History Commons^™

Cultural Sovereignty And Cultural Violence: Native American Artists And The Dunn Studio, 1932-1962, Pamela Krch

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The early twentieth century engendered a period of profound change within the United States as industrialization, post-World War I miasma, and vigorous imperialism transformed the nation. The Southwest's Santa Fe provided a haven for the influx of White scientists, affluent socialites, and artists who sought authenticity through reinvention. Lighting upon the neighboring Indian communities, White elites soon appropriated Native culture, production, and imagery, seeing these as sources for nationalism, commodification, and as outlets for reformist aims. Art educator Dorothy Dunn stands as exemplary of the latter, as she fervently believed that the new genre of Native American easel art answered …

Containing Communism In Texas: How The Right Interpreted The Cold War, 1945-1965, Frank Delao Delao

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The United States Cold War policy was based on Containment: a strategy of containing communism where it existed and keeping it from spreading throughout the rest of the world. The Red Scare was a manifestation of the perceived failures to fully accomplish that goal. A belief existed that communists had infiltrated into the U.S. and were threatening to derail American society. In Texas, that fear was attached to changes taking place in society that either went against the status quo or simply threatened the traditional way of life in the state. The radical Right viewed communism as the main influence …

Birth Control On The Border: Race, Gender, Religion, And Class In The Making Of The Birth Control Movement, El Paso, Texas. 1936-1973, Lina Maria Murillo

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study examines the history of the birth control movement on the U.S-Mexico border from 1936 until 1973. Historians have focused on various aspects of the history of reproductive control and rights nationally, but none have analyzed the borderlands region in this regard. In order to address this absence in the historical literature, this study seeks to highlight the role of organizations, activists, and patients, specifically within the ethnic Mexican community as they defined reproductive control and rights along the Texas border. El Paso, Texas served as a major port of entry for Mexicans and other groups at the turn …

Drama A Flor De Piel: Fiestas, Capellanías Y Cofradías En San Joseph Del Parral, Chihuahua, Siglos Xvii Y Xviii, Juana Moriel

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Abstracto

Esta investigación utiliza el ritual religioso-universal del catolicismo para analizar la participación de grupos indígenas, mulatos, mestizos, y de las mujeres de la élite, en fiestas religiosas, cofradías y capellanías que tuvieron lugar en el pueblo minero de San Joseph del Parral a partir del primer tercio del siglo XVII y todo el siglo XVIII. Al utilizar el ritual como filtro, es posible observar que el pensamiento y el sentimiento barroco traído de España permitió la participación de los grupos mencionados. Con ésta ellos transformaron el ritual católico universal al hacerse una identidad y una memoria histórica que desde …

"Only Steers And Queers Come From Texas": The Texas Sodomy Statutes And The Making Of An Other, 1860-1973, Jecoa Ross

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Thesis explores the history of sodomy as it has been conceptualized through the creation and enforcement of the Texas sodomy statutes between 1860 and 1973. In analyzing state court cases, legislative records, and newspaper accounts, I argue that the evolution of the concept of sodomy from its inception as a broad criminal category in the 1860 Texas sodomy statute to its more-narrow conceptualization by Texas legislators as a behavioral characteristic of homosexual status in the 1973 homosexual conduct statute was a political and historically contingent process. This process was political firstly in that it allowed for the construction of …

Constructing A River, Building A Border: An Environmental History Of Irrigation, Water Law, State Formation, And The Rio Grande Rectification Project In The El Paso/Juárez Valley, Joanne Kropp

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The Rio Grande in the El Paso, Texas, U.S./Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico, Valley has a long history of human use from prehistoric to modern times. Formal irrigation began in the 1600s, mainly for viticulture, changing to cotton and pecans in the 1900s. The Rio Grande was subject to bed shifting and flooding that, after 1848, affected the location of the international boundary. During the Great Depression the U.S. and Mexican governments sponsored conservation projects to provide jobs and increase agricultural production. The 1933 “Convention - Rectification of the Rio Grande” was the culmination of interstate and bi-national agreements to divide Rio …

A Rhetorical Theory Of Institutions, Paul Jay Vierra

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

How an institution remembers itself affects its practices and the ensuing knowledge produced. This is a result of the differences between truths and knowledge, which are based on beliefs. Beliefs are defined using either pragmatic language, which is based on observations and can be justified, or fictive language, which cannot be justified. The practices of an institution can be affected by the beliefs of the institution, which in turn affects scholarship. Modern research universities, such as the University of Texas at El Paso, must turn their research gaze not only outward, but also inwards in order to better serve society. …

Art, Culture Making, And Representation As Resistance In The Life Of Manuel Gregorio Acosta, Susannah Aquilina

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Dissertation is a biography of Manuel Gregorio Acosta, an iconic Mexican American painter in the twentieth-century U.S.-Mexico borderlands. By gathering oral histories and examining Acosta's art, my study emphasizes his importance to the cultural changes of El Paso in the post WWII era. Acosta's biography yields a salient story about Mexican life in the U.S. Southwest and how Chicano/as contributed to American society. By exploring Acosta's expression of identity and tying his life to the broader border community that he represented, this study seeks to link his individual narrative with a more general comprehension of race, class, and sexuality. …

Strange Rumblings In El Chuco: Ruben Salazar Writes For The Prospector, 1947-48 & 1953-54, Gustavo Del Hierro

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The life of journalist Rubén Salazar is often linked to his time as a reporter/columnist for the Los Angeles Times during the Chicana/o Movement and his death at the Chicano Anti-War Moratorium in East Los Angeles on August 29, 1970. After his death, he became a martyr of the Chicana/o civil rights movement and his life and work have mostly been obscured by different attempts to personify him, overlooking aspects of his earlier life. Salazar was born in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico in 1928 and his family later moved to El Paso, Texas in 1929, where he was raised and educated. …