Digital Commons Network^™

This Is What It Means To Be A Daca Recipient, E. R. P., M. P.

SURGE

Since 2012, over 800,000 DREAMers, like ourselves, have been given the legal right to work, apply for a driver’s license, and, most importantly, live without the fear of deportation. We complete background checks and pay $495 in fees every two years to maintain our DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) status. [excerpt]

Mapping The Self: Reconciling Identity Through An Expansion Of The American Road Genre, Tinesha K. Mix

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the American road genre. I argue that in addition to the automobile and the highway, a discussion of trains, boats, and walkers and their alternative roads must also be included in the genre. Each method of transportation expands the genre by adding new themes and ideas. Hobos and tramps can take to the road in search of community in order to discover more about themselves; some boatmen can use America’s racial history to discover themselves; walkers can go through a state of liminality in order to discover their internal selves. When these travelers complete their journeys, many …

Harriet Jacobs And Toni Morrison: A Tradition Of Narrative Resistance, Allyson L. Molloy

Theses and Dissertations

This article considers historical constructions of power and the narrative as a mode of resistance. Working in different centuries, under extremely disparate circumstances, Harriet Jacobs in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Toni Morrison in her novel The Bluest Eye, utilize specific narrative strategies to challenge and question institutionalized power which is evidenced through their deliberate employment of narrative strategies not only to challenge the institution of slavery or the hegemonic ideal, but also to question the racial and gender oppression systemic to those institutions of power.

Grit And Agency: A Framework For Helping Students In Poverty To Achieve Academic Greatness, Anindya Kundu

National Youth Advocacy & Resilience Journal

Recent research in psychology introduces “grit” as a characteristic observable in successful students (Duckworth, 2016). Popular applications of the grit framework can further the notion of "rugged individualism," placing the onus of achievement upon the individual. This perspective can lead failures to be considered the result of deficiencies, overlooking effects of structural factors associated with learning. Sociologically, certain applications of grit can be limited in explaining mobility: they may not address the social contexts of the people they assess; or, they may lack a dynamic understanding of students’ cultures. This article applies a qualitative, sociological framework offering “agency” as a …

Racing Abnormality, Normalizing Race: The Origins Of America's Peculiar Carceral State And Its Prospects For Democratic Transformation Today, Jonathan Simon

Northwestern University Law Review

For those struggling with criminal justice reform today, the long history of failed efforts to close the gap between the promise of legal equality and the practice of our police forces and prison systems can seem mysterious and frustrating. Progress has been made in establishing stronger rights for individuals in the investigatory and sanctioning stages of the criminal process; yet, the patterns of over-incarceration and police violence, which are especially concentrated on people of color, have actually gotten worse during the same period. Seen in terms of its deeper history however, the carceral state is no longer puzzling: it has …

When You Aren't Who Your Friends Are: The Moderating Influence Of Racial Similarity On The Association Between Friendships And Mental Well-Being, Philip Tostado

Dissertations and Theses

Friendships are a mental health resource for adolescents. Their availability and strength have been shown to predict lower levels of depression, higher self-esteem, and higher life satisfaction. They can also alleviate the stress that often leads to negative mental health outcomes. However, studies examining the stress process rarely consider the fact that social networks like friendship groups are not a static resource that effects all people the same way. Rather, demographic characteristics of both the individual and their friends could change the role of friendship networks within the stress process.

In this thesis, I investigate the importance of one such …

Ignorance Is Bliss: Emotion, Politics, And Why Whites Avoid Information About Race, Evangelina Derosa

Honors Scholar Theses

This study investigated partisan differences, as well as guilt, anger, and shame as motivating emotions, to understand and predict information avoidance on topics related to race and policing. We predicted liberals would be more likely than conservatives to seek information on topics related to race; guilt, anger, and shame would be motivating emotions to seek information. We expected liberals to use guilt, anger, and shame as motivating emotions to seek information, and expected conservatives to experience lower levels of these emotions, and therefore avoid such information. Participants (N=420) were given information about police violence against people of color. …

"Red & Blue, Black & White", Kate Henreckson

The Voice

No abstract provided.

Harriet Tubman, Women On 20s, And Intersectionality: Public Memory And The Redesign Of Us Currency, Calvin Coker

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

This article analyzes representative texts from the public debate surrounding the Treasury Department’s decision to place Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill, showing that public memories of Tubman were complicated by an intersectional understanding of her role as a black woman abolitionist. Tubman’s femininity is emphasized to the detriment of her historical significance in a way that complicates Tubman’s relationship to currency as a victim of the slave trade. Using money as a technology of memorialization invites a deeper understanding of Tubman as a black anticapitalist woman, as her placement on money is read by some as ironic. The article …

Race, The Condition Of Neo-Liberalism, Vikash Singh

Department of Sociology Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This article addresses the social and historical relation between Chicago School neo-liberalism and contemporary racism, and its connections with the formations of racism in classical liberalism and its colonial character. I show the pragmatic and discursive operations of neo-racism in the context of this shift to a neo-liberal discourse, drawing particularly on Michel Foucault’s seminars, Society Must be Defended, and Birth of Bio-politics. Insofar as “race” cannot be understood as a discrete category outside its social, economic, moral, and political embeddedness in liberalism, I argue that methodological individualism and expectations of high-specialization constrain the theorization of race in U.S. scholarship. …

Remotivating The Black Vote: The Effect Of Low-Quality Information On Black Voters In The 2016 Presidential Election And How Librarians Can Intervene, Andrew P. Jackson, Denyvetta Davis, James Kelly Alston

Publications and Research

In a phenomenon that was surprising to many, given the racially charged nature of the 2016 presidential election, black voter turnout was significantly lower than the previous two elections. Donald Trump’s victory is attributable to many factors, one of which was the lower participation of black voters in several swing states. To a lesser extent, black support for third-party candidates also aided Trump’s victory. The lower black turnout itself is attributable to several factors, but one factor specifically in the LIS realm was the prevalence of low-quality information and rhetoric and a susceptibility that some black voters had to this …

The Legitimacy Of Elite Gatekeeping, David Karen

Sociology Faculty Research and Scholarship

Natasha Warikoo’s study of how students at Harvard, Brown, and Oxford Universities view race and fairness highlights the vast differences between the U.S. and Britain with respect to perceptions of meritocracy by these winners in the competition for places in elite institutions. The strict enforcement of uniform standards for admission is seen as critical and legitimate at Oxford, whereas a more holistic approach in the U.S. – one that sees racial diversity as an important and desirable part of the institution’s culture and identity – is seen as critical to a “diversity bargain”. I question the sources of students’ ideas …

Finding Home: Diasporic Community Building In A Rural U.S. Town, Debadatta Chakraborty

Research Papers

A substantial Indian immigrant population in the U.S. resides beyond the major metropolitan areas. Yet studies on Indian diaspora are focused on big cities, with relatively limited literature on diasporic communities in the smaller cities and towns. This study addresses this gap by understanding how the diasporic ‘Indian’ community in a small U.S. (rural-University) town makes sense of the Indian culture and forms a sense of community, without having the cultural resources of big cities. It explores the way gender, religion, age, race and ethnicity are negotiated in the creation of a ‘home away from home’, and the way cultural …

Beyond Us-Centered Multicultural Foundations On Race, James C. Jupp, Miryam Espinosa-Dulanto

Bilingual and Literacy Studies Faculty Publications

Our conceptual essay begins with the recognition of the U.S. racialized tragedy and embattled discussions on race. Within this tragedy and embattled discussion, we attempt to renew and reinvigorate authentic, dialogic, and vulnerable exchanges on race. With this focus, we critique yet further advance multicultural foundations’ notions of racial identity predominant in the academy and in broader national discussions on race. Critiquing yet advancing multicultural foundations, we emphasize conceptual content from five books on race and power by Cornel West. Working through West’s conceptual content, we emphasize complex and historicized identifications and relationalities as key concepts in the present moment.

Black Girl Magic?: Negotiating Emotions And Success In College Bridge Programs, Olivia Ann Johnson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Using ethnographic observations and in-depth interviews, this project explores the extent to which race, class, and gender shape the socialization that Black women receive about their emotions and attitudes in a college bridge program. It unpacks the ways that dominant emotion cultures can inform the emotional socialization practices of a college bridge program in ways that resist and reproduce larger cultural narratives about Black women. To operationalize this emotional socialization, I introduce a concept called emotional respectability, which suggests that emotional reactions and demeanor must always align with the larger emotion cultures and goals of institutions such as family and …

Introduction: Forging The Path Forward: Critical Conversations From Title Ix: History, Legacy, And Controversy, Valorie K. Vojdik

Tennessee Journal of Race, Gender, & Social Justice

No abstract provided.

Demeanor, Race, And Police Perceptions Of Procedural Justice: Evidence From Two Randomized Experiments, Justin Nix, Justin T. Pickett, Scott E. Wolfe, Bradley A. Campbell

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing recently endorsed procedural justice as a way to restore trust between police and communities. Yet police–citizen interactions vary immensely, and research has yet to give sufficient consideration to the factors that might affect the importance officers place on exercising procedural justice during interactions. Building on research examining “moral worthiness” judgments and racial stereotyping among police officers, we conducted two randomized experiments to test whether suspect race and demeanor affect officers’ perceptions of the threat of violence and importance of exercising procedural justice while interacting with suspicious persons. We find that suspect race …

Recognizing Freedom: Manumission In The Roman Republic, Tristan Husby

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Roman manumission was at the center of three different groups: the Roman state, Roman slave-owners, and freeborn Romans who did not own slaves. I draw upon G.F.W. Hegel, Orlando Patterson, Judith Butler, and Pierre Bourdieu to describe Roman manumission as a ritualized practice that transforms a slave’s life from unlivable to livable. The term “unlivable” comes from the philosopher Judith Butler, who developed it in conversation with Hegel’s master/slave dialectic and the term “social death,” which sociologist Orlando Patterson used to describe slavery. Hegel and Patterson’s thoughts on the movement and experience of freedom are useful for theorizing Roman slavery …

“Pay, Protection, And Professionalism”: The History Of Domestic Worker Organizing And The Future Of Home Health Care In The United States, Julia R. Gruberg

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

With a multidisciplinary approach, I analyze the socio-economic, political, and historical factors that led to the current state of home health care in the United States. The legacy of slavery and the devaluing of so-called “women’s work” explain how the field of domestic work has been historically excluded from protection and regulation in the United States. Caring for children and keeping house have been women’s work for centuries, regardless of whether women were paid to do it or it was outsourced to an employee. Domestic work is sometimes referred to as “the work that makes all other work possible,” but …

Expectations And Aspirations Of Motherhood For Young Women In Foster Care, Joanna Kibel-Gagne

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Young women in foster care are more than twice as likely to become teen mothers than their non-foster care peers. However, research regarding teen motherhood for this population is limited. Existing studies focus on risk factors and poor outcomes, which are more prevalent for foster care youth than those in the general population. Some studies have examined the experience of motherhood from the perspective of the youths revealing a complex experience that is not wholly negative. This dissertation builds on this body of knowledge by examining these young women’s expectations and realities of burgeoning motherhood from the point of pregnancy. …

Becoming Ghosts: The Public Veiling Of Puerto Ricans In New York City, Samantha Pina Saghera

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In recent years Puerto Ricans in New York City have become difficult to locate in the public realm. This is a paradox given that Puerto Ricans make up the largest Hispanic subgroup in the larger metropolitan region. This study examines how, when, and why Puerto Ricans became publicly invisible in New York City.

Demographic, media-based, political, and cultural changes have all contributed to the decline in Puerto Rican ethnic visibility. The consequence is that although Puerto Ricans continue to be racialized (as evidenced by their socioeconomic indicators), their racialization cannot be seen in the public realm. Instead, Hispanic characteristics are …

The Willfulness Of A Missing Frame: Ahmed Zaki And The Politics Of Visual Resistance, Miriam M. Gabriel

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Ahmed Zaki (1949-2005) is one of Egyptian cinema’s most prominent leading actors, with work spanning three decades of critical films that informed a generation’s visual register of masculinity. However, the beginnings of his career were marked by public skepticism around his place as a leading actor due to him being “too dark” and “too poor”; as his career continued to flourish, those very markings of racing and classing Zaki because a foundation for increasingly stamping his public image with the “authenticity” of an Egyptian citizen. At a particularly neoliberal moment in the Egyptian economy, that of the early 80s, new …

Black Models Matter: Challenging The Racism Of Aesthetics And The Facade Of Inclusion In The Fashion Industry, Scarlett L. Newman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The global fashion market is expanding every day, but often, the global fashion runways do not reflect that reality. On average, black models make up for six percent of models used on the runway during the fashion month calendar. This small percentage is also mirrored in advertisements and editorials featured in popular fashion magazines. In the 1970s, black models were met with great opportunities, and that success trickled down into the 1980s and the 1990s. As the 90s came to a close, top designers opted for an aesthetic that ultimately excluded models of color, but black models beared the brunt …

Pre-Occupied Spaces: Remapping Italy's Transnational Migrations And Colonial Legacies [Table Of Contents], Teresa Fiore

Sociology

By linking Italy’s long history of emigration to all continents in the world, contemporary transnational migrations directed toward it, as well as the country’s colonial legacies, Fiore’s book poses Italy as a unique laboratory to rethink national belonging at large in our era of massive demographic mobility. Through an interdisciplinary cultural approach, the book finds traces of globalization in a past that may hold interesting lessons about inclusiveness for the present.

Fiore rethinks Italy’s formation and development on a transnational map through cultural analysis of travel, living, and work spaces as depicted in literary, filmic, and musical texts. By demonstrating …

Skeptics And “The White Stuff” : Promotion Of Cows’ Milk And Other Nonhuman Animal Products In The Skeptic Community As Normative Whiteness, Corey Lee Wrenn

Dietary Choice and Foods of Animal Origin Collection

This article discusses a dairy advertising campaign featuring skeptic Derren Brown. I explore the various health claims made in the ads as well as a report Brown featured on his website that claimed consumption of cow’s milk is linked to longevity. I discuss how dairy consumption is largely linked to race and ethnicity. It is a practice enjoyed primarily by European whites as most nonwhites are lactose intolerant. Lactose intolerance is a normal biological process associated with weaning, but it is medicalized and made deviant because it is not part of the white experience. I also mention comments made by …

Learning To Disclose: A Post Colonial Autoethnography Of Transracial Adoption, Joni Schwartz, Rebecca Schwartz

Publications and Research

This autoethnographic research project examines the transformational learning of a transracial adoptive adult mother and daughter through the lens of postcolonialism. As collaborative researchers, adult adoptee and adoptive mother, examine this lifelong learning experience through critical self-reflection, qualitative meta-analysis, and autoethnographic research methods within the overarching historical and sociopolitical context of Haiti. The findings address the lived complexities of increasingly hybrid families, particularly around the contentious boundaries of race, nationality, and colonial history, as they impact transformational learning. Color blindness and racial identity development for both mother and daughter within their relationship are explored. Implications for adult educators around the …

Studying Guilt Perception In Millennials: Unexpected Effects Of Suspects' Race And Attractiveness, D. Lisa Cothran, Elena V. Stepanova, K. Raquel Barlow

Faculty Publications

The present study explored mock jurors’ guilt judgments with a 2 (Jurors’ Race: Black vs. White) × 2 (Suspects’ Race: Black vs. White) × 2 (Suspects’ Attractiveness: High vs. Low) design in a group of Millennials (N = 331). Black jurors were more lenient; all jurors were more lenient toward Black suspects; and White jurors were less lenient toward Black unattractive suspects. The current study contributes the following novel findings to the literature: documentation of a possible Black experimenter effect in mock jurors; an interaction among suspects’ race, suspects’ attractiveness, and jurors’ race, suggesting that racial bias exhibited by …

The Racial Politics Of Secularity: Rethinking African-American Religiosity Through New Paradigms In Secularization Theory, Diana Christine Brown

Theses and Dissertations

Revisions to secularization theory over the past two decades call for reconceptualization of the relation between race and secularity. Structural theories— depicting secularization as the linear, straightforward decline of religion in modernity— commonly explain the tenacity of African-American religiosity as resulting from their marginalization in modern society, a product of educational and economic disparities. However, recent theories address the secular as a historically contingent, incidental phenomenon, what has been called an "accomplishment"; it merits substantive study in itself, carrying the distinct values, beliefs, and understandings of a particular social history. This new framework invites analysis of the racial assumptions embodied …

In Real Time: From Theory To Practice In A Critical Race Pedagogy Classroom, Van T. Lac

i.e.: inquiry in education

This qualitative research study employs a teacher action research methodology to study how a teacher develops and implements a critical race pedagogy (CRP) curriculum. CRP pairs the liberatory practices of critical pedagogy (Friere, 1970), such a problem-posing classroom and praxis, with the maxims of critical race theory (Delgado & Stefancic, 2000). Situated in a high school teacher pipeline program, this study details how a teacher-researcher developed a curriculum focused on teaching about racial injustice and educational inequality to a group of minoritized youth interested in the teaching profession. The research outlines key levers in her classroom, such as building a …

Korean Soil, Japanese Faces, American Empire: Repatriation And The Korean War Experiences Of Japanese Laborers And Japanese American Soldiers, Jaclyn S. Knitter

Master's Projects and Capstones

This paper compares the Korean War experiences of two ethnically Japanese groups that served the US military on the Korean Peninsula – second-generation Japanese American (Nisei) soldiers in the US Military Intelligence Service (MIS) and Japanese laborers – to demonstrate the salience of citizenship in the post-1945 Asia Pacific. In particular, this research addresses the question, “how did the politics of repatriation differentiate the experiences of Japanese Americans from those of Japanese nationals, both serving the US military during the Korean War?” This service ranged from (Nisei) American repatriation interrogators of Korean and Chinese civilians, to prisoners of war (POWs), …