Digital Commons Network^™

Same Air: Human Relationships In Playwriting, Nicole Cardenas

Theses and Dissertations

The culmination of the creative work and its introduction focus on human relationships, friendships, and the interactions and dynamics of individuals with traumatic experiences. The one act play explores how a secret can strain a group of friends, causing them to create their own realities to cope with the betrayal and guilt cultivated throughout time.

To reach my conclusions, I drew inspiration from various works, playwrights, and the words of other writers. My work is meant to showcase how fragile and resilient friendships are when faced with misunderstanding and lies.

The Blackbird Blood, Danielle Birnell

Theses and Dissertations

The Blackbird Blood is a novella length piece of young adult fiction. The piece not only includes themes dealing with coming of age such as love, complexities of relationships, and identity, but also touches on issues dealing with race and privilege. This coming of age novella explores these themes through the lens of teen characters navigating life on a military base in a country destroyed by war.

The Soft-Spoken Girl, Ashley Hernandez

Theses and Dissertations

This project is a collection of poetry that celebrates the power of the mujeres fuertes in my life, cultural expectations and prevalent barriers. It is set in the Rio Grande Valley where the unique blend of two cultures, caused much heartache and courage. Each poem in this collection weaves a coming of age story.

Music, Dance, And Tourism In Los Cabos, Mexico, Melanie E. Davis

Theses and Dissertations

For a thriving music and dance scene to flourish in tourist destinations, certain factors for performers must be present including economic stability, a baseline level of patronage, resilience to seasonal tourist fluctuations, and adaptation to demographic changes over time. In the Los Cabos arts community, local aesthetics are transformed and embodied by work of performers whose activities are multicultural and multilingual. Over the past fifty years, Los Cabos was transformed from a sleepy fishing village into a major international destination. The island-inspired arts scene includes live performances featuring cultural representations from other lands besides Mexico. Grounded in the humanities, I …

A Citrus Wildfire, Mark Anthony Lopez

Theses and Dissertations

An American Dream forged by greed. A family caught in the middle of a race war. A young boy trying to learn how to be a man. A Citrus Wildfire is a fiction novella that tells the story of a Mexican family struggling to survive in the Rio Grande Valley after their only source of income burns down, and the lengths they must go to in order to get the life they were promised.

A small preface from the author proceeds the work. This novella is inspired by many different authors and educators, as well as the Rio Grande Valley …

The Wound Of The Malinches [Las Heridas De Las Malinches], Leticia Margarita Lowry-Garcilazo

Theses and Dissertations

Since the foundation of Mexico, the Mexican culture has leaned towards chauvinism becoming a cruel and coward spectator of the violence perpetrated against women. As a survivor of violence, I was overwhelmed and tired of being blamed and told that I deserved what my abuser did to me and needed to get over it. I was told that as a woman I needed to suffer in silence – just as La Llorona. Because, as women, we are las Chingadas, we are Eve, we are Las Malinches.

As a statement to fight against my impotence, I created The Wound of The …

En La Guarida/Where The Wolves Eat The Lion, Jose Rodriguez Ventura

Theses and Dissertations

En la Guarida/Where the Wolves Eat the Lion is a work in the tradition of Latin-American hybrid literature. It transitions between prose, poetry, and prose-poetry, as it details the family history of its narrator and traces the South-to-North crossing Mexican immigrants undertake in order to pursue a better life north of the Reynosa/Hidalgo border. The thesis details the difficult life mothers, daughters, and sons face as they try to assimilate into the first-world, whether linguistically, or culturally. It is concerned with the power dynamics between men and women, fathers and mothers, and daughters and sons in Mexican American Culture in …

El Profesor De Danza, Jorge Saenz

Theses and Dissertations

Después del crimen cometido donde una familia entera ha sido masacrada, el autor decide entrevistar al criminal Ian Joseph quien ha sido recluido en un instituto psiquiátrico. La novela describe el recuento del paciente y el descenso a su propia locura, al tiempo que el autor va agregando aclaraciones a pie de nota. El lector se entera que una de las razones por las que Ian Joseph perdió la razón fue debido principalmente a la cantidad de libros que leyó. El viaje hacia la criminalidad de Ian Joseph también es un camino literario. En este transcurso y tras un desenlace …

Retratos De Las Criollas: Fashioning An Identity In Eighteenth-Century Bourbon New Spain And Peru, Daniel F. Ymbong

Theses and Dissertations

This master's thesis will examine the iconographies of elite Creole women in Bourbon eighteenth-century New Spain and Peru. This paper is a comparative study of the colonial regal portraits of elite Creole women with emphasis on preferences in: dress, hair, and accessories.

Much of the pictorial format is informed by European styles and decorum, that is the Spanish and Italian Renaissance in materiality. The prevailing silhouettes dictated by the French Bourbons are adapted, but strategically morphed an identity for the colonial elites, as there were different preferences for colors, accessories, and hair.

Desecration, Natalia T. Arredondo

Theses and Dissertations

Deacon Christopher, a soon-to-be-ordained Catholic priest, is faced with the reality of the sex scandals in the wake of his upcoming ordination.

My Culture Art In Healing Action, Fabian Chavarria

Theses and Dissertations

My Culture Art in Healing Action is the study of many visions, processes, and applications of art, the role of culture on the development on a personal, social, and multilevel of society development. Art has a major role in my life and my purpose as an artist is to advocate positive change on the lives of people around me, is my duty to promote the positive image of my people, by using my culture as a jump platform I would promote, family values, social structure, social conflict, social change, and the factors of personal development by incorporating my point of …

Design Of A Bedside Walker-Cane Hybrid To Aid Senior Adults Avoid Falls During Night Walks, Jorge L. Gutierrez

Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this research and development work is to design a device to help senior adults prevent fall during night walks indoors. The problem of elders falling at a night setting was found to be caused by the multiple environmental and medical conditions. The target demographic was found to be seniors from age 65 and older. Several occupational therapists and two physical therapists were consulted to gain knowledge on elders' behavior, possible improvements on current existing devices, and feedback regarding the early prototype built. Several products and patents were researched with a lack of findings on similar products that …