Ethnic Studies Commons^™

Female Monarchs And Merchant Queens In Africa, Nwando Achebe

Ohio University Press Open Access Books

An unapologetically African-centered monograph that reveals physical and spiritual forms and systems of female power and leadership in African cultures.

Nwando Achebe’s unparalleled study documents elite females, female principles, and female spiritual entities across the African continent, from the ancient past to the present. Achebe breaks from Western perspectives, research methods, and their consequently incomplete, skewed accounts, to demonstrate the critical importance of distinctly African source materials and world views to any comprehensible African history. This means accounting for the two realities of African cosmology: the physical world of humans and the invisible realm of spiritual gods and forces. That …

Square American Apple Pie, Karen Zheng

I2

No abstract provided.

Beauty Is Not Black And White: A Content Analysis Of Black Women’S Body Image In Television Media, Alexis Hubbard

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There are few bodies of literature that look at Black women’s body image in television media. When Black women were studied most research (Falconer & Neville, 2000; Jhally & Kilbourne, 2010; Smith, 2014; Shearon-Richardson, 2011;) compared them to White ideals. However, this study did a content analysis of Black women in predominantly Black or ethnically diverse television shows using qualitative studies that suggest a Black ideal. The researcher examined lead character(s) body shapes, comments about their body, hair texture and comments about their hair. This research looked at protective factors (aspects Black life that allow for more body satisfaction) like …

Some Thoughts

I2

No abstract provided.

Her Nose Is Different From Her Nose, Mariama L. Dodd

I2

No abstract provided.

A Visit To Cuba: Performance Ethnography Of Place, Adolfo Lagomasino

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Bestowed to the Cuban government in 1956, The Parque Amigos de José Martí in Ybor City, FL is a historical site intended to symbolize the relationship between Tampa and Cuba that facilitated Cuba’s independence. Cuban cultural identity and the sense of Cubaness are confounded by the history of exile and the constraints of the United States Embargo. This project articulates the experience of the Cuban exile community and their descendants through descriptive accounts of visiting the Parque Amigos de José Martí. Visiting a place is framed as a means of identity performance and a method of performance ethnography, enabling discursive, …

African American Genealogy Workshop Poster, Kelli Johnson

Ephemera

African American Genealogy Workshop Poster

[2020 Honorable Mention] Six Days To Leave Home: The Diasporic Experience Of Japanese Americans To American Incarceration Camps, Evangeline Pabilona

Ethnic Studies Research Paper Award

Using diaspora as a rhetorical framework, this paper analyses the cultural connection between American incarceration camps and the imprisonment of Japanese American citizens during World War II. The forced removal of Japanese American families from their homes to concentration camps emphasizes the negative ramifications of diaspora regarding [forced] cultural assimilation, as well as a loss of culture, language, family, and bodily autonomy.

User Guide To The Mds Collection Of African American History In Huntington, West Virginia, Kelli Johnson

User Guides

Various people have worked over the years to collect stories and artifacts about Black history in Huntington, WV. This site seeks to gather that information in one place and make it available for all.

Corporeal Archives Of Hiv/Aids: The Performance Of Relation, Jaime Shearn Coan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Corporeal Archives of HIV/AIDS: The Performance of Relation, explores how choreographers and theater artists in the early years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in New York City used time and space to involve their audiences experientially in the project of grieving and rebuilding in the midst of the temporal chaos of mass death and illness (crisis time). Refusing to portray HIV/AIDS as a discrete or singular phenomenon, these artists revealed how it intersected with every aspect of life, including artistic practice, thereby delinking their bodies from a singular association with pathology and death. Undertaking extensive archival research on the work …

Una Isla, Dos Literaturas: Contrapunteo De La Literatura De La Isla Y La Diáspora Dominicanas (1965–2018), Jose L. Peralta

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Una isla, dos literaturas.

Contrapunteo de la literatura de la isla y la diáspora dominicanas (1965-2018)

by

Jose Luis Peralta Genao

Advisor: Carlos Riobó

The literary works written by Dominican Diaspora as well as the ones written in the island have been dealing with a very complicated phenomena grown as the result of Dominican massive emigration of twenty century, namely the definition of dominicaness (dominicanidad). In the search of a broader notion of this concept the idea of being Dominican gets build and transforms in different Dominican literary spaces. By searching national discursive elements that construct that Dominican identities in …

Black Skin, White Gaze: The Presence And Function Of The Linchpin Character In Biopics About Black American Protagonists, Nicole N. Williams

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Throughout its existence the American film industry has--through the stories it has chosen to tell as well as discriminatory practices such as whitewashing and the erasure of non-White people--enshrined whiteness as the default American racial identity. In multiracial films, Hollywood productions have historically employed racialized character tropes to further emphasize hegemonic American whiteness. This practice continues to the present day with the introduction of the linchpin, a White character who appears in films with majority non-White casts. Although billed and presented as a supporting character, the linchpin’s centrality to a film’s narrative or emotional arc elevates them to main character …

“The Amazing Iroquois”: Haudenosaunee History In Myth And Memory, 1776–1955, John C. Winters

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This project is a history and memory study of Iroquois exceptionalism. This is an idea that shaped our understanding of the Iroquois as the “most studied” Indian nation and that they, as the debunked Iroquois Influence Thesis claimed, influenced the structure and scope of the U.S. Constitution. My study examines the lives of four related (by blood and by claim) Seneca leaders: Red Jacket, Ely S. Parker, Harriet Maxwell Converse, and Arthur C. Parker. These four stand out because each was one of the most famous Native Americans of their generation who worked within and against American colonial society and …

Stealin' The Meetin': Black Education History & The Black Panthers' Oakland Community School, Robert P. Robinson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation frames the Black Panthers' Oakland Community School (OCS) as a convergence of Black self-determination/Black Power, Black education history, and curriculum studies. Drawing from widely-cited archives, rarely-cited archives, oral history, periodicals, and secondary source material, the proposed study extends the OCS narrative by tracing its curricular trajectory and highlighting the voices of students, parents, and staff. It considers how the school’s history provides examples of educational practices—such as restorative justice and culturally relevant pedagogy—that would not become named or popularized in mainstream education until much later, asserting that histories of this sort can inform educational endeavors in the present. …

The Languages Of Belonging: Heritage Language And Sense Of Belonging In Clubs And Organizations, Lou. Ibe

World Languages and Cultures

As a culminating project for a graduate in Modern Languages & Literatures and Comparative Ethnic Studies, this research paper focuses on the concepts of sense of belonging in institutions of higher education, specifically in relation to the presence of heritage languages within cultural clubs and organizations. It explores this relationship through a survey sent to Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo students involved in various cultural clubs and organizations, exploring their feelings of sense of belonging as tied to the university in general, alongside their club/organization, while also inquiring about the presence of their heritage language in various spaces at the …

“I’M Real I Thought I Told Ya”: Developing Critical Media Literacy Through U.S. Latinx Digital Media Representations, Solange T. Castellar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores how audiences engage with U.S. Latinx media representations through the practice of critical media literacy. I interrogate how media consumers construct critical media literacy through interacting with U.S. Latinx figures on digital media platforms, particularly on the social-media app, Twitter, and the user-generated video content platform, YouTube. Throughout this thesis, I argue that users on these platforms who engage with U.S. Latinx pop culture figures, like Jennifer Lopez and Belcalis Almanzar (Cardi B), read, digest, and comprehend a variety of multimedia images, texts, or videos, and that this engagement becomes an accessible form of critical media literacy, …

Time Machine Research And Approach, Tarek Bouraque

Theses and Dissertations

Time Machine is a hybrid documentary that explores the logics of enslavement, colonialism, eurocentrism and their interconnectedness in our globalized world. Mustapha Azemmouri, born in 1502, undertakes a journey to the 21st century to recount his own story of enslavement and exploration, and reflects on a collective puzzle of 500 years of hidden history.

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 in …

The Socio-Demographic Factors Influencing Ntca Immigrants’ Accessibility To Mexico’S Health Care System, Ken Nishikata

Master's Theses

Mexico’s geographical location has made the country play a centric role in trans-national migration from the Northern Triangle of Central America (NTCA) comprising Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. As a result, immigration has increasingly become a political issue for Mexico over the past decades^[1]. Before the eruption of the Central American crisis in the 1980s, Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala was recognized for its openness. However, such a tolerating status-quo changed as the number of NTCA immigrants entering Mexico increased upon the exacerbation of the crisis that placed thousands of individuals in exile. Indeed, the turmoil during the …

Identity, Activism, And Rap In The Filipino American Diaspora, Scott Cooper

Master's Theses

For close to two decades, an established network of Filipino American rap artists have developed on the West Coast of the United States. These artists share musical narratives exploring their working-class immigrant experiences as well as the impact of colonization in the Philippines. Outside of music, these artists often engage in community organizing and activism, but few scholars have explored hip hop's effect within these spaces. Recently, a younger generation of Filipino American youth actively make use of hip hop in community organizations and activist groups. This paper will specifically examine how the identity of 1.5 and second generation Filipino …