Chicana/o Studies Commons^™

Cosmic Desert Art, Mike Graham De La Rosa

Chamisa: A Journal of Literary, Performance, and Visual Arts of the Greater Southwest

The Cosmic Desert are the designs inspired by chile hallucinations, desert creatures, and the long weird neon nights in the Borderworld. Made with love on the banks of the Rio Grande.

My family is originally from Northern Mexico but I grew up in Northern New Mexico down river of both where Al Hurricane and Nuclear Annihilation were originally created. Amongst chollas, rattle snakes, and river willow, the imagining of New Mexico permeates the landscapes. The Cosmic Desert is inhabited lowriders, taco trucks, neon adobe bars, cholas, native peoples, immigrants, punk rockers and cowboys. Just beyond the darkness, our imagination takes ...

Treatment Access For Dual Diagnosis Substance Use And Mental Health Disorders, Pedro Banuelos

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

In 2018, of 1.3 million Latinx adults in the United States facing concurrent issues with substance use disorders (SUD) and mental health disorders (MHD) 93% remained untreated for either diagnosis. This is concerning since Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) data reveals that this population is at greater risk for suicidal thoughts, plans, and attempts. They also face structural barriers such as employment, housing, legal involvement, and insurability that further impede access to treatment.

This study’s purpose was to examine barriers to accessing treatment for Latinx populations confronting co-occurring SUDs and MHDs. This study used a ...

La Llorona, Picante Pero Sabroso: The Mexican Horror Legend As A Story Of Survival And A Reclamation Of The Monster, Camille Maria Acosta

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

For centuries, the relationship between Mexico and its infatuation with scary stories has been profoundly complex, but why? Perhaps it is the easiest way to communicate a Mexican culture, although proud and resilient, riddled with haunting narratives. For myself personally, the Mexican horror narrative La Llorona has served as a lens for conversation and communication that is unique and important.

In this thesis, I explore how Mexicans and Mexican Americans alike use the legend of La Llorona as a unique form of communication through personifying what truly haunts us. From using the narrative as a tool for entertainment, cautionary tales ...

T. Jackie Cuevas. Post-Borderlandia: Chicana Culture And Gender Variant Critique. New Brunswick: Rutgers Up, 2018., Caroline E. Tracey

Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature

Review of T. Jackie Cuevas. Post-Borderlandia: Chicana Culture and Gender Variant Critique. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 2018. xiii + 169 pp.

No Estoy Sola (I Am Not Alone): Addressing Gender-Based Violence Through Community-Based Theater, Annel A. Mena

Pathways: A Journal of Humanistic and Social Inquiry

In this article, I analyze how women at the border city of El Paso address the #MeToo movement and gender-based violence through community-based theatre. By using testimonios and performance ethnography, I analyze the power of storytelling to create awareness of gender-based violence on the border and ability to create solidarity. The theater has become an effective way of addressing such a stigmatized topic. The performance of the theater has inspired a workshop that is now used to help survivors heal their wounds by understanding that they are not alone.

Traditional And Nontraditional Activism: Literary And Political Pedagogies Of La Chicana, Anahi Ponce

Pathways: A Journal of Humanistic and Social Inquiry

Yxta Maya Murray’s Locas and Felicia Luna Lemus’s Trace Elements of Random Tea Parties both grapple with themes relating to the impact of Malinchismo experienced by real-life Chicanas in both political and cultural discourses. Despite this parallel, these texts and their characters have not received critical attention in the field of Chicana Literature when compared with texts such as Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street. The womxn in these texts have similarly been stripped from narratives of activism because of their evocation of nontraditional forms of activism, which are often overlooked in comparison to more traditional ...

Establishing A Fixed Home: The Attempt At Identity Completion In Alvarez’S "Antojos" And Menéndez’S "Her Mother's House", Anaridia R. Molina

Pathways: A Journal of Humanistic and Social Inquiry

Immigrant experiences are often characterized by identity anxiety and a corresponding longing to identify a single place to call “home.” In Julia Alvarez’s "Antojos" and Ana Menéndez’s "Her Mother's House," the main characters return to their native or ancestral land in search of a space to claim as home, and relatedly, a permanent location for a fixed identity in the Caribbean. This paper examines how in these works, typically unbeknownst to the protagonists themselves, establishing a home regularly takes the form of securing what they perceive to be “wholeness” and “completion.” I argue that the texts reveal ...

Deported Veterans: The Unintended Consequences Of “Good Moral Character”, Jonathan Deras

Master's Theses

The purpose of this research is to argue that U.S. immigration policy, specifically the 1996 IIRIRA (also known as IIRAIRA), needs to change regarding the legal treatment of immigrant U.S. military veteran deportees due to the following concepts. The first concept is to articulate how the criminalization of immigration, and how the military system intersects to facilitate the Deportation of U.S veterans. A key concept in this analysis is the standard of “good moral character” set by the U.S. government that enlistees need to meet to be accepted into the military; this standard is also used ...

Broadening Perspectives: Using Multiple Teaching Approaches To Meet The Needs Of Language Students, Kalen Taylor

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports

This portfolio is comprised of research, opinions, and ideas that the author has learned during the Master of Second Language Teaching (MSLT) program at Utah State University (USU). It is a representation of experiences gained through teaching lower division Spanish courses at USU. In addition to experiences, it is also comprised of research perspectives which were furthered by coursework in the MSLT program.

Contained within the pages is a road map of the author’s journey of learning and research. The portfolio begins with the author’s perspectives on teaching including his philosophy on teaching and how he has developed ...

Building Bridges: Epistemic Violence And Mother–Daughter Pedagogies From The U.S.–Mexico Border, Tanya J. Gaxiola Serrano, Elvia Serrano

Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs

Living in the U.S.–Mexico borderlands, residents have intimately learned about the impact of the militarized policing of the physical border on their lives. While not often discussed, the policing transcends the border institution and targets the ways of knowing of People and Immigrants of Color. This essay features pláticas between two Mexican women educators from the border, la frontera, to challenge epistemic violence on the lives of U.S. Chicanas/Latinas. Intergenerational pedagogies of a mother–daughter dyad from the Tijuana–San Diego region serve as exemplars of the survival and resistance found in the borderlands. The narratives ...

To Protect And To Serve: Effects Of The Relationship Between The Brown Berets And Law Enforcement, Paul Flores

History in the Making

During the late 1960s and into the early 1970s the Brown Berets were heavily involved in the Chicano Movement. They formed as a group of students with the goal of reforming the inequalities Hispanic people faced within the Los Angeles school system, though the greater circumstances quickly led the Brown Berets into the direction of being a militant organization with their focus shifting to police brutality and the Vietnam War. As a result of this shift they became an enemy of the local police and later the federal government. Thus, the Berets adopted the motto, “To Serve, Observe, and Protect ...

Shared Spaces, Separate Lives: Community Formation In The California Citrus Industry During The Great Depression, David Shanta

History in the Making

The California citrus industry was the engine for the economic and cultural development of twentieth century Southern California. Studies have also focused on citrus as specialty crop agriculture. Its labor usage pattern required the economic, social, and political powerlessness of its workers. Growers and workers shared the spaces of the citrus groves and packinghouses, but otherwise led largely separate lives, delineated by class and race. Community formation during the Great Depression is examined from each perspective – dominant Anglo grower society and workers of Mexican descent. Benedict Anderson’s Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism provides a ...

Spiritual Activism And Political Solidarity In So Far From God And Mother Tongue: Two Views By Two Authors, Jean Paul Russo

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

SPIRITUAL ACTIVISM AND POLITICAL SOLIDARITY IN SO FAR FROM GOD AND MOTHER TONGUE: TWO VIEWS BY TWO AUTHORS

by

Jean Paul Russo

Florida International University, 2020

Miami, Florida

Professor Anne Castro, Major Professor

This thesis focuses on the intersection between spirituality and political action in the works of two Latinx authors, Demetria Martinez and Ana Castillo. Building on Gloria Anzaldua’s theories of trauma, narrative, and what she terms ‘conocimiento,’ I contend that the novels So Far From God, and Mother Tongue, present an alternative approach to political action that is derived from a common experience of suffering and trauma ...

Intergenerational Family Learning Programs: Stories Of Latinx, Immigrant Families And Their Journeys To And Through Higher Education, Monica Ramos

Dissertations

ABSTRACT

This research presents the stories of three Latinx families who participated in an intergenerational family program. I endeavored to understand their experiences navigating the American system of education and their immigrant stories. Their narratives revealed significant details that can serve as integral elements in the development of an intergenerational learning curriculum based on culture, language, and traditions, and that steps away from the assumptions that perpetrate the deficit-based narratives about Latino families and higher education. Their hopes provide points for further research and advocacy. In this qualitative study, I collected data using semi-structured interviews, including documents and artifacts. The ...

"You Your Best Thing”: The Anti-Colonial Power Of The Mind In Black And Chicanx American Literature, Grace Keir

English Honors Theses

In the year 1987, two of the most important American writers of the twentieth century, Toni Morrison and Gloria Anzaldúa, published what many consider to be their respective magnum opuses: Morrison’s Beloved and Anzaldúa’s Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. In these groundbreaking texts, Morrison and Anzaldúa boldly confront the complex legacies of American imperialism and slavery, examining the effect colonization has had on their respective communities, ancestors, and selves. In this essay, I argue that literature emerging from marginalized communities within the United States can and should be considered among global postcolonial texts; Morrison and Anzaldúa illustrate ...

Rompiendo Alambres: Immigrant Youth Navigating School And Life In St. Louis, Julia Campus Macias

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project focuses on educational and life trajectories of Central American youth in St. Louis, Missouri, who have immigrated unaccompanied from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua. By tracking and telling their stories, I hope to amplify these young immigrants’ voices, and complicate others’ perceptions of their place and worth in this country. Current immigration policies and enforcement practices have made the entry process more punitive, restrictive and deadly. The immigrant experience, especially for young people, confronts many state institutions, chief among them the educational system. Institutions like schools become entry points for immigrants but can also be spaces for ...

Healing Lgbtq+ Juvenile Youth Of Color Through Indigenous Practices, Jennifer Alvarez

Master's Theses

My goal for this study was to explore the experiences of queer youth of color who have been in the juvenile justice system in relation to their mental health/wellness. Through semistructured interviews, the seven participants of this study have shared their testimonio of coming out, being involved in the juvenile justice system and having to engage with mental health services, I explore how queer individuals are mistreated and are placed on temporary methods of healing from their trauma. Utilizing the frameworks of Testimonios, Critical Race Theory and Critical Pedagogy, I bring forward the experiences that queer youth of color ...

She Se Puede: Exploring The Career Development Of Latinas In The San Francisco Bay Area, Brittney Varela

Master's Theses

The professional identities of Latinas in the United States have undergone some major changes in recent times. As women and ethnic minorities, Latinas are a part of two underrepresented groups facing inequities in the workforce. This research focuses on the career development of ten Latinas in the San Francisco Bay area, with their stories and experiences publicized on a public podcast. She Se Puede podcast consists of ten episodes recorded at the University of San Francisco, discussing career development and major factors that limit the professional advancement of Latinas. This applied project was designed around scholarly research and in-person interviews ...

Centering Community Voices Through Children's Literature: Co-Authoring An #Ownvoices Picture Book For The Maine Migrant Education Program, Melanie Shelton

Master's Theses

Since its inception, the field of migrant education has been characterized by a tension between honoring the subjectivity of migrant families and positioning them as victims. This same tension exists in the analysis of children’s picture books that depict the daily lives of migrant farmworkers. In response to Eve Tuck’s (2009) call for a moratorium on damage-centered research in the field of education, this report describes the collaboration process between a representative of the Maine Migrant Education Program and a migrant

farmworker and her family to write, illustrate, and present an autobiographical picture book. Las aventuras, travesuras, y ...

Community College Student Organizations And Hispanic Students' Gpa, Retention, And Graduation Rates, Joanne Alvarez

Ed.D. Dissertations

Although the Hispanic population continues to grow throughout the United States, Hispanic students still have some of the lowest college retention and graduation rates. Administrators at post-secondary institutions need evidence for effective strategies to recruit, retain, and graduate Hispanic students. The current study was created to determine if there was a difference in grade point averages (GPA), retention, and graduation rates between two specific groups. The first group consisted of 506 self-identified Hispanic students engaged in at least one community college student organization versus 506 self-identified Hispanic students not engaged in any campus organization. A quantitative study was conducted to ...