History Commons^™

Racial Injustice In Houston, Texas: The Mexican American Mobilization Against The Police Killing Of Joe Campos Torres, Melanie Rodriguez Rodriguez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study examines the Houston Police Departmentâ??s (the HPD) relations with the ethnic-Mexican community across four decades to consider how the police killing of Joe Campos Torres sparked a wave of protest that ensured that cityâ??s long history of police brutality against ethnic Mexicans and other minorities (especially African Americans) came to the forefront in Texas, if not the nation in general. The HPD was a mechanisms of the cityâ??s status quo that reinforced the racial dominance of white Houstonians. From 1940 to 1970, the HPD found it necessary to implement effective police models to control wayward minorities and uphold …

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. …

The Tigua Indians Of Ysleta Del Sur: A Borderlands Community, Scott C. Comar

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Dissertation offers a broad community history of the Tigua Indians of Ysleta del Sur Pueblo from colonial contact to their federal recognition in 1987. Considering Tigua history in a Borderlands context, it explores the interaction between community and identity. Here I argue that the Tiguas persisted through Spanish, Mexican, and American colonization because various identity markers involving place, interaction, and shared culture enhanced their community identity as an Indigenous people. This Dissertation also examines how social upheaval, migrations, and land dispossession impacted the Tiguas in various contexts, as well as some of the ways in which they adapted to …

"What, To A Prisoner, Is The Fourth Of July?": Mumia Abu-Jamal And Contemporary Narratives Of Slavery, Luis Omar Ceniceros

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Writing from a specifically Black postmodern perspective, former death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal composes his multimedia slave narrative as a postmodern Neo-slave narrative. From the Atlantic slave-trade to the United States prison-industrial complex, from Quobna Ottobah Cugoano to Mumia Abu-Jamal, the slave narrative exists as a critique against oppressive State powers and a collective affirmation of interiority and embodied significance. For Abu-Jamal, his incarceration is indicative of an ever-pervasive capitalist power-structure that in the past has, in the present is, and in the future will control designated groups of made marginalized masses in order that preeminent capitalist beneficiaries preserve elite …

At The Intersection Of Deferred Action For Childhood Arrivals, The Migration Trust Network And Labor, Mario Javier Chavez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study unpacks the intersection of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the Migration Trust Network and Labor. I use 9 in-depth qualitative interviews to address how such policies are affecting the labor acquisition and labor outcomes of DACA recipients. The Migrant trust network remained important for DACA recipients, although in a more indirect and macro-level way than described in Flores-Yeffal (2013). In particular, DACA recipients relied on the collective efficacy embedded within the community to facilitate their job search. Additional, migrant trust networks function differently according to the DACA recipients' level of education, but to fully benefit from the advantages …

Memory, State Violence, And Revolution: Mexico's Dirty War In Ciudad Juárez, Vanessa Claire Johnson

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

After the uprising that took place in Madera, Chihuahua on September 23, 1965, the first armed challenge to the state since the Mexican Revolution, the north became a region of historical significance for understanding the subsequent "Dirty War" that spanned from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. Ciudad Juárez was a key locale in which a wide variety of revolutionary groups conducted both open and clandestine activities. Attempting to rouse the masses, a dedicated few organized protests, counter-meetings, popular assemblies, and launched a prepa popular to reorganize and democratize education. The Mexican state responded to these events with repression, …

Zapatistas: Vida Cotidiana Durante La Revolución Mexicana, Alejandro Rodriguez-Mayoral

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

"Zapatistas: Vida cotidiana durante la Revolución Mexicana" consiste en una historia social y cultural que abarca desde 1910 hasta 1920. Esta historia reconstruye la vida cotidiana de hombres y mujeres que vivieron de cerca la revolución zapatista en Morelos, el Estado de México y el Distrito Federal. De esta manera, aquí se inspecciona a revolucionarios zapatistas, soldados zapatistas de "medio tiempo" y pacíficos. La preocupación principal que atiende la presente pesquisa es responder a la interrogante ¿cuándo, cómo y de qué manera la vida cotidiana cambió para la gente común y corriente, y rebelde, a raíz de la revolución? A …

La Otra Frontera: Exiles, Engineering, And State Power In The Chiapan Borderlands, Aaron Margolis

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Dissertation examines the political, cultural, and economic history of the Chiapan borderlands from its political incorporation into the post-independence Mexican state in 1821 until the arrival of Guatemalan refugees in the 1980's. This history is explored through the directives, interactions, and policies of officials from Mexico City as the borderlands drifted in and out of the orbit of the priorities of the changing governments of independent Mexico.

A large part of the Dissertation examines how the post-revolutionary Mexican state re-discovered and conceptualized the borderlands as a both a threat to national security and a potential site of energy derived …

The Changkufeng And Nomonhan Incidents - The Undeclared Border War And Its Impact On World War Ii, Tobias Block

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Nomonhan and Changkufeng

Immediately following the Mukden Incident in 1931 and the founding of Manchukuo, the Japanese supported puppet state in northeastern China, the Imperial Japanese Army found itself again face to face with their old enemy Russia, now the Soviet Union. The border disputes between these two countries would soon become armed conflicts. The Japanese Korea Army as well as the Kwantung Army, stationed in Manchuria, would soon follow a policy of limited war against the Soviet Red Army, here in particular during the battles of Changkufeng, in 1938, and Nomonhan in 1939.

These two battles proved to be …

The Argentine Tango As A Discursive Instrument And Agent Of Social Empowerment: Buenos Aires, 1880-1955, Lorena Elizabeth Tabares

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

As an indisputable central element of Argentine popular culture, the tango constitutes much more than an artistic expression or a recreational activity. It is the manifestation of a collective ideology and idiosyncrasy. The development of the tango as a song of the people and social history between the 1880's and the first half of the 20th century, was not merely the result of a matter of identification but more importantly, the fact that it, in its `tridimensionality' comprised of music, dance and lyrics, offered the milieu to the existence of the people that identified with it. In other words, the …

Unspoken Prejudice: Racial Politics, Gendered Norms, And The Transformation Of Puerto Rican Identity In The Twentieth Century, Cristóbal A. Borges

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The Dissertation uses border theory to craft a comparative study that explores the promotion of the white jí­baro in Puerto Rico throughout the twentieth century and the challenges to that racialized identity that emerged simultaneously. Through a biographical approach that examines the lives of José Julio Henna (1848-1924), Arturo Alfonso Schomburg (1874-1938), Muna Lee (1895-1965), Juano Hernández (1896-1970), Ruby Black (1896-1957), Luis Muñoz Marí­n (1898-1980), Pura Belpré (1899-1982), Inés Mendoza (1908-1990), and Roberto Clemente (1934-1972) as symbols of Puerto Ricanness and contributors to its definition, the Dissertation analyzes the racial and gendered inequalities that persisted during twentieth century Puerto Rico. …

Illicit Inhabitants: Empire, Immigration, Race, And Sexuality On The U.S.-Mexico Border, 1891-1924, Irma Victoria Montelongo

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

On any given day and at any given location, the residents of El Paso, Texas see Border Patrol agents, city police, sheriff's deputies, DEA agents, and FBI agents, ICE agents, DPS officers, and U.S. Marshalls, as well as a full display of military personnel. To understand how this location functions vis-Ã -vis the residents and law enforcement and social control we must think of the U.S.-Mexico border as a line of ingression heavily guarded from those considered dangerous, defective, and diseased. Immigrant bodies, seen as inferior and disposable, are often subjected to insidious levels of racist, classist, and sexist rhetoric …

Reinventing The Old West: Concordia Cemetery And The Power Over Space, 1800-1895, Nancy Gonzalez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Utilizing Concordia Cemetery as a framework, this study analyzes the social and economic development of El Paso County and the surrounding areas after the U.S.-Mexico War (1846-48). The cemetery was a vast commercialized zone before it was a burial ground, and silenced histories, voices, and people that lived and thrived on this land are incorporated into this work. The role of the original owners, Hugh Stephenson and Juana Maria Ascarate, as well as the Mexican networks, intermarriage and Mexican American women, and the presence of ethnic Mexicans are subjects that are also examined. In addition, this Dissertation interrogates the pioneer …

Textbooks, Teachers, And Compromise: The Political Work Of Freedmen Education, Ashley Marie Swarthout

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

After the end of the Civil War, Northerners flooded into the South in order to participate in the education of freedmen. While many, perhaps most, of the individuals who worked in freedmen education had the best interests of the freedmen in mind, freedmen education in of itself was inherently political; therefore, all contributors to freedmen education were also sponsors of Southern Reconstruction politics. It is my argument that the aid organizations (particularly the American Missionary Association and the American Freedmen's Union Commission), the writers and printers of freedmen-specific textbooks (the American Tract Society and Lydia Maria Child), and the teachers …

Routes Of Compromise: Road Building And Motor Transportation In Modern Mexico, 1920-1952, Michael K. Bess

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

"Routes of Compromise" studies the creation and function of the government bureaucracy that built motor roads and highways, and the everyday impact of those roadways on public life in Mexico. It covers roughly thirty years of construction efforts from 1920 to the early 1950s as foreign and domestic actors, working at the transnational, national, state, and local levels, established a series of policy and investment programs that became the primary model for infrastructure development in Mexico during the mid-twentieth century. Road building offers a unique perspective to the study of Mexican state formation, underscoring how the national government sought to …

Competing Visions: The Politics Of Racial And Ethnic Identity Formation And Land Use In Pasadena, 1771-1890, Yvette Jeanne Saavedra

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This project studies the competing visions of land use and racial/ethnic exclusion in Pasadena, California throughout the period from 1771-1890. This work examines how the landscape of the San Gabriel Region during the Spanish, Californio, and American Period reflects culturally subjective ideas about race and visions of optimal land use. It looks at the links between the racialization of space and people and interrogates how racial and cultural attitudes regarding optimal land use constructed the social identities of those who lived in the region. By looking at the continuities that exist between Spanish, Californio, and American attitudes regarding land use …

Mouth To Mouth, Blake Nemec

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

NA

An Empirical Analysis Of The Migratory Flows To The United States, Felipe Isaias Galan Uribe

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Migration is generally regarded as an investment decision. Costs and gains from relocating are employed to explain migratory flows. Labor market conditions are important in defining such gains and costs. Labor markets are affected by regulatory burdens. This study is an analysis the effect of labor markets restrictiveness on migrations. Data from Doing Business are employed to describe the labor market situation in 168 countries during the year 2010. The United States is employed as benchmark of an open economy attracting migrants. Outcomes are somewhat ambiguous. Sime regulations are found to lead to more migration, while other actually help to …

Mexican Immigrants´ Foodways In El Paso, Texas, 1880-1960s: Identity, Nationalism, And Community, Juan Manuel Mendoza Guerrero

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Although food for Mexican immigrants in El Paso has been through history, with their differences in time, a very important element of their culture, while site that has influenced identity, sense of nation and community, academic studies for this geographic area and for this specific group, are almost nil. This dissertation aims to contribute something to fill this gap. Here, it discusses the historical changes and continuities of Mexican food from 1880 to 1960s, during which time retention, cultural assimilation, and inventive were part of the many processes experienced for Mexican immigrants in their relation with food. The most important …

Targeting Minorities: An Inductive Exploration Of The Fbi's Impact On Social Movements (19602-1970s), Crystal Jewel Bustillos

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This work undertakes the daunting task of examining the role of the FBI in targeting social movements which occurred during the 1960s and 1970s. It further explores the impact this targeting had on the Chicano movement by drawing comparisons between what transpired with the Chicano movement and comparing it to the African American movement. To this end, various archival data was gathered as well as primary sources and expert interviews.

The Rhetoric Of Construction: A Comparative Case Study Of The Language Of The U.S. - Mexico And Israel - Palestine Border Walls, Jesse Adam Kapenga

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This research examines the language and rhetoric of fear used to justify the walls and fences built by the American government along the U.S. - Mexico border, and by the Israeli government around the Occupied Palestinian Territories. It focuses specifically on the rhetoric used by the head of government of each country (the American president and the Israeli prime minister) during the years 2001-2011 to explain and justify the construction of a physical barrier as a measure of national defense and self-preservation.

Managing Internal Migration In Modern China: Regional Interests And Forced Removal, 1949-2010s, Bryan Winter

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This thesis explores how the People's Republic of China (PRC) has attempted to halt internal migration, particularly rural-to-urban migration, in order to maintain socio-political control, and how by the mid-1980s migrant laborers from the countryside had unintentionally created conflicts between authorities from different regions of the country who were either for or against large-scale migration. With the advent of a more open market system that was created after the economic reforms began in 1978, we see that the migrants' movements exposed the differing economic situations of the wealthier coastal provinces and the poor inland ones. This, in turn, led to …