Latin American Languages and Societies Commons^™

Llevándolas Con Calma: Latin American Migrant Worker Parenthood And Covid-19, Anthony J. Stronach

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (2024 - present)

We have yet to fully understand what Latino migrant worker parents -a population invisible in many ways to much of society- have undergone since the onset and as a result of the COVID-19 health crisis. As such, grounded in the experiences and words of eleven migrants, this dissertation demonstrates (1) the shifting parameters of migrant parenthood during and after the pandemic, (2) how migrant working parents navigated such unprecedented times, and (3) their reflections as they looked back upon such experiences. These experiences include more than merely what happened to them; they encompass their thoughts, their emotions, their memories, their …

Untangling Memories Of Violence: The Khipu In El Rincón De Los Muertos (Alfredo Pita), Jonathan J. Oliveri

Living in Languages

This research proposes a structural reading of El rincón de los muertos to decode and trace echoes to the khipu which are embedded throughout the novel. Contrary to a graphic writing system, the Incan empire’s khipu (khipu) was a mnemotechnic system—a three-dimensional communicative device, an archive of memory that recorded information using different colored strings, and a system of knots. Our concept of mnemonics is different than that of the indigenous communities who relied on oral tradition and specifically for khipu a khipukamayuq (reader of khipu), in a narrative and discursive manner, to reconstruct the message the khipu contained. …

Black Migrants In Harlem, 1900-1942: West Indian Migrants And The Ideologies That Helped Shape Garveyism And Black Politics In New York City's Interwar Period And Harlem Renaissance, Aminah Zanette Wallace

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

ABSTRACT This dissertation tells a new story of Harlem black radicalism by inserting four West Indian migrants' experiences in advancing and enriching conversations on Harlem’s black radicalism, on Garveyism and on black politics during the interwar period and Harlem Renaissance era in Harlem. These four men include Hubert Harrison of St. Croix, Wilfred A. Domingo and Marcus Garvey of Jamaica and Cyril Briggs of Nevis of St. Kitts-Nevis. It writes a new history of Harlem black radicalism that inserts these four West Indian thinkers into the conversation and brings all these thinkers together under one history. This dissertation makes a …

Dominican Women Experiencing Violence: Transnationalism, Gender, And The Search For Social Justice, Anyeline Mejia-Mcdonald

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

My dissertation contributes to the study of feminicide and violence against women through a unique analysis of what Cecilia Menjívar calls “multisided forms of violence”, to which I add the transnational experience. Focused on the Dominican Republic, this dissertation asks what are women’s experiences of multisided violence; how do they respond, react, and resist; and what effect does transnationalism play? Informed by 16 months of ethnography, utilizing participant observation, content analysis, and 50 semi-structured interviews, my findings demonstrate that, due to the failure of bureaucratic policies and mechanisms to guarantee women’s safety, survivors are forced to negotiate social, political, and …

What Does "Caliban's Woman" Sound Like? : A Study Of Indo-Guyanese Women's Emergent Voice In The Us, Caitlin Irene Janiszewski

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Abstract

Dark Networks And Pathogens Undermining Democracies: Guillermo Del Toro And Chuck Hogan’S The Strain, Carmen A. Serrano

Languages, Literatures and Cultures Faculty Scholarship

As economies and cultures morph due to technoscience, vampire entities also mutate so as to still provoke fear ‒their bodies change, their populations grow and their networks expand; yet the way to annihilate them becomes less obvious. Responding to these modern day changes, Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan’s television series The Strain (2014-2017) uncannily echoes, or perhaps foreshadows, the social realities under an informational, networked, and epidemiological paradigm. The filmmakers here present viewers with hybrid monsters and environments that are highly interconnected and pathogenic, reflecting contemporary social fears regarding failing democracies and global pandemics. Drawing from Guillermo del Toro’s …

A Missed Opportunity: Post-Revolutionary Mexican Murals And Incomplete Historical Narratives, Jesus Gandara Ortega

Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latino Studies Honors Program

This research project investigates the sociopolitical factors that contributed to the lack of Afro-Mexican representation in post-revolutionary murals and how the erasure of Afro-Mexicans in government-commissioned propaganda has affected Afro-descendant communities today in Mexico. The post-revolutionary struggles for power to unite the country have all but erased the representation of Afro-descendants in murals, historical records, and among its citizens. The absence of Afro-descendants in post-revolutionary murals contributes to continued stigma and discrimination against Afro-descendants in Mexico.

Stonewall’S Parallel Queer Latinidad, Kassondra Gonzalez

Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latino Studies Honors Program

The Stonewall Riots in New York City marked the official beginning of the U.S. gay rights movement in 1969. Following a police raid, the intense fight between officers and LGBTQ+ bar goers at Manhattan’s Stonewall Inn developed into a series of organized uprisings over the following days. Despite the bar’s predominantly white population, people of color were on the front lines of most physical incidents during the riots as well as other forms of activism (Gan 2007, 131). According to scholar Jessi Gan, the legacy of black and brown activism during this time period has historically been glossed over, particularly …

Dear United States Of America, We Are Children: Unaccompanied Minors At The U.S./Mexico Border, Briana Dominguez

Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latino Studies Honors Program

The United States government creates policies that have systematically excluded nonwhites from being legally recognized as members of U.S. society. Immigration laws have historically been influenced by the cultural construction of race and racism in the United States.

Barbados’ Debt Crisis: The Effects Of Colonialism And Neoliberalism, Noel Chase

Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latino Studies Honors Program

This research project explains the correlation between the tourism sector and Barbados’s cycle of debt. Barbados has continuously incurred debt, from international financing institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, since its independence from Great Britain in 1966. As of 2017, the estimated national debt of Barbados is $7.92 billion (USD).[1] Sir Hillary Beckles, Michael Howard, and other economic experts and professors at the University of the West Indies, believe the country has gone into debt for a variety of different reasons. Barbados incurred such a staggering debt due in part to its violent history of chattel slavery, the …

Activismo, Literatura Y Cambio Social En El Caribe Hispano: Aproximación En Tres Movimientos, Maria Alejandra Aguilar Dornelles

Languages, Literatures and Cultures Faculty Scholarship

Este ensayo convoca a la reflexión de los vínculos entre literatura, activismo y cambio social en el Caribe hispano privilegiando ciertas intervenciones lideradas por mujeres, las cuales han contribuido a la defensa de mejores condiciones de vida y a un pacto social más equitativo. Teniendo en cuenta la diversidad y movilidad que caracteriza a la región caribeña, esta reflexión comienza examinando las organizaciones feministas autónomas que surgieron en la década del 70 en Puerto Rico para luego desplazarse hacia el trabajo de cuestionamiento a la historia planteado por la poesía de Aída Cartagena Portalatín en República Dominicana, concluyendo con una …

The Promise And Perils Of Radical Left Populism: The Case Of Venezuela., Gabriel Hetland

Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latino Studies Faculty Scholarship

Mainstream critics argue that populism inevitably leads to economic disaster and political authoritarianism. Venezuela is often pointed to as proof of this. Yet, while the profound crisis gripping Venezuela is undeniable, comprehensive analysis of Chavismo shows that populism, and specifically the radical left populism found in Venezuela, is more ambiguous. From 2005-2013 radical left populism in Venezuela reduced poverty and inequality, deepened democracy, and built popular support for a "transition to socialism." These gains were erased in the post-2014 crisis, which revealed two flaws of the Chavista model hidden by its earlier success: its unsustainable material foundation and inability to …

From Locus Amoenus To Locus Horribilis: Provincial And Urban Spaces Of Cultural (Re)Assertion And Hegemony In Yates And Sigel’S When The Mountains Tremble And Bustamante’S Ixcanul, Katrina Abad

Views from Below: The Underdog in Contemporary Latin American and Spanish Film

The trope of locus amoenus, or the idyllic representation of heaven on earth, and its counterpart locus horribilis, or the mundane incarnation of hell, was first critically defined by Ernst Robert Curtius in 1953 and identified in religiously influenced literature as early as Latin and medieval European works. Since then, the locus theory has appeared in numerous secular texts and films, such as Marcelo Ferrari’s Sub Terra (2004), as a means of distinguishing the once-pristine ‘purity’ of provincial spaces from the physically and metaphorically cramped mines and buildings produced by an urbanized modernity. This essay seeks to translate …

The Anti-Hero Perspective Of Sebastián Silva’S The Maid, Amber Bradley

Views from Below: The Underdog in Contemporary Latin American and Spanish Film

Many contemporary Latin American films portray a character or a protagonist that strives to bring in an audience to emphasize the “underdog” and their role in society. In Sebastián Silva’s Chilean film, The Maid (2009), Raquel is a maid and nanny, who achieves the exact opposite throughout the movie. This servant’s societal perspectives concerning distinct classes and gender roles are shown through her photographs and passive aggressive actions towards some of the family members and the other women, who are hired to help her lighten the housework of the home. Raquel’s attitude, mistreatment and tricks demonstrate her apparent desire to …

Cinematographic Resources As Meaningful Affordances In A Foreign Language Class, Denise Osborne

Views from Below: The Underdog in Contemporary Latin American and Spanish Film

Cinematographic resources as meaningful affordances in a foreign language class.” In this presentation, Osborne will discuss a proposal for use of films as works of art in foreign languages classes. She will show how cinematographic features (e.g., sound, color, lighting, camera angles, mise-en-scène) and their implication for film narrative − rarely emphasized in foreign language classrooms − can be a powerful tool to engage students in a dialogical and ecological construction of knowledge. Consideration of cinematographic features in scenes from the Brazilian Portuguese films Abril Despedaçado (Cohn & Salles, 2001) and Raízes e Asas (Cabral & Pimenta, 2011), and …

Scapegoating In The Films By Alejando Fernández Almendras, Ilka Kressner

Views from Below: The Underdog in Contemporary Latin American and Spanish Film

Chilean filmmaker Fernández Almendras has examined the processes of victimization of the “poor man” in several of his feature films, most prominently Matar a un hombre [To Kill a Man] (2014, Winner of the World Cinema Grand Jury Price at Sundance Festival) and Aquí no ha pasado nada [Much Ado About Nothing] (2016). Both works exemplify processes of victimization through verbal performative acts: words in the form of humiliations, menaces and blackmail become the fatal weapons of scapegoating.

Artistic Film Interpretation Of Literary Piece: Yo Fumo Puros Como Mi Abuela, Katrina Abad

Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latino Studies Symposium

The 10-minute short film described below is narrated in Spanish but will also be available with English subtitles by the end of production.

Yo fumo puros como mi abuela

Inspirado por “Mi abuela fumaba puros” de Sabine Ulibarrí

or

I Smoke Cigars Like My Grandmother

Inspired by Sabine Ulibarrí’s “My Grandmother Smoked Cigars”

Written and produced by Katrina B. Abad and Inés García-Rojas

The moving short story “Mi abuela fumaba puros” (1992) by Mexican-American author Sabine Ulibarrí depicts the fortitude of a matriarchal grandmother from the eyes of her grandson at different stages of tragedy in their life. In this …

The Gospel Of Colonization: The U.S. Colonization Of Puerto Rico As A Protestant Missionary Projec, Jorge Juan Rodriguez V

Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latino Studies Symposium

One year after the Spanish-American War, representatives from nine major Protestant denominations* met in New York City to discuss the “new mission field” of Puerto Rico. While they were eager to “evangelize” these “un-churched” Puerto Ricans, Protestant leaders shared concern about “stepping on each-others toes” in this new religious marketplace. As a result, representatives established a Committee Agreement that carved the island and set parameters on where each particular denomination could evangelize and establish institutions. Presbyterians took the West, Disciples the Mid-North, Baptists parts of the island’s center, etc. Their mission was clear: “to inaugurate a work that assures the …

Bilingual Spanish Vowels: The Case Of Heritage Speakers, Megan E. Solon, Nyssa Knarvik, Joshua Declerck

Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Other Graduate Student Scholarship

Previous research on heritage Spanish vowel production has revealed consistent and systematic differences—including asymmetry in the vowel space, condensing and fronting of back vowels, and reduction and centralization of unstressed vowels—as compared to traditional descriptions of the monolingual Spanish vowel triangle. The present study takes another look at heritage Spanish vowels (both quality and quantity), using a group of “homeland” native Spanish-speaking late Spanish-English bilinguals for comparison purposes. Data for both groups were collected via a dyadic, meaning-focused task. Results revealed significant differences between heritage and homeland groups in front and mid-vowel quality, but no differences in vowel quantity. Additionally, …

Cruise Lines, Christine Vassallo-Oby

Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latino Studies Faculty Scholarship

Cruise lines are companies that operate cruise ships. Carnival Corporation & plc, the world’s largest cruise ship corporation, operates nine cruise lines globally with four headquartered in the United States. These four U.S.-headquartered cruise lines represent Carnival Corporation & plc’s North American segment: Holland America Line, Carnival Cruise Lines, Princess Cruises, and Seabourn Cruise Line. As the example of Carnival Corporation & plc’s North,American market illustrates, cruise lines operate in geographical segments, each segment consisting of its own unique branding. This branding schema is tailored to fit unique socioeconomic markers of these geographical segments. Cruise lines function directly with the …

Heroísmo Y Conciencia Racial En La Obra De La Poeta Afro-Cubana Cristina Ayala, Maria A. Aguilar

Languages, Literatures and Cultures Faculty Scholarship

This article examines the poetry of Cuban writer Cristina Ayala emphasizing the political value of her use of a rhetoric of heroism, a discursive device that masks her demands for recognition of women’s rights and those of Afro-Cubans. The analysis of her poetry suggests that the symbolic manipulation of the “hero” and the representation of “colored” women as intellectuals and “heroes” expressed her desire to intervene in the public arena. By positioning herself within a political discourse that reconstructed slavery’s past, she narrated the revolutionary vicissitudes and created a utopian vision of the future for the Afro-Cuban community. Ayala expresses …

Critical Travels, Discursive Practices: Foucault In Tunis (1966-1968), Ilka Kressner

Languages, Literatures and Cultures Faculty Scholarship

In the extensive research on the oeuvre and life of Michel Foucault, the years he spent in Tunisia do not occupy a prominent role. More precisely, they have been mentioned only in passing. David Macey's six-hundred-page English biography, The Lives of Michel Foucault, discusses the time in Tunisia only briefly. In his biography in French, Didier Eribon dedicates some scarce seven pages to the time Foucault worked as visiting professor of philosophy at Tunis University. Eribon introduces his account as follows: "Why Tunis? This was, once again, a strange set of co-occurrences.""

Revamping Dracula On The Mexican Silver In Fernando Méndez’S El Vampiro, Carmen Serrano

Languages, Literatures and Cultures Faculty Scholarship

This chapter explores Mexican vampire movies of the 1950s and follows the vampire’s journey from the Americas to Europe and back in order to analyze the ways in which the monster is articulated in each cultural context. The specific Mexican articulation of the vampire in Fernando Méndez’sEl vampiro is modeled after Hollywood films, yet the film carries nuanced meaning having to do with national identity and borders. In this film, the vampire is a menacing figure that arrives seeking to infect, invade, and conquer. At the same time, he is potentially a subversive other that transgresses borders and threatens …

Estudio SociolingüÍStico De Las LíQuidas En El EspañOl Hablado En La Ciudad De GuantáNamo, Yaima Aimee Centeno

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Este estudio examina la variación de /l/ y /r/ mediante 32 entrevistas sociolingüísticas llevadas a cabo en la ciudad de Guantánamo, Cuba. Además, investiga la influencia del contexto fonológico, el nivel académico, la edad y el sexo en el uso de ciertas variantes de /r/ y /l/. Los factores lingüísticos internos considerados fueron: el contexto lingüístico (posición final de sílaba o final de palabra) y el segmento lingüístico. También se consideraron factores sociales tales como: el nivel académico, la edad y el sexo.

Cruise Ship Tourism In Cozumel, Mexico: “Frios Como La Naturaleza De Los Gringos Lo Dice", Christine Vassallo-Oby

Latin American, Caribbean, and U.S. Latino Studies Faculty Scholarship

Cruise ship tourism is a dynamic site of inquiry within the anthropology of tourism. Its history and current social manifestations concerns millions of localities around the globe that combine to form a transnational entity like no other. Billions of dollars and tourists’ bodies transverse oceans every year and the historical, social, and political processes that follow these flows of money and people are appropriately complex for ethnographic engagement. Applied anthropology, as a method and theory dedicated to problem solving, seems is ripe for the study of cruise ship tourism.

El Esclavo Y El Letrado: Máscaras De La Auto-Representación En La Temprana Narrativa Antiesclavista Cubana, Maria A. Aguilar-Dornelles

Languages, Literatures and Cultures Faculty Scholarship

Los tres textos aquí discutidos, Autobiografía de un esclavo,Francisco y Sab,narran la experiencia de la esclavitud desde la perspectiva del esclavo.Sinembargo, laperspectiva del narrador de Autobiografía de un esclavopermite establecer una distancia ideológica con la imagen del esclavo creada por Suárez y Romero y Gómez de Avellaneda. A pesar de que Autobiografíafue editada y alterada para adecuarla a la norma lingüística de la ciudad letrada, es posible identificar estrategias de negociación y desafío a la autoridad de los intelectuales que intentaron controlar sus condiciones de emisión y difusión.A este respecto, elnarradorno enfatiza lavictimizacióndel esclavo, como síhacen Suárez y Romero y …

Towards A Theory About Spanish Women In Sixteenth Century Hispaniola : A Research Guide And Case Studies, Lissette Acosta-Corniel

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation is a pioneering study about the first Spanish women of Hispaniola, the first European settlement of the Americas. Spanish women in sixteenth century Hispaniola have never been adequately identified, and as a consequence their history has not been written. One of the major setbacks about the history of Spanish women in colonial Hispaniola is to know where to look for information about them. For this reason, this dissertation offers a research guide about Spanish women in sixteenth century Hispaniola, and in order to learn about the quotidian lives of these women, this dissertation presents specific case studies and …

Blackness Of A Different Color : The Complexities Of Identity Of Haitian Migrants And Their Descendants In The Bahamas, Katiuscia Pelerin

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

"Blackness of a Different Color: The Complexities of Identity of Haitian Migrants and their Descendants in the Bahamas" is the first book-length study of its kind, and the first since 1978 to examine the Haitian experience in the Bahamas. It establishes that the Haitian diaspora is as worthy a topic of academic attention as other diasporas, not just as an appendage of the African diaspora. It examines how Haitians experience a complex, but by no means unique, form of black on black racism in which Bahamians have

The Family And Its Effects On Intergenerational Educational Attainment In The Bahamas, Marcellus C. Taylor

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This exploratory study examines the individual and family effects on intergenerational educational attainment mobility giving focus to the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, a small, newly-independent nation in the Caribbean region.

Second Generation Indo-Guyanese Adolescent Identity, Caitlin Irene Janiszewski

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This thesis investigates the lives of second generation Indo-Guyanese immigrants in Schenectady, New York. Through the creative means of playwriting, I demonstrate how these subjects saw identified racially, ethnically, nationally, and how gender is implicated in these identifications. I argue that the force of "colorblind" discourse and multicultural language in the context the United States promotes an ambiguous sense of racial, ethnic, and national identification. I argue that a Foucauldian framework which I call the "deployment of race" is what manages this ambiguity and disciplines subjects to use a "colorblind" grammar. This thesis/project also makes a methodological argument. The stage …