Digital Commons Network^™

Performing Conquest And Resistance In The Streets Of Eighteenth Century Potosí: Identity And Artifice In The Cityscapes Of Gaspar Miguel De Berrío And Melchor Pérez De Holguín, Agnieszka A. Ficek

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the ways in which Potosí's two most influential colonial artists represented the urban dynamics of race, class and labor in their depictions of the Andean 'City of Silver' during the eighteenth century, when silver production, profits and population were dramatically declining.

Returning To Red Cloud's Vision: An Analysis Of The History Of Native American Education On The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Nicholas Machado

Honors Program Theses and Projects

No abstract provided.

Grappling With Inclusion: Ethnocultural Diversity And Socio-Musical Experiences In Common Thread Community Chorus Of Toronto, Deanna Yerichuk

Music Faculty Publications

This pilot research study explored ethnocultural backgrounds of choristers and their socio-musical experiences participating in Common Thread Community Chorus of Toronto, a community choir that actively pursues cultural inclusion through policies of musical and financial accessibility, as well as choosing repertoire of diverse cultures. A survey of choristers investigated how Common Thread members’ ethnocultural backgrounds informed their perceptions of their musical and social experiences and of the choir’s cultural diversity, working from the assumption that all people have ethnocultural backgrounds. Research findings reveal complex and diverse cultures when singers reflect on their own experiences, but choristers tended to reduce cultural …

The Minstrel Legacy: African American English And The Historical Construction Of "Black" Identities In Entertainment, Jennifer Bloomquist

Africana Studies Faculty Publications

Linguists have long been aware that the language scripted for "ethnic" roles in the media has been manipulated for a variety of purposes ranging from the construction of character "authenticity" to flagrant ridicule. This paper provides a brief overview of the history of African American roles in the entertainment industry from minstrel shows to present-day films. I am particularly interested in looking at the practice of distorting African American English as an historical artifact which is commonplace in the entertainment industry today. Dialogue which is clearly meant as an imitation of African American English still results in the construction of …

Jessie Fauset’S Not-So-New Negro Womanhood: The Harlem Renaissance, The Long Nineteenth Century, And Legacies Of Feminine Representation, Meredith Goldsmith

English and Creative Writing Faculty Publications

Fauset’s texts offer a repository of precisely what critic Alain Locke labeled retrograde: seemingly outdated plotlines and tropes that draw upon multiple literary, historical, and popular cultural sources. This essay aims to change the way we read Fauset by excavating this literary archive and exploring how the literary “past” informs the landscape of Fauset’s fiction. Rather than viewing Fauset’s novels as deviations from or subversive instantiations of modernity, I view them as part of a long nineteenth-century tradition of gendered representation. Instead of claiming a subversiveness that Fauset might have rejected or a conservatism that fails to account for the …

Research Is Relational: Exploring Researcher Identities And Colonial Echoes In Pacific And Indigenous Studies, Tui Nicola Clery, Acacia Dawn Cochise, Robin Metcalfe

Pacific Studies

This paper critiques the binary construction of researchers as either insiders or outsiders, arguing that such essentialist frameworks obscure the complex, intersectional identities many researchers embody. The paper proposes a more inclusive and reflexive model of research identity that acknowledges fluidity, hybridity, and relationality. It encourages researchers to reflect on their positionality, embrace imperfection in relational processes, and engage with communities in ways that are accountable and transformative. Ultimately, the paper advocates for a shift toward more relational and inclusive research methodologies that better reflect the realities of a globalized and interconnected world.

Books Noted: Recent Pacific Islands Publications: Selected Acquisitions, January 2014–December 2014, Zoia Falevai

Pacific Studies

This list of significant publications relating to the Pacific Islands was selected from new acquisitions lists recovered from Brigham Young University–Hawaii, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, University of Auckland, and Macmillan Brown Library at University of Canterbury. Other libraries are invited to send contributions to the Books Noted editor for future issues. Listings reflect the extent of information provided by each institution.

Vol. 38 No. 3 (2015): Pacific Studies Front Matter, The Jonathan Nāpela Center For Hawaiian And Pacific Islands Studies

Pacific Studies

Front Matter for the Vol. 38, No 3-Dec 2015 edition of the Pacific Studies Journal.

Vol. 38 No. 3 (2015): Pacific Studies Full Issue, The Jonathan Nāpela Center For Hawaiian And Pacific Islands Studies

Pacific Studies

Pacific Studies is published two times a year by The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies, Brigham Young University Hawai‘i #1979, 55–220 Kulanui Street, Lāʻie, Hawai‘i 96762, but responsibility for opinions expressed in the articles rests with the authors alone. Subscription rate is US$40.00 yearly, payable to The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies. The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies (formerly The Pacific Institute) is an organization funded by Brigham Young University Hawai‘i. The Center assists the University in meeting its cultural and educational goals by undertaking a program of teaching, research, and …

Becoming American: Constructing Mexican Immigrants In Local Newspapers, Zheng Zhu

Publications and Research

Media representation of Latino immigrants has been extensively studied by scholars across diverse academic disciplines. Particular to the U.S. context, preceding scholarships pertaining to the ways in which Latinos were represented centered on the media representation of Latino immigrants either as the exotic racial other or undesirable foreigners. In light of the important role that the Mexican immigrants played in understanding the current national debate on illegal immigration and the overall historical experiences of immigrants in Washington State (WA), this study critically investigated how news articles published in WA represented Mexican immigrants. As a crucial point of departure from prior …

Tobacco And Tar Babies: The Trickster As A Cultural Hero In Winnebago And African American Myth, Catherine Squibb

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis explores the trickster character through the lens of his role as a cultural hero. The two characters that I chose to examine are from North American myth, specifically Winnebago Hare and Brer Rabbit. These two characters represent the duality of the trickster while simultaneously embodying the lauded abilities of the hero. Through their actions these two characters shape culture through the very action of disrupting societal norms.

“Carried In The Arms Of Standing Waves:" The Transmotional Aesthetics Of Nora Marks Dauenhauer, Billy J. Stratton

English and Literary Arts: Faculty Scholarship

In recent years, Native, Indigenous, First Nations, and Aboriginal scholars and writers have forged alliances to initiate and support decolonization efforts and the reassertion of native survivance. Native and non-Native scholars have responded to modern challenges by reconceptualizing notions of peoplehood, identity, and nationalism. Following these intellectual contours, rather than conceiving of native culture as totalizing, static, and/or incommensurable—as always already foreign—responsive readings informed by the critical work of Gerald Vizenor can support more sophisticated understandings of native literary production while revealing sites of native transmotion. Through a thusly informed examination of the work of the Tlingit poet, Nora Marks …

Interview With Amer Salihovic (Fa 1137), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

Folklife Archives Oral Histories

Transcript of oral history interview with Amer Salihovic conducted by Virginia Siegel on 3 November 2015 at the Pioneer Log Cabin as part of Western Kentucky University's 2017 International Year of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Click on "Additional Files" to access the audio file of the recorded interview. File may take several minutes to download.

“There’S Still That Window That’S Open”: The Problem With “Grit”, Noah Asher Golden

Education Faculty Articles and Research

This narrative analysis case study challenges the education reform movement’s fascination with “grit,” the notion that a non-cognitive trait like persistence is at the core of disparate educational outcomes and the answer to our inequitable education system. Through analysis of the narratives and meaning-making processes of Elijah, a 20-year-old African American seeking his High School Equivalency diploma, this case study explores linkages among dominant discourses on meritocracy, opportunity, personal responsibility, and group blame. Specifically, exposition of the figured worlds present in Elijah’s narratives points to the attempted obfuscation of social inequities present in the current educational reform movement and our …

Teaching While Lesbian And Other Identities: Sexual Diversity, Race, And Institutionalized Practices Through An Autoethnographic Lens, Sondra S. Briggs

Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership Dissertations

The implicit acceptance among educators and in institutions of learning that discussions around LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) issues are off limits perpetuates the marginalization of these identities and those who inhabit them. In K-12 schools and college classrooms the prevailing silence sends disturbing messages about the treatment of adults and children when their sexual orientation fails to fit neatly into prescribed binary classifications. As one who has been silent as well as silenced, I understand this dichotomy from a unique perspective. Moreover, my lived membership within diverse cultural and racial groups that have been routinely marginalized through institutionalized practices …

Fearless Friday: Jasmine Santana, Christina L. Bassler

SURGE

In this week’s Fearless Friday piece, SURGE would like to spotlight Jasmine Santana ’16!

Jasmine is a currently a senior IDS major who focuses on socio-linguistics. In other words, she critically analyzes the use of language through various perspectives, such as from the point of view of Africana Studies or Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. A Latina woman from Washington Heights in NYC, Jasmine definitely felt a change in her surroundings once coming to Gettysburg. However, the presence of white-culture did not deter Jasmine from becoming the Fearless Leader we see today. [excerpt]

Caribou, Petroleum, And The Limits Of Locality In The Canada–Us Borderlands, Jenny Kerber

English and Film Studies Faculty Publications

his article discusses Karsten Heuer’s 2006 book Being Caribou in light of debates in ecocriticism and border studies about how to define the local in the context of environmental problems of vast range and uncertain temporality. It explores how Heuer’s book about following the Porcupine Caribou herd’s migration engages in multiple forms of boundary crossing—between countries, between hemispheric locations, and between species—and shows how insights from Indigenous storytelling complicate the book’s appeal to environmentalist readers by asserting a prior, transnational Indigenous presence in the transboundary landscapes of present-day Alaska and the Yukon.

“Bound To Them By A Common Sorrow”: African American Women, Higher Education, And Collective Advancement, Linda M. Perkins

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

This essay examines African American women’s access to higher education in the United States before and after the founding of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH) in 1915. The efforts of leading educated African American women to ensure their sisters were provided more educational opportunities will be examined, as well as their roles in the leadership of African American higher education. Utilizing the black feminist theory of intersectionality focusing on race, gender, and class, the emphasis in this essay is on the purposes and the types of secondary and higher education African American women obtained …

Theravada Buddhism, Identity, And Cultural Continuity In Jinghong, Xishuangbanna, James H. Granderson

Student Publications

This ethnographic field study focuses upon the relationship between the urban Jinghong and surrounding rural Dai population of lay people, as well as a few individuals from other ethnic groups, and Theravada Buddhism. Specifically, I observed how Theravada Buddhism and Dai ethnic culture are continued through the monastic system and the lay community that supports that system. I also observed how individuals balance living modern and urban lifestyles while also incorporating Theravada Buddhism into their daily lives. Both of these involved observing the relationship between Theravada monastics in city and rural temples and common people in daily life, as well …

The Black Church : Responding To The Drug-Related Mass Incarceration Of Young Black Males : "If You Had Been Here My Brother Would Not Have Died!", Sharon E. Moore, A. Christson Adedoyin, Michael A. Robinson, Daniel A. Boamah

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

The mass incarceration of young Black males for drug-related offences is a social issue that has broad implications. Some scholars have described this as a new form of racism that needs to be addressed through the concerted effort of various institutions, including the Black Church. In this paper the authors will elucidate the past and current roles of the Black Church, discuss the utilization of the social work Theory of Empowerment and Black Church theology to address the disproportionality of drug-related mass incarceration of young Black males, focus on initiatives undertaken by the Black Church to address this issue and …

The Dichotomy Between Colonial Heritage And National Identity In The Senegalese Education System, Kyra Ghosh

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

For my Independent Study project, I decided to examine the dichotomy between colonial heritage and national identity in the Senegalese education system. Among many other topics, I was interested in looking at language use in the classroom, material covered, grading systems, and recent reforms in education. I went about my research by conducting an ethnographic study in two middle/high schools (public and private) in Dakar. In order to narrow my research within the schools, I decided to focus on observing history and civic education classes to better understand the dichotomy. I interviewed students, teachers, administrators, and observed the school setting …

Community Colleges And First-Generation Students: Academic Discourse In The Writing Classroom, Jan Osborn

English Faculty Books and Book Chapters

Community Colleges and First-Generation Students examines how first-generation students from diverse ethnic and linguistic backgrounds are initiated into what is known as academic discourse, particularly at the community college. Osborn systematically looks at specific classroom discourses through detailed evidence provided by the diversities represented by the students, and how the students negotiated their identities in terms of the ideological directionality in play.

The download link above only contains chapter 2 of Dr. Osborn's book, "Identities: A Context of Multiplicity".

Fictional And Fragmented Truths In Korean Adoptee Life Writing, Jenny Heijun Wills

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

This article explores the ways that life writing allows transnational, transracial Asian adoptee authors to navigate their complex experiences of truth and authenticity. It also addresses the transformations adoptee authors make to the memoir genre in order to accommodate the particularities of their experiences. I analyze Jane Jeong Trenka’s foundational Asian adoption memoir, The Language of Blood, and Kim Sunée’s lesser-known text, Trail of Crumbs, paying attention to the ways that the authors’ hybridized and deliberately constructionist approaches to genre parallel some of the identity issues that are brought out in their respective books. I explore the significance …

“’Chinese Don’T Drink Coffee!’”: Coffee And Class Liminality In Elaine Mar’S Paper Daughter, Christian Aguiar

Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies

This article offers a reading of the foodservice spaces in Elaine Mar’s memoir Paper Daughter in order to suggest changes in the way we think about class liminality. It argues that by focusing not just on the way the socially-mobile narrator experiences liminality, but also on the ways her working-class parents and co-workers experience it, we can begin to consider some of the complexities and nuances the idea of the liminal offers. In so doing, the article suggests a slightly new approach to thinking about and teaching Paper Daughter.

Collective Amnesia, Boca Floja

South

A wide gap exists between the phenomenon of cultural appropriation and historical claim. How do you justify when you are 12 and at that age you have been programmed by an information structure and culture that has defined every identifying feature?

The migration phenomenon, the informal market, and the constant flow between the idealization of the First World in the northern corner and the underworld in the backyard, made it possible for me one day, while walking with my grandmother in a street market in Mexico, to stumble across a cassette tape with Ice Cube’s face on it that said …

Articulating Refug-Endity In Vietnamerica And The Diasporas 1975-2015: From Ethnic Autonomy To Global Visibility, Trangdai Glassey-Tranguyen

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement

Since the culmination of the Vietnam War on April 30^th, 1975, waves of Vietnamese evacuees, refugees, and immigrants arrived in the United States and created a new home across the country. Orange County, California, is home to the largest concentration of Vietnamese Americans since 1975 in the U.S., and has notoriously been known as the “Vietnamese refugee capitol” in the diasporas. I argue that there has been an organic, thriving – albeit very under-studied – body of Vietnamese-language literature and media in Orange County and VietnAmerica since 1975, which provides a fertile ground for the articulation of what …

Literacy Practices Among Migrant Teachers: Educator Perspectives And Critical Observations, Briana Asmus

Dissertations

This research builds upon scholarship that explores the unique needs of Latina/o migrant students and the teachers who serve them. Situated within the overlapping fields of migrant education, critical literacy, and Latina/o critical theory, this narrative examines the practices and perspectives of three teachers, each with more than a decade of experience teaching migrant students in a summer migrant education program (SMEP) in Michigan. The purpose of this study is to give educators, administrators, and community members who work with migrant students additional insight into the literacy acquisition process and unique challenges of working with this population.

Despite the aim …

Representations Of Pacific Islander Identity: Ours And Theirs, Kirsten Mcgavin

Pacific Studies

This article explores how Pacific Islander identities—particularly within diasporic communities in Australia—are shaped through the interplay between stereotypical media portrayals and lived cultural realities. While Western tourism and media have long perpetuated romanticized images of Pacific “paradise,” these depictions often obscure the diversity and complexity of actual Island life. Through case studies—including climate change rallies, community gatherings, and online forums—the article examines how Islanders respond to, resist, and sometimes repurpose outsider stereotypes to articulate self-representations that are both grounded and adaptive. The study highlights the dynamic processes of identity formation in the Pacific diaspora and the ongoing negotiation between authenticity …

Anthropophagi In New-York And Other Voyagers, Maria Lepowsky

Pacific Studies

This chapter continues the exploration of maritime cultures of contact by following the post-shipwreck adventures of voyagers in the Pacific in the nineteenth century. The chapter also examines the literary and cultural afterlives of Pacific travel narratives, particularly those of Benjamin Morrell and Thomas Jacobs, whose depictions of islanders influenced canonical works by Poe and Melville. These narratives reveal the contradictory perceptions American sailors held of Pacific peoples—ranging from “cannibal savages” to noble and intelligent individuals—and the enduring tropes of the “noble savage” and “civilized native.” By tracing these voyages and representations, the chapter highlights the early emergence of a …

Imagining The Marshall Islands, Laurence M. Carucci

Pacific Studies

As anthropologists have developed a more critical eye, earlier assumptions about the privileged position of anthropological texts have been dismissed as elitist, self-serving, and paternalistic. Perhaps James Clifford was the first to recognize the limitations of such possessiveness toward these imagined others, but his call for a broader view has been taken up by many in the field. Here, I consider the images of three interlopers, none of them anthropologists, as they each, in separate historical contexts and different positional circumstances, come to imagine Marshall Islanders as certain types of others. A consideration of these accounts reveals a good deal …