pervasive influence of anti-sex work radical feminism on anti-trafficking protocols which define the sex industry as analogous …

Exile Garden Of The Uprooted: A Zine About Migration And The Right To Move, Sazia Afrin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Exile Garden of the Uprooted is a digital zine that advocates for a borderless world where migration is treated as an equal and fundamental human right for all. Through critical analysis and experimental forms of art and writing, this zine draws attention to the structural violence used to criminalize the movement of marginalized people, the role nations and individuals play in such violence, and the practical solutions that can be employed to normalize migration and build resilient societies that support fair movement for all. The short essays, found poems, and original art work in this zine are interdisciplinary reflections on …

Contemporary Human Displacement: A Comparative Analysis Of Syria, Yemen, Honduras, And Venezuela, Rav Carlotti

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

What is causing the surge in human displacement around the world? Large-scale displacement in Syria, Yemen, Honduras, and Venezuela has generated unprecedented humanitarian crises in Latin America and the Middle East as millions of displaced people end up as refugees or immigrants. Humanitarian organizations like the UNHCR and host countries have had their resources overextended by these ongoing crises, and there is no end in sight. This thesis shows that contemporary human displacement is rooted in the increasing inability of governments to manage their societies amid great political demands and socio-economics strains. These causes are difficult to tackle because they …

Unsettling: The Flawed Us Refugee System, Kanyakrit Vongkiatkajorn

Capstones

The US has had a long commitment to resettling refugees, and currently funds one of the largest third-country resettlement programs through UNHCR in the world. However, an examination of US's refugee resettlement program shows that the program often does not live up to its promises, and has long ignored systemic issues. This report takes a specific look at the experience of newly-resettled Syrian refugees, and includes memos by the author that was submitted for a larger group project.

On The Midnight Train To Georgia: Afro-Caribbeans And The New Great Migration To Atlanta, Latoya Asantelle Tavernier

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the 21st century, Atlanta, Georgia has become a major new immigrant destination. This study focuses on the migration of Afro-Caribbeans to Atlanta and uses data collected from in-depth interviews, ethnography, and the US Census to understand: 1) the factors that have contributed to the emergence of Atlanta as a new destination for Afro-Caribbean immigrants and 2) the ways in which Atlanta's large African American population, and its growing immigrant population, shape the incorporation of Afro-Caribbeans, as black immigrants, into the southern city. I find that Afro-Caribbeans are attracted to Atlanta for a variety of reasons, including warmer climate, job …

The Second Generation's Homeland Trips: A Parental Expectation For The U.S.-Born Children Of Mexican Immigrants In The South Bronx, Alexia Raynal

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

New deportation policies in the United States are making it harder for undocumented immigrants to return home periodically (Dreby 2013a). This has a direct impact on their children. Because parents can't travel, thousands of foreign-born minors have recently been forced to travel alone in hopes of reunification. Their U.S.-born counterparts face a similar challenge: immigrants' lack of mobility places a new expectation on them to visit relatives that were left behind. Unlike their parents, these children can move freely across borders and maintain family ties. This project explores the second generation's homeland trips as experienced by a small group of …

When Wives Migrate And Leave Husbands Behind: A Jamaican Marriage Pattern, Elaine B. Douglas-Harrison

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

For over a hundred years Jamaicans have been migrating to make the proverbial `better life' for themselves and their families. In the early 20th century husbands migrated, leaving wives behind. As economies of the United States and Canada have become more service-oriented, wives migrate leaving husbands behind. The experiences of Jamaican immigrant women are documented in Caribbean migration studies, but the marriages of Jamaican legally-married immigrant wives and their husbands left behind in Jamaica are so far unstudied. The main research question of this study is what maintains these transnational marriages over time, sometimes for decades, when spouses see each …

A Cross-Boundary People: The Commercial Activities, Social Networks, And Travel Writings Of Japanese And Taiwanese Sekimin In The Shantou Treaty Port (1895-1937), Lin-Yi Tseng

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation explores Japanese imperial history in East Asia and focuses on a group of "cross-boundary people"--Taiwanese sekimin (Taiwanese who registered as Japanese subjects) and Japanese--who went to the treaty port of Shantou in southern China during the period between 1895 and 1937. The starting time point (i.e., 1895) corresponds to the signing of the Treaty of Shimonoseki, by which Japan acquired Taiwan as a colony and informal privileges in Chinese treaty ports. The ending time point (i.e., 1937) corresponds to the decline that Shantou's Japanese community experienced owing to the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War on July 7, …