Latin American History Commons^™

Quisieron Enterrarnos, Pero No Sabían Que Éramos Semillas: The Ayotzinapa 43 And The Historical Legacy Of Las Escuelas Normales Rurales, 1921-2014, Noah A. García

Masters Theses

In September of 2014, forty-three normalistas from the Escuela de Ayotzinapa were forcibly disappeared. While their whereabouts remain unknown, the attacks and subsequential forced disappearances is but one of many attacks the escuela normal rural has faced since its formation in 1926. This thesis traces the development of rural education in the post-revolutionary Mexican State and how its development provides insight into the 2014 forced disappearances. Additionally, I examine how the Escuela de Ayotzinapa’s legacy of a socialist education has historically been opposed. During its early years of operation, this form of education was predominantly challenged by conservatives and Catholics. …

Riqueza Por Decreto: The Role Of Politics In Shaping The Banking Industry Of Pre-Revolutionary Mexico, Daniel Lorenzen

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis explores the nexus between politics and banking in pre-revolutionary Mexico, particularly during the Porfirian era. It scrutinizes how political entities molded the banking sector to consolidate authority and dictate economic policy. Through an analysis of historical documents, financial records, journal articles, and expert interviews, the study delineates the profound influence of legislative reforms on the evolution of Mexico's financial landscape and power structures.

Mexicanidad Y Negritud: Tracing The Cultural And Legal Exclusion Of Afro-Descendants In México., José A. Chiquito

CMC Senior Theses

In 2019, the Mexican National Congress amended Article 2 of the national constitution to recognize Afro-descendants as part of Mexico’s pluricultural constitution and grant them collective rights. With this, Mexico joined a group of five other Latin American countries to explicitly recognize Afro-descendants in the text of their constitution. Current Latin American scholarship analyzes Afro-descendant inclusion resulting from the creation of new multicultural constitutions. This literature, however, fails to take into consideration those cases where Afro-descendant inclusion happened via reforms to an existing constitution. This paper contributes to existing literature on constitutional multiculturalism by analyzing why the Mexican government recognized …

La Fiesta Del Espiritu Santo: An Original Work For Choir, Soloists, And Small Ensemble Influenced By The Santeria Music Of The African-Dominican Community In The Dominican Republic, Rafael Scarfullery

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

This study examines the role of Santería music as practiced by African Dominicans in Villa Mella, a neighborhood of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. This musical tradition comes from the culture and religion of the Yoruba people who were brought as slaves from Africa, and features complex drum rhythms and call-and-response chants. This paper deals with the historical and social context of Santería music within the Dominican Republic, but its principal objective is to adopt the musical language of this tradition and use it to create a new contemporary work for mixed choir and small ensemble.

One of the most …

Review Of The Book Denial Of Genocides In The Twenty-First Century, John A. Drobnicki

Publications and Research

Review of the book Denial of Genocides in the Twenty-First Century, edited by Bedross Der Matossian.

La Voz Fall 2023, El Instituto: Institute Of Latina/O, Caribbean, And Latin American Studies

La Voz

In this issue:

• Welcome our Newest Joint Faculty
• New Faculty Position to Support El Instituto’s Graduate Students
• Congratulations to Katerina Gonzalez Seligmann, 23-24 academic year Humanities Institute fellowship!
• The Black Arrow: Poetic reflections on the U.S. naval based in Guantánamo
• La comunidad intelectual
• The Puerto Rican Studies Initiative
• Update on El Instituto’s Future
• Spotlight: 23-25 MA Cohort

Mama’S Got A Brand New Degree: Education And Changing Perceptions Of Femininity During The Mexican Revolution (1910-1917), Eden E. Baize

The Cardinal Edge

Bloody struggles, tense political debates, and general unease characterized Mexico in the early twentieth century. Under former president Porfirio Díaz, tensions grew as the lower classes pleaded for labor and land reform, culminating in a violent period of revolution from 1910 to 1917. As with all conflicts of this scale, the Mexican Revolution prompted the challenging of many long standing social conventions, specifically as they pertained to the role of government and the organization of social classes. With the restructuring of society already underway, many activists capitalized on the uncertainty of the era to push against the subjugation of women. …

Disaffection And Othering: Beyond Our Coordinates, Christen Kadkhodai

War, Diplomacy, and Society (MA) Theses

"Othering” is just one of many tools nations use during war time to garner support for the war effort. “Othering” in media often goes undetected, a subtle framing of one’s own viewpoint as the viewpoint and the gaze, often at the exclusion and alienation of others. This collection of essays explores how individuals and institutions “Othered” during wartime. Essays “A Review of Walt Disney’s Life and ‘Othering’” and “Walt Disney’s ‘Reluctant Dragon’ and the 1941 Strike,” study how and why Walt Disney “Othered” certain audiences in his films The Reluctant Dragon, Saludos Amigos, and The Three Caballeros. …

Student And Youth Sandinistas In Nicaragua, 1979-2018, Viviana Alvarez Rodriguez

History in the Making

In June 1979, Sandinista forces in Nicaragua successfully overthrew a decades-long multi-generational United States-backed military dictatorship. The vanguard, a diverse coalition of secondary and university students, youth, clergy, and peasants, defeated the highly-trained Guardia Nacional (National Guard) and ended the authoritarian Somoza regime. This paper examines how Carlos Fonseca and other Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) leaders resisted the liberal reformist model inherited by student-youth of the late 1960s to demand a more radical political platform. By bringing a relatively isolated student movement into the masses, this paper seeks to understand how a privileged class of university students became …

Archivo Y Memoria: Una Mirada A Tres Historias De Mujeres Esclavizadas En El Virreinato De La Nueva Granada De Finales Del Siglo Xviii, Luisa Carolina Julio Gomez

Department of Modern Languages and Literatures: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Colonial documents preserve information that allows us to know the local Andean history of the Viceroyalty of New Granada. These manuscripts reveal forms of violence that shaped the subjectivities of the time and the resistance of oppressed women. This dissertation examines the effects of slavery and the response of three enslaved women to that colonial violence. This analysis seeks to better understand and make visible how the intersection between racism and patriarchy impacted the lives of three racialized women in the colonial context.

This dissertation focuses on the experiences, struggles, and resistance of three women present in the manuscripts consigned …

A Vision Without Borders: Magonismo And Mexican Women, Nallely Lozoya

Spectra Undergraduate Research Journal

Recent scholarship on the Magonista movement centers around the actions of the male leadership, without fully exploring their acceptance of women’s involvement. In fact, Mexican women, through this intelligentsia movement, were able to challenge social expectations and fully participate in political activism during the Mexican Revolution. As a result, Mexican women understood their political power, and were motivated to create radical movements of their own. In the end, Mexican women practiced a feminism that was concerned with multiple issues that impacted Mexican communities on both sides of the U.S-Mexico border. In this work, I closely analyzed contemporary speeches, correspondence and …

Empire At Play: The United States’ Cultural Influence On Nicaragua’S National Sports’ Identity, Jason R. Old

Selected Faculty Publications

‘Empire at Play’ seeks to contextualize the inception of a Nicaraguan surfing subculture in the first decade of the twenty-first century by situating it within the broader scope of the United States’ influence on Nicaragua’s sporting history. By weaving together primary and secondary sources, as well as oral histories from expatriate surfers, Nicaraguan nationals, and members from the local indigenous communities, this article shows how international actors from the United States introduced Nicaragua to three of their major sports: baseball, boxing, and surfing—all of which became part of Nicaragua’s cultural identity. As these three sports grew in popularity domestically, so …

Idiosyncrasy Of The State And God: An Analysis On Religiosity And Ideology In Latin America, James D. Fiorenza

Culture, Society, and Praxis

In this research paper, I will be analyzing the relationship between the religiosity of Latin America in terms of popular religion and religiosity of its followers, and how it has impacted and continues to impact the political systems of Latin America in terms of ideology. I will be conducting this research by conducting three case studies following the development of my hypothesis, my research of my case nations and the collecting of all needed data. After this, I will compare all my data and establish a well-developed conclusion which accurately conveys and demonstrates this data. My research will focus on …

The Jesuit Colleges That Weren't: Conewago Latin School And Guadalupe College, Michael Rizzi

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

This article offers a brief history of two obscure and often overlooked Jesuit schools from the nineteenth century: the Conewago Latin School in Pennsylvania and Guadalupe College in Texas. Although neither school ever fully developed into a true institution of higher education, they began life similarly to other Jesuit schools of the 1800s, and under different circumstances they might have evolved, like those other schools, into true American colleges. The purpose of this historical sketch is to preserve the memory of these nearly forgotten Jesuit institutions.

Jus Soli And Jus Sanguinis: Politics, Race, Culture, And Citizenship In The Dominican Republic And Haiti, Guido A. Proano

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The promulgation of laws such as the Dominican Republic’s Constitutional Court’s Judgment TC-168-13 serves as a basis upon which to argue the major impediments presented by the Dominican government to deny Haitians and Dominicans of Haitians descent citizenship. The right to citizenship is based on legal principles of jus soli and jus sanguinis and is recognized in a series of international legal documents. Following a Marxist framework, this research demonstrates the uncounted possible relationships between modern social forces and politics that have been working closely following European productions of knowledge for decades against Haitians and Dominicans of Haitian descent in …

Cultural Folk, Political Lore: The Politics Of Folklore During The United States Occupation Of Haiti From 1915 To 1934, Cheyla G. Muñoz Ramos

Honors Theses

My project focuses on Haitian folklore in the early twentieth century in connection to the first United States’ occupation of Haiti. The United States’ Marine Corps occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934. This nineteenth-year occupation brought violence and racial stereotypes towards the Haitian population, especially the peasantry. United States Americans coming to Haiti intensified these stereotypes. During this period, Haitian upper-and middle-class members heavily politized Haitian folklore and used it to defend Haiti against these stereotypes. Scholars have long discussed the anthropological works of ethno-anthropologist Jean Price-Mars as someone who tried to show the value of Haitian folklore, especially the …

The Impact Of Gender Roles, Political Environments, And Social Environments On Women Activists In Peru From The Mid-1800s To The Mid-1900s, Kathleen Johndrow

Great Plains Graduate Review

Going back into the colonial era, and certainly post-independence, women in Peru were discussing their political and civil rights, and questioning not only their status, but the status of workers, indigenous people, and those in poverty. In fact, within the handful of names that have appeared as well-known Peruvian women activists, they all concentrated on class as well as gender, and incorporated race in terms of indigeneity as well. In doing so, the women involved in working for increased equality created or joined different organizations over time. What led women to join one group versus another, and were there groups …

The African Diaspora In The Dominican Republic’S Culture: It’S More Prominent Than You Think, Yeseri Johenny Rosa Vizcaino

CISLA Senior Integrative Projects

In gran culmination, this paper was designed to illustrate and showcase the many different aspects of the African Diaspora in Dominican popular culture and history. First, since there is little direct intervention by outside groups and institutions in Afro-Dominican religion and music, these aspects of the African Diaspora have been syncretized from the Transatlantic Slave trade and Haitian occupation. Through the analysis of the history of Dominican Santeria, Salves, Palos Music, Merengue, and Mangulina, this paper illustrates the African Diapora's current influence. In this paper, I have explored those aspects of the Diaspora African that I researched during my Internship …

Constructing Memories Of The Civic-Military Dictatorship In La Plata, Argentina, 1976 To The Present, Anna Neubauer

Masters Theses, 2020-current

This thesis examines how different organizations constructed memories of the civic-military dictatorship in Argentina. Although Spanish language literature on this topic is very rich, not much English language scholarship is present in the historiography. Using a local history approach and by analyzing primary sources such as newspapers, memoirs, flyers, and police archives, this thesis demonstrates how two groups: the Unión de Estudiantes Secundarios (High School Students Union, UES) and the Montoneros in the city of La Plata drew on the history of their fallen comrades during the civic-military dictatorship to fight for a better future in Argentina.

Dulce Sueños De Tierra, Sweet Dreams Of Earth, Jordany Genao

Theses and Dissertations

Jordany's paper congregates their archival research into an art practice that examines the decolonial impulse to excavate the self and produce autonomy. Using ceramics to reference and re-animate Taino ritual objects found in museums, resulting in alternative museology, their work seeks to honor Caribbean ancestors by subverting colonial history.