Latin American Languages and Societies Commons^™

A Queens Community Teacher Storytelling Project: A Qualitative Research Study Of Five Local Afro-Caribbean And Latina Public School Teachers And Community Teachers In New York City, José Alfredo Menjivar Ortéz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation thesis examines the lived experiences, life stories, and storytelling of five Afro-Caribbean and Latina people, who are all local from the borough of Queens, alumni of New York City’s public schools, and since then, became their local public school teachers, classroom practitioners, and local community teachers. We refer to this specific and unique population of teachers as alumni-community teachers and to these and other similar stories as teacher life stories.

This qualitative research and study were conducted through a series of writing workshops and semi-structured interviews. The study’s main examination is preoccupied to understand how local teachers make …

Indigenous Mexicans In New York City: Immigrant Integration, Language Use, And Identity Formation, Leslie A. Martino-Velez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

As indigenous Mexican immigrants migrate, settle, and raise families in the United States, parents, particularly women, and their children increasingly have contact with community institutions, such as schools. Despite their growing numbers in U.S. schools, indigenous children, youth, and their parents are often invisible due to their ethnolinguistic identities and undocumented status. Understanding what parents do to help their children is essential to understanding the first generation's integration and their children, the second generation.

To better understand this, I conducted an ethnographic research study at a bilingual Head Start program in New York City, in East Harlem, where many undocumented …

¿Cómo Traducimos "Ni Una Más" Al Inglés?: Latin American Manifestation Of The Phenomenology Of Femicide, And The United States’ Subsequent Internal Neglect, Suemi Mendez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This paper aims to tackle two components in analyzing the phenomenological concept of femicide, most simply known as the killing of women because they are women through structural violence and oppression. First, it will develop its deployment within the Latin American framework as it has been adapted to function within the regional lexicon, both socially and legislatively. This assessment will serve to address the successes and failures thus far in tackling femicide as the location with the highest statistics globally. Through this foregrounding, it will lead into how this revised deployment of femicide fits into the context of Global North …

The Making And Silencing Of “Axé-Ocracy” In Brazil: Black Women Writers’ Spiritual, Political And Literary Movement In São Paulo, Sarah S. Ohmer

Publications and Research

In this article, I will focus on two influential writers from the south of Brazil, Cristiane Sobral who currently lives in Brasília, from Rio de Janeiro, and Conceição Evaristo who currently lives in Rio de Janeiro state, from Minas Gerais. I got to know them in São Paulo in 2015 at a public event: the “Afroétnica Flink! Sampa Festival of Black Thought, Literature and Culture.” I will include references to some of their younger contemporaries such as Raquel Almeida, Jenyffer Nascimento, and Elizandra Souza, all of whom reside in São Paulo, in order to illustrate the Black Brazilian women writers’ …

Does Ethnic Identity, In-Group Preference, And Acculturation Protect Latinas With A History Of Interpersonal Trauma From Developing Symptoms Of Ptsd?, Evelyn M. Ramirez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Previous research suggests ethnic identity, a sense of belonging to a particular cultural group, may be protective against symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, the role of ethnic identity, in-group preference (i.e., an individual’s preference for interactions with members of their own ethnic group) and acculturation (i.e., the level of comfort with the mainstream culture) have not been investigated as protective factors for Latinas with a history of interpersonal and sexual trauma. In this study, ethnic identity, in-group preference and acculturation were assessed via self-report on the Scale of Ethnic Experience in two samples of undergraduate Latina and non-Latina …

Cultural Heritage Preservation In The Context Of Climate Change Adaptation Or Relocation: Barbuda As A Case Study, Martha B. Lerski

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This case study introduces an arts camp methodology of engaging communities in identifying their key cultural heritage features, thus serving as a meta study. It presents original research based on field studies on the climate-vulnerable Caribbean island of Barbuda during 2017 and 2018. Its Valued Cultural Elements survey, enabling precise identification of key tangible and intangible art forms and biocultural practices, may serve as a basis for further studies. Such approaches may facilitate future research or planning as climate-vulnerable communities harness Local or Indigenous Knowledge for purposes of biocultural heritage preservation, or towards adaptation or relocation. I report on findings …

Spa 2201hs Spanish For Heritage Speakers (Syllabus_Fall 2019), David Sánchez-Jiménez

Open Educational Resources

SPA 2201HS Spanish for Heritage Speakers is an intermediate course intended for students who were immersed in or exposed to the language while growing up, but who have received little or no formal instruction in Spanish. Strengthens students’ competence in the oral and written standard varieties of Spanish by building on their previous knowledge to expand their vocabulary, strengthen their command of grammar, and achieve more confidence and fluency in speaking and writing while learning about the diversity of the Hispanic cultures. The skills acquired in this course will help reinforce students’ bilingual abilities and cultural competence.

Afroreggae And Grupo Cultural Afro Reggae: A Study Of The Early Years, Sarah S. Ohmer

Publications and Research

The following study of AfroReggae and Grupo Cultural Afro Reggae (GCAR) calls attention to Brazilian presence and community organizing in the field of Hip Hop studies with a long memory framework: placing AfroReggae and GCAR in a long history of Africana resistance through music in Latin America. !990s GCAR group arises when reggae and Hip Hop music had become new global forms of solidarity among urban marginalized youths worldwide, making use of old and new strategies of social healing (Fernandes 2011). A close look at lyrics from the Hip Hop fusion band and the associated nonprofit organization shape the concepts …

Por Uma Vida Sem Catracas: The 'June Uprising' And Recent Movements In Brazil, Matthew Binetti

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The protests in Brazil in June 2013 which gained attention after a proposal to raise bus fares or what have come to be referred to as the `June Uprising' and those that have since continued, far exceed the issue of bus fare in their significance. These events are only part of a series of movements and trends that are united by a common desire to create alternatives based on ideas of autonomy, solidarity, and horizontalism. This paper focuses on groups who are at the center of this struggle such as The Free Fare Movement, The Popular Committees for the World …

Undocumented Youth Living Between The Lines: Urban Governance, Social Policy, And The Boundaries Of Legality In New York City And Paris, Stephen P. Ruszczyk

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation compares the transition to adulthood of undocumented youth in New York and Paris, along with analysis of the construction of illegality in each city. In both the United States and France, national restrictions against undocumented immigrants increasingly take the form of deportations and limiting access to social rights. New York City and Paris, however, mitigate the national restrictions in important but different ways. They construct "illegality" differently, leading to different young adult outcomes and lived experiences of "illegality." This project uses seven years of multi-site ethnographic data to trace the effects of these mitigated "illegalities" on two dozen …

On The Midnight Train To Georgia: Afro-Caribbeans And The New Great Migration To Atlanta, Latoya Asantelle Tavernier

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In the 21st century, Atlanta, Georgia has become a major new immigrant destination. This study focuses on the migration of Afro-Caribbeans to Atlanta and uses data collected from in-depth interviews, ethnography, and the US Census to understand: 1) the factors that have contributed to the emergence of Atlanta as a new destination for Afro-Caribbean immigrants and 2) the ways in which Atlanta's large African American population, and its growing immigrant population, shape the incorporation of Afro-Caribbeans, as black immigrants, into the southern city. I find that Afro-Caribbeans are attracted to Atlanta for a variety of reasons, including warmer climate, job …

The Second Generation's Homeland Trips: A Parental Expectation For The U.S.-Born Children Of Mexican Immigrants In The South Bronx, Alexia Raynal

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

New deportation policies in the United States are making it harder for undocumented immigrants to return home periodically (Dreby 2013a). This has a direct impact on their children. Because parents can't travel, thousands of foreign-born minors have recently been forced to travel alone in hopes of reunification. Their U.S.-born counterparts face a similar challenge: immigrants' lack of mobility places a new expectation on them to visit relatives that were left behind. Unlike their parents, these children can move freely across borders and maintain family ties. This project explores the second generation's homeland trips as experienced by a small group of …

When Wives Migrate And Leave Husbands Behind: A Jamaican Marriage Pattern, Elaine B. Douglas-Harrison

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

For over a hundred years Jamaicans have been migrating to make the proverbial `better life' for themselves and their families. In the early 20th century husbands migrated, leaving wives behind. As economies of the United States and Canada have become more service-oriented, wives migrate leaving husbands behind. The experiences of Jamaican immigrant women are documented in Caribbean migration studies, but the marriages of Jamaican legally-married immigrant wives and their husbands left behind in Jamaica are so far unstudied. The main research question of this study is what maintains these transnational marriages over time, sometimes for decades, when spouses see each …

Roundup Ready Nation: The Political Ecology Of Genetically Modified Soy In Argentina, Amalia Leguizamon

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is a case study of agrarian transformation in an agro-export society, Argentina. I study the process of adoption of the technological package of genetically modified (GM) soy in the Argentine countryside, its socio-ecological consequences, and Argentines' responses to it. In particular, this research addresses Argentina's unique situation of being a developing country that has positively embraced the biotechnology of GM seeds as a key accumulation strategy without the emergence of major contestation against GM soy monocropping. In order to answer the puzzle of quiescence, I look at how power relations structure access to social and environmental goods and …

Focusing On Black Queer Writing: Clags At The Fire & Ink Cotillion Iii In Austin Texas, Shawn(Ta) Smith-Cruz

Center for LGBTQ Studies (CLAGS)

On October 8-11th, 2009, an historic event occurred in Austin, Texas. The Fire & Ink III: Cotillion brought together LGBT writers and artists of African descent from around the nation and beyond. In 2002, its founding year, Thomas Glave, editor of Our Caribbean: A Gathering of Lesbian and Gay Writing from the Antilles (Duke University Press) and author of The Torturer's Wife (fiction), provided the keynote, later published in both his essay collection, Words to our Now as well as the Summer 2003 issue of Callaloo (literary journal) under the name: "Fire and Ink: Toward a Quest for Language, History …