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“An Exercise In International Extortion”: Operation “Intercept” And Nixon’S 1969 War On Drugs, Justin M. Reid

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

When the former senator and vice president assumed the Oval Office in January 1969, President Richard M. Nixon inherited a nation in crisis with drugs playing a central role. At a campaign stop a few months earlier, Nixon announced to a packed convention center in Anaheim, CA, that if elected president he would end the flow of the illicit drugs coming into the United States “decimating a generation of young Americans.”

True to his word, Nixon moved aggressively after his election victory to refocus the federal drug enforcement bureaucracy on drug source control, blaming Mexico as the main culprit. On …

The Aesthetics Of The Mexican Public Garden And Its Photographic Compositions (1912-1982), Victor Hugo Rivera-Diaz

Masters Theses

In Mexico, there are currently several collections of photographs which depict the history and development of public gardens and ecological corridors under the management of the National Institute of Anthropology and History. By focusing on two exemplary collections—the Nacho López Collection and Vicente Luengas Collection—I apply a visual studies approach to the photographic archive in order to formulate the Mexican public garden as a branching set of aesthetic (sub-)categories, all of which take into account the creation of garden landscapes vis-à-vis land use policies and historical accounts during the rise of Mexican modernity. In so doing, the primary sub-categories of …

Paz Y Amor: The Making Of Mexican Hippie Culture, Allie R. Cobb

All Theses

Following the violent government massacre of students in October of 1968, Mexican youth turned away from organized protest and turned on to the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Timothy Leary to challenge established society. This project focuses on Mexican hippie culture and Mexican hippie identity. It argues that hippie culture flourished in Mexico because of the development of consumer society and offered a way for Mexican youth to rebel against traditional authority while feeling a part of an international youth culture and at the same time reshaping what nationalism meant to them. In other words, hippie culture offered youth a …