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“9/11 And The Collapse Of The American Dream: Imbolo Mbue’S Behold The Dreamers”, Elizabeth Toohey

Publications and Research

Behold the Dreamers follows a Cameroonian couple who, as newcomers to America, harbor dreams of success unavailable to them back home. Undocumented immigration, the widening gulf between rich and poor, and the thinly veiled racism of an avowedly "post-racial" culture converge in this new generation of immigrants' painful encounter with the American dream. I consider the ways Mbue's novel shares themes with a "second wave" of post- 9/11 literature—first, in centering the disillusionment of a protagonist aspiring to the American dream; next, in its representation of New York as a space haunted by 9/11, but also of resistance to the …

Occitan Musicians, Immigration, And Postcolonial Regionalism In Southern France, Sarah E. Trouslard

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in southern France, this dissertation analyzes contemporary Occitan musical expression in relation to postcolonial immigration. “Occitan” refers to a group of linguistic practices found in the south of France, including Provençal and Languedocien. Throughout this study, I discuss commonalities between postcolonial and regionalist history and theory, shedding light on notions of cultural citizenship that have defined French sociopolitics in recent decades. The historian Herman Lebovics (2004) coined the term “postcolonial regionalism” in reference to the impact of decolonization on regional protest movements in France during the 1970s. During that time, singer/songwriters of the nòva cançon …

Under The Skin, Silvana Silveira

Theses and Dissertations

Under the Skin is an animation depicting the struggles of Laila, a fictional ten-year-old Salvadoran girl child who risks her life crossing the desert to realize her dream of finding a better life in America.

Through Laila's experiences inside the American Immigration system, Under the Skin focuses on the vicissitudes and emotions that unaccompanied migrant children (UMC) arriving in the US across the US-Mexico border encounter.

By combining 2D animation and soundscapes with hand-made textures and paintings, this art film puts a human face to the ongoing immigration crisis. The organic, almost tactile universes created by these textures enhance the …

Positioning And Repositioning: Transnational Identity (Re) Construction And (Re) Negotiation By American-Senegalese Children, Aminata Diop

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The main aim of this dissertation is to study the ways American-Senegalese children position and reposition themselves as they (re) construct and (re) negotiate their transnational identity upon returning to the U.S. from Senegal. This project explores the following questions: 1) why do US-residing Senegalese parents send their children back to their homeland to be raised by relatives? 2) how do these American-Senegalese children (re) construct and (re) negotiate their multiple layers of identities upon returning home after being raised by extended family members for more than a decade?3) and how do the American-Senegalese children (re) story their racial, class, …

An Eco-Political Theory Of Territory, Jonathan Kwan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this dissertation, I advance a novel eco-political theory of territory that grounds a people’s territorial rights in its right to political self-determination understood as inextricably and normatively bound up with its right to ecological integrity and duty of ecological sustainability. I develop a social ontology of the people as the holder of territorial rights based on its members’ place-based common activities that aim at their own independent governance rather than in terms of state institutions, cultural nationhood, ethnogeography, political identity, or shared conceptions of justice. The common activities of a people generate a group right to democratic self-determination since …

Demographic And Socioeconomic Transformations Among The Mexican-Origin Population Of New York City, 1990-2017, Laird W. Bergad

Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies

Introduction:

The Mexican-origin population was the fastest growing Latino national subgroup in New York City between 1990 and 2015, increasing from about 58,000 to 377,000 people.The growth rate was so above and beyond the rates of expansion among other Latino nationalities, that it seemed as if by 2030 Mexicans would surpass Dominicans and Puerto Ricans to become the largest Latino nationality in the City. However, very quickly after 2015, Mexicans began to leave the City and population contracted to about 323,000 in 2017.

Methods:

All of the data in this report were derived from the raw data files released by …

The Cultural Dual Identity In Cristina Garcia's Dreaming In Cuban And Julia Alvarez's How The Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, Azahria John-Otway

Dissertations and Theses

Cristina Garcia's Dreaming in Cuban and Julia Alvarez's How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents are two novels that explore the effects immigration can have on the development of one's identity, respectively. Throughout both novels, it is understood that in order for an immigrant to have a sense of belonging, an exploratory journey of the self must be made. In making this journey, literally and figuratively, the immigrant person begins to appreciate their homeland and immigrated home, thus feeling a sense of belonging and accepting they are of a cultural dual identity.