Digital Commons Network^™

Iggy Azalea: Cultural Appropriator Or Scapegoat For Accepted Practice?, Malorie Marshall

Capstones

Iggy Azalea isn’t the first artist to profit from a entertainment persona that differs from her “real” personality. But the fact that Azalea is a white woman profiting by employing a fake “black” sound wrought through appropriating is what seems to angers people more than the quality of Azalea’s music, or anything else about her.

Well-Born: Black Women And The Infertility Crisis No One Is Talking About, Kaara Baptiste

Capstones

Black women are twice as likely to experience infertility than white women, but are less likely to seek treatment or to have successful fertility results once treated. Despite this alarming number, this topic is not often discussed, even among the black community. My narrative piece t tells the story of a black woman confronting her infertility diagnosis and the role her race played in her fertility treatment, while exploring the role racism and sexuality have had in keeping this issue in the shadows.

Dead Women And White Men: Why Are Today’S Hit Noir Shows Still Stuck In The Gender/ Race Politics Of The ‘40s And ‘50s?, Zainab Akande

Capstones

Critically acclaimed TV noir programs such as “True Detective,” “House of Cards” and “Hannibal” provide complex narratives with compelling characters, but fail to take full advantage of gender & race diversity.

Crescent City Nightingales: Gender, Race, Class And The Professionalization Of Nursing For Women In New Orleans, Louisiana, 1881-1950, Paula A. Fortier

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Through the examination of primary sources largely overlooked by historians, this dissertation traces the professionalization of nursing in New Orleans, Louisiana, from 1881 to 1950 while placing this localized history within the context of national trends. In the late nineteenth century, nursing developed into a middle class profession for women inspired by the careers of Florence Nightingale and Clara Barton. This dissertation investigates the process by which women became professional nurses while a complex intersection of issues related to gender, race, and class at times advanced, and at other times, hindered their progress towards professionalization. New Orleans serves as a …

Who Let The Elephant In The Room? Analyzing Race And Racism Through A Critical Family Literacy Book Club, Lamar L. Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to interpret, investigate, and analyze how race, racism, and power are embedded and intertwined not only in society but also in the education system and in homes and communities. Specifically, through parent and student engagement during a series of book club meetings, I investigated how parents’ racial identities impacted how they created critical dialogue pertaining to issues of race, racism, and power with their children. Guided by critical race pedagogy, critical race theory (CRT) and CRT methodology, this study used race as a critical analytic lens to examine the lives and work of people …

"I Don't Want To Hurt Anyone's Feelings": Using Race As A Writing Prompt In First Year Writing, Dianna Shank

Dissertations

First Year Composition (FYC) is one of the most important courses for any incoming college student. This course (often designated as English 101) provides students the rhetorical tools to fully engage in critical thinking and writing on the college level. One of the most common methods of organizing FYC is to use a topic as the center of all the reading and writing prompts. The use of outside subject matter to teach FYC is a common practice that is rarely interrogated for its effectiveness. However, the Hairston debate in the early 1990s opened up a public discussion of how FYC …

Constructing Loyalty, Citizenship, And Identity: A Rhetorical History Of The Japanese American Incarceration, Kaori Miyawaki

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation reexamines loyalty, citizenship, and identity in the United States by closely reading historical materials about the Japanese American incarceration. The Japanese American incarceration is a unique and important historical event for studying citizenship and identity, since it was a moment in the U.S. history that citizens of the country were incarcerated by their government. This raises a larger question beyond the incarceration. What does it mean to be a loyal American citizen?

By closely analyzing texts generated by the U.S. government, the Japanese American community, and White American photographers, I identify multiple, conflicting meanings and implications behind the …

All-American Vacationland: African American, Puerto Rican, And Italian Resorts In The Catskill Mountains, 1920-1980, Laura A. Miller

Doctoral Dissertations

In the twentieth century, New York State’s Catskill Mountain resort area was an “All-American” vacationland. Each summer, many different racial and ethnic minorities sought a brief respite from their lives and labor in New York City at boarding houses, resorts, and bungalows scattered throughout the mountains. Collectively, these groups contributed to the development of a highly segregated resort area that reflected, on an exaggerated scale, the racial, ethnic, and class divisions within New York City and the nation as a whole in the twentieth century. This dissertation examines the Catskills resort landscape through a comparative analysis of African American, Puerto …

Resurrection: Representations Of The Black Church In Contemporary Popular Culture, Rachel J. Daniel

Doctoral Dissertations

From 1997 to 2013, there have been multiple representations of the black church in popular culture. African American artists have always explored spirituality within black communities; in the late 20^th and early 21^st centuries, however, the increasing fame of Tyler Perry, T.D. Jakes, Steve Harvey, and other prominent African American Christians has placed black church culture on the center stage of American mainstream media. This dissertation examines contemporary black Christian popular fiction, stage performances, black church films, and rap music. These representations demonstrate that black church culture is distinct from secular black popular culture and white evangelical Christian …

Reconstructing The Nation: African American Political Thought And America's Struggle For Racial Justice, Alex Zamalin

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines how twentieth-century African American intellectuals engaged American political cultural beliefs central to American identity. A prominent argument of American political thinkers has been that the liberal-democratic ideals of freedom, equality, representative government, the rule of law, tolerance and civic obligation are what make Americans a unique people. From the immediate aftermath of the Second World War to the late twentieth-century such an argument provided American politicians, social movements and intellectuals a strong justification for divergent political claims, from Cold War warriors calling for the containment of Soviet Communism, to Civil Rights activists calling for racial integration to …

The Struggle For Recognition: Muslim American Spokesmanship In The Age Of Islamophobia, Nazia Kazi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The events of 9/11/2001 intensified the hypervisibility of U.S. Muslims, making them the subject of academic, artistic, and cultural curiosity. Alongside this public hypervisibility came a campaign of institutionalized Islamophobia, manifest in such measures as the anti-Muslim legislation of the USA PATRIOT Act. The result for Islamic Representative Organizations (or IRO's) was that combatting Islamophobia became a central concern. In this dissertation, I consider the multifaceted and complicated politics of representation used by IRO's in the aftermath of 9/11. I consider both the negative, or Islamophobic, and the so-called positive, or Islamophilic, representations of U.S. Muslims in the discourse of …

Revisioning Reality: Normative Resistance In The Cultural Works Of The Lincoln Motion Picture Company, Nella Larsen, And Allan Rohan Crite, 1915-1945, Andrea L. Mays

American Studies ETDs

Despite the fact that nineteenth and twentieth century biologist and Social Darwinists theories of race have been dispelled, the social residue of white supremacist ideologies continue to have social and political implications throughout American society. America's racial hierarchy, and whiteness as a social and racial construct instantiated within it, against which every other group of people has been relationally situated, has helped not only to define non-white racial subjects in inferior terms, it has also guaranteed a perpetuation of race-based structural and social inequalities in United States of America. African American Studies, Critical Race Theory, Whiteness Studies, and most recently …

Intimate Gestures: Race, Photography, And Spectatorship In Tijuanas Dumps And Irregular Settlements, George Luna-Peña

American Studies ETDs

Through a sustained engagement with the theoretical work of Roland Barthes and Frantz Fanon, this thesis traces the complicated lines of connection linking photography, racial difference, spectatorship, and self-making in Tijuana's dumps and irregular settlements. Understanding photography as a space and form of life and social death, this thesis explores the photographic work of two photographers in Tijuana that pictures the lives of those living in poverty: John Leuders-Booth and Ingrid Hernandez. Of these photographic projects, the thesis asks: How does the spectatorial relationship that is triggered by a photograph also initiate a relationship of value, where one side of …

Closing The Health Disparities Gap Between African American Mothers And Infants And Their Racial And Ethnic Counterparts In Correspondence With The Santa Clara County’S Black Infant Health Program, Hannah Wikkeling

Master's Projects and Capstones

Health disparities and inequities that affect the African American (includes those who consider themselves of African descent and/or Black individuals) women and their babies appear to be less dependent upon age, economic status, or education, as once considered previously. Further, it was thought that the prevalence of diseases and ill health were only attributed to poverty, lack of education/resources and social support. However, although these factors can cause the pervasiveness of disease, there are larger forces at play. Even when African American women have a pregnancy at an optimal age, are well educated, and have adequate income, poor birth outcomes …

A Descriptive Review Of Successful Transfer Grade Point Average At Meridian Community College 2004-2009, Amy Aniece Wolgamott

Theses and Dissertations

In this educational study, the student population at one of the state’s 15 community colleges was the target over a 5-year period (FY 2004-FY2009). Four variables (gender, race, socioeconomic status, and enrollment status were studied to predict if they had any affect on a student’s transfer grade point average. In 4 out of the 5 years in the study, this institution had the highest transfer grade point average as compared to native students at the state’s 8 universities. The purpose of this study was to examine the student population and look at four student variables to see if any were …

Understanding Racial Differences In College Student Departure, Reid Garber Dickerson

Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this paper is to understand the emergence of racial disparities in college student departure trajectories during the first year of college. Race, social class background, precollege academic preparation, expectations, integration into the university, and method of tuition payment are all variables used to explain three types of student departures. During the first year, students either remained at their initial institution, transferred horizontally, reverse transferred, or dropped out. The bivariate results from the multinomial logistic regression demonstrate that Black students have nearly twice the odds of dropping out compared to White and Asian students. This racial disparity is …

The Impact Of Race On Strickland Claims In Federal Courts In The South, Wyatt Gibson

Theses and Dissertations

The primary goal of this study was to examine the legal and extralegal factors that lead to positive outcome Strickland claims. Specifically, the initial purpose of the research was to test whether a defendant’s race affects his/her likelihood of receiving a positive outcome Strickland claim in the South. Prior literature has indicated that black defendants are more likely to receive the death penalty than white defendants, but this study did not find that race is a significant factor in determining the likelihood of a positive outcome Strickland claim in Southern circuits. Of the 207 Strickland claims studied across the Fourth, …

Do Americans’ Perceptions Of The Prevalence Of Prejudice Impact Their Racial Policy Preferences? Investigating Meta-Stereotypes As A Potential Causal Mechanism, Alexandra Reckendorf

Theses and Dissertations

Racial discrimination, though more subtle than in the past, is still an enduring presence in 21st century America. Whether looking at education, health care, the workforce, housing/lending practices, or the criminal justice system, studies routinely confirm that racial prejudice and discrimination persist despite claims of a “post-racial” America. Yet, despite the perseverance of racial prejudice and discrimination, policies correcting racial injustice remain contentious, either failing to receive the requisite support to pass reforms or receiving backlash from the public. This project explores meta-stereotypes in the Black and white communities, and highlights meta-stereotypes’ potential impact when determining why some individuals support …

A Different Kind Of Race: How Native Racial Practice Affected Kinship In The Borderlands Of The Old Northwest, 1778-1813, Alexis Helen Smith

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis discusses changes in native racial practice in the Ohio River Valley and lower Great Lakes from 1778-1813. In this region, Native peoples altered their identities and racial practices in order to navigate an environment where Euro-Americans threatened their way of life and their land. They cultivated a pan-Indian identity in order to fight against westward expansion, making the isolation of "others" a typical function of kinship practices. While recognizing the racial hierarchy of whites, Native peoples created their own racial thought and practices, integrating their beliefs into their kinship structures, daily lives, and identities. As pan-Indianism evolved, "white" …

At The Margins Of The Plantation: Alternative Modernities And An Archaeology Of The "Poor Whites" Of Barbados, Matthew Connor Reilly

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation is an historical archaeological examination of the "poor whites" or "Redlegs" of Barbados. Excavations were undertaken from October 2012 to July 2013 in an abandoned tenantry, Below Cliff, on the east coast of the island, once inhabited by dozens of families locally referred to as the "poor whites" or "Redlegs", said to be the descendants of seventeenth century European indentured servants. Combining archaeological, ethnographic, and historical methodologies, this dissertation explores class relations of Below Cliff residents to processes of capitalism as well as other island laborers, including Afro-Barbadians. Additionally, racial categories are interrogated through an analysis of complex …

Internalized Oppression, Restricted Affection, And Psychological Distress In Asian And Latino Men Who Have Sex With Men, Nicholas S. Bishop

Masters Theses

Research on internalized oppression in intersecting identities remains vitally important for the mental health of minority individuals. This study investigates the mediating effect of restriction of affectionate behavior on the relationship between multiple oppressions (i.e, internalized racism, internalized heterosexism, and internalized sexism) and psychological distress in 172 Asian (n = 57) and Latino (n = 115) men who have sex with men. Data were collected using online snowball sampling via Facebook and listservs. Findings revealed that internalized racism and internalized heterosexism were related to psychological distress, and that restrictive affectionate behaviors with other men fully mediated these relationships. That is, …

Counter Culture Youth: Immigrant Rights Activism And The Undocumented Youth Vanguard, Rafael A. Martinez

American Studies ETDs

This thesis offers a social, historical, and political analysis of the Undocumented Youth Movement from 1986 to 2012 for the purposes of understanding how the movement carved out spaces of social belonging that problematized punitive immigration legislation and traditional understandings of citizenship. In particular, I argue that undocumented youth challenge the social binary of deserving and underserving citizenry by positing a counter cultural critique of U.S. immigration policies and the organizations that support or challenge these policies. By counter culture I mean the ways in which undocumented youth combat normative cultural integrations into the broader society and therefore do not …

Negotiating Muslim Womanhood: The Adaptation Strategies Of International Students At Two American Public Colleges, Amber Michelle Gregory

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

From a Western perspective, North Americans and Western Europeans perceive Muslim women as being oppressed (Andrea 2009; Lutz 1997, 96; Ozyurt 2013). Led by this assumption, some view studying abroad as an international student as an experience that allows Muslim women the opportunity to "escape" this supposed oppression and to know "freedom" in the U.S. However, Muslim women's experiences are more dynamic and complex than this dualism suggests. In this thesis, I explore adaptation strategies of Muslim women international students, and how gender, race, and religion affect their experiences while abroad. Furthermore, I explore the women's use of emotion management …

Bet Lee: An American Civil War Novella, Tamara J. Lafountain

MAIS Projects and Theses

An estimated 400 women disguised themselves as men to fight in the American Civil War. Though the war ended nearly 150 years ago and over 65,000 books have covered every aspect of the subject in that time, only a handful of recent works have explored the subject of the female civil war soldier. The vast majority of these women lived in secret; and, since secrets kept are difficult to research, it is likely that the published historical studies on the subject have found all that can be discovered (Leonard, 1999; Cooke and Blanton, 2002; Hall, 2006). This novella takes what …

Don't Push Me Over The (Knowl)Edge: The Social Correlates Of Latino High School Dropouts, Robert Charles Baskerville

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

According to the forecast of the US Census Bureau, Latinos are the largest, fastest-growing ethnic group within the United States today and will comprise the majority of the US labor force sometime during the mid-21st century. Yet today, the youth of this diverse segment of the population are plagued by alarmingly high high school dropout rates, about double that of African-Americans youth and triple that of white youth. This yawning disparity prompts the examination of the social conditions contributing to this social crisis. How do demographic, aspirational, school-level, and socioeconomic variables affect the decision that so many Latino youth make …

Reading Nation In Translation: The Spectral Transnationality Of The Malaysian Racial Imaginary, Fiona Hsiao Yen Lee

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In recent decades, literary studies has experienced a global turn, often understood as a move beyond national paradigms of analysis, which are deemed to be narrow and particularistic. Although wary of the tacit universalizing tendencies of global frames, scholars of race and postcoloniality have critically embraced the global by arguing for the need to theorize transnationalism from marginalized perspectives. However, casting the global and the national in oppositional terms ignores the fact that national racial ideologies both actively shape and are shaped by globally circulating ideas about race. An understudied site in postcolonial studies, Malaysia--formerly known as Malaya--is an exemplary …

African American Muslim Fathers And The Factors That Influence Their Notion Of Fatherhood, Usama M. Hussein

College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences Theses and Dissertations

This is a qualitative study that explores African American Muslim father notion of fatherhood. Sixteen African American Sunni Muslims participated in the study. Over 90 percent of the research respondents are converts to Islam. These men perceive their conversion as a reclaiming of their heritage stripped from them when their African ancestors were forcibly taken from Africa and brought to America as slave. While this group of father have been omitted from researchers attention, they are integral members of the African American community. By making Islam the center of their lives these African American Muslim fathers see an active relationship …

The Effect Of Race On Pretrial Detention In The Juvenile Justice System: A Meta-Analysis, Julie Griggs

Doctoral Dissertations

Research has shown that youth of color are over-represented at every stage of the U.S. juvenile justice system. Over the last several decades, researchers have generated an immense body of literature in search of contributing factors but have yet to agree on the reasons for this disparity. Single studies rarely resolve the inconsistencies of social science research. Because of prior limitations in extant reviews, this study fulfills the need for a comprehensive empirical review of racial and ethnic disparities in the juvenile justice system by systematically reviewing all available research (both published and unpublished) that met eligibility criteria. There are …

The Effect Of Stereotype Confirmation Concerns On Fear Of Negative Evaluation And Avoidance For Those With Social Anxiety Disorder, Suzanne Johnson

Psychology Theses

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between stereotype confirmation concerns (SCC) and fear of negative evaluation (FNE). It is hypothesized that SCC will predict FNE, and that this effect will be moderated by race, such that SCC and FNE will be stronger among African Americans than among European Americans. A sample of 53 Caucasians and 41 African Americans were diagnosed with social anxiety. A hierarchical multiple regression was run to predict FNE with SCC, race, and the product of the two. The final model explained 27.9% of the variance in participants’ FNE. Race significantly moderated the …

The Effects Of School And Neighborhood Characteristics On Delinquency, Drug And Alcohol Issues, Early Childbearing, And Welfare Receipt, Bobette Otto

Sociology Dissertations

Little research has examined the impact of school and neighborhood racial composition on delinquency, arrest, incarceration, drug issues, early childbearing, and welfare collection. The purpose of this study is to explore these particular relationships. For this project, I use Add Health data. Based on past literature and theories concerning the consequences of racially segregated schools and neighborhoods, I hypothesized that students who attended/lived in schools/neighborhoods with a higher concentration of racial minorities would be more likely to participate in delinquent acts, get arrested, be incarcerated, have issues with drugs and alcohol, have a teenage pregnancy (or their partner did), and …