Digital Commons Network^™

Dancing Mi Cultura: The Production Of Ethnic And National Identity In Midwestern Mexican-Americans Through The Performance Of Ballet Méxicano Folklórico, Katrina J. Frank

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis studies how Mexican Americans living in the northwest suburbs of Chicago produce connections to their Mexican heritage and culture through the performance of ballet Mexicano folklórico. Through ethnographic interviews of current and former folklórico dancers, as well as participant observation of adult folklórico dance practices, I contextualize the experiences of the interviewees using the anthropological theories of habitus, continuous and discontinuous selves, double-consciousness, liminality, and collective effervescence, as well as the works of Simone de Beauvoir, Michel Foucault, and Frantz Fanon, with the discussion of folklórico as an art, and the concept of institutional use of dance as …

Beyond Their Smiling Faces: Reconstructing The Remojadas Ritual And Culture Through The Sonrientes Figurines From The Mpm Collection, Abigail Munoz

Theses and Dissertations

Sonrientes (Smiling Faces) scholarship has waned after a brief period of archaeological interest in the mid to late 20th century by both Spanish and English language scholars. Since then, brief attention to these figurines in the Remojadas style, or similar, has been given when discussing the Classic Period on the Gulf Coast and few direct studies on their interpretation or reinterpretation have been given within the last few years. The present study attempts to contribute my own interpretation of these Remojadas-style figurines and answer five major questions driving my research: What kind of rituals did Remojadas or other people carry …

Screening Bodies: Post-Dictatorship Chilean Cinema, Elaine Joy (Ej) Basa

Theses and Dissertations

Censorship was the modus operandi during Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship. People and media alike suffered as the oppressive Chilean government suppressed many truths about the Coup, the torture and disappearance of victims and their families, and facts about the state violence that took place from 1973 to the late 1980s. The resulting trauma nurtured a culture of silence, a divided social fabric, and many gaps in historical knowledge. Those who absorbed the media experienced a lack of connection and identification with fabricated and falsified histories, thereby essentially cut off from truly engaging with the traumas of Chile’s dark history. The struggle …

Determinants Of Indigenous Rights Adoption In Latin America: Political Implications And Incrementalism 1960-2016, Samantha Ann Hagle

Theses and Dissertations

Broadly, this work asks: what leads to the varied political status of indigenous populations in Latin America? From a uniform point of political exclusion, in recent decades governments in the region have adopted various degrees of constitutional reforms to protect their original populations. Some indigenous populations in Latin America remain unrecognized, like those in Chile. Others have gained some recognition and access to equal democratic rights. In other countries, like Bolivia, indigenous peoples have the potential to gain constitutional autonomy and regional self-government for their communities. First, I argue that the rights expansion process depends partially upon the content of …

The Role Of Fake And Fraudulent Objects Within The Museum Context: A Case Study Of Tiwanaku Ceramics In The Milwaukee Public Museum Collection, Armando Manresa

Theses and Dissertations

During the 20th century thousands, if not millions, of fake and fraudulent artifacts made their way into museum collections around the world through purchases, donations, and museum exchanges. The growth in Pre-Columbian collections, in particular, was precipitated by the many archaeological discoveries during that time as well as the continued looting of known and unrecorded sites across Latin America. As authentic items flooded the collectors’ market and from there into art and natural history museums, a mass-scale industry in fake and fraudulent artifacts arose to meet the demand. These items were primarily created for tourists, but some artists became so …

Reproductive Rights In Puerto Rico: Sterilization, Contraception, And Reproductive Violence, María Estrella Sotomayor

Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS IN PUERTO RICO: STERILIZATION, CONTRACEPTION, AND REPRODUCTIVE VIOLENCE

by

María E. Sotomayor

The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2020

Under the Supervision of Professor Merry Wiesner-Hanks

Since the middle of the twentieth century, Puerto Rico has had the highest, or nearly the highest, rate of sterilization in the world. The reasons for this have been examined from many perspectives, but how this has affected Puerto Rican women has rarely been discussed nor have their voices been heard. This study focuses on the long-term effects of female sterilization on Puerto Rican women, and their perception about their options for contraceptive …

Divided Agencies: Internal Strife In The Fight Against Castro, Stephanie R. Schmidt

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines how the Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. State Department differed in their approaches to dealing with the Castro regime from 1959 through the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Using declassified documents from the CIA and State Department, I argue that the approaches of the CIA in dealing with the Castro regime were more aggressive than the approaches of the U.S. State Department. Many of the primary sources used in this work were accessed in the CIA electronic reading room and on the office of the historian website. The office of the historian is an …

“We Were The Outsiders And Treated As Such:” Community Activism And The Intersections Of Ethnicity, Gender, Class, And Race Among Latinas In Milwaukee, Patricia Torres Nájera

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes the activism of Latinas in Milwaukee during the 1970s and 1980s. I interviewed women involved in community organizing in that time and place; they shared with me their experiences, and their motivations related to community organizing campaigns. This dissertation explores how members of this group understood themselves to be outsiders, and how the shared outsider status among the Milwaukee Latinas and some white community organizers created solidarity to build Milwaukee’s Latin community. Drawing on in-depth interviews and archival research, I analyze the content of these stories, recognizing common issues of how each woman negotiated family, organizing campaigns, …

Ideology Versus Clientelism: Modernization And Electoral Competition In Brazil, Cássio Da Silva Muniz

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates how parties utilize the political dimensions of ideology (left-right) and clientelism (programmatic-patronage) to compete electorally in developing democracies. It proposes a combined utility theory, which suggests polarized competitive elections in modernizing national electoral markets compel programmatic parties to coalesce with clientelistic parties to gain access to regional private electoral markets. Methodologically, this study draws on a mixed-method approach focusing on Brazil as a crucial test case. It applies spatial voting models to assess the validity of ideological competition as well as geospatial voting distribution based on clustering and dispersion to devise a new quantitative measurement of clientelism …

José María Arguedas Y La Decolonialidad: Lectura De "Todas Las Sangres" Y "El Zorro De Arriba" Y "El Zorro De Abajo", Iván Andrés Espinosa Orozco

Theses and Dissertations

This project seeks to understand José María Arguedas’s literary production through the

lens of decolonial theory. The first chapter is an introduction to the objectives of this

project. Next, the second chapter is based on an approach to the concepts of decoloniality

and postcolonial studies, which serve as a theoretical background for the purpose of this

thesis. The third chapter is based on a decolonial reading of Arguedas’s "Todas las

sangres", which leads to problematize the aspects related to identity in Peru. The fourth

chapter is based on the analysis of Arguedas’s "El zorro de arriba y el zorro de …