Latin American Languages and Societies Commons^™

Cultural Folk, Political Lore: The Politics Of Folklore During The United States Occupation Of Haiti From 1915 To 1934, Cheyla G. Muñoz Ramos

Honors Theses

My project focuses on Haitian folklore in the early twentieth century in connection to the first United States’ occupation of Haiti. The United States’ Marine Corps occupied Haiti from 1915 to 1934. This nineteenth-year occupation brought violence and racial stereotypes towards the Haitian population, especially the peasantry. United States Americans coming to Haiti intensified these stereotypes. During this period, Haitian upper-and middle-class members heavily politized Haitian folklore and used it to defend Haiti against these stereotypes. Scholars have long discussed the anthropological works of ethno-anthropologist Jean Price-Mars as someone who tried to show the value of Haitian folklore, especially the …

¡Si Nicaragua Venció, El Salvador Vencerá!: A Comparative Analysis Of The Nicaraguan Revolution And The Salvadoran Civil War, Edrei Pena

Honors Theses

This thesis compares the history of the Nicaraguan Revolution and the Salvadoran Civil War in order to understand why Nicaragua had success, unlike El Salvador. I analyze the history by focusing on four factors I believe are important for a successful revolution. These factors are broad multi-class alliances, military strength and strategy, the role of the Church, and external influences. Through this, I find that the factor of class alliances is the most crucial for a successful revolution to take place. The Sandinistas in Nicaragua had these broad class alliances while the FMLN in El Salvador did not.

Coded: Dialect Diversity In The Secondary American Classroom, Madeline Dunn

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the differences between dialects along racial, cultural, and ethnic lines with a specific focus on Black and Latine students inside the public secondary classrooms of America. The focus of the paper is on two linguistic tactics: “code-switching,” a linguistic practice which teaches students to separate their home language from the language they use in formal or professional settings, and “code-meshing,” a linguistic practice to teach students how to mesh together multiple dialects with which a student is familiar. Through the creation of a historical framework and an analysis of existing literature, theory, and pedagogical practices regarding the …

Los Defectos De La Perfección: Un Análisis De Los Temas Recurrentes De Secretos, Traumas Intergeneracionales E Identidades Biculturales En Yo No Soy Tu Perfecta Hija Mexicana, Tiffany Vembenil

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the social critiques by author Erika L. Sánchez in her debut novel Yo no soy tu perfecta hija mexicana (2017). This is a fictional coming-of-age story of teen Julia Reyes, who is grieving the death of her “perfect” older sister. Sánchez explores intersectional feminism, describing Julia’s struggles with gender roles, power dynamics, race, and socioeconomic status.

Sánchez employs imagery and irony to critique how the judging, silence, and secrecy that younger generations learn from their community permit predatory behavior, sexual assault, and victim-blaming. However, she also shows how keeping secrets can be a necessary evil to protect …

Church State Relations: Religiopolitics In Chile And Uruguay In The 21st Century, Calley Overton

Honors Theses

This paper addresses the issue of Church-state relations in the last twenty years with special respect to Latin America, specifically in Chile and Uruguay. In my project, I will be looking at the presidential administrations of Chilean presidents Michelle Bachelet and Sebastian Piñera and Uruguayan president Tabaré Vázquez. I will use newspaper articles from El Pais (Uruguay) and El Mercurio (Chile) to examine whether political affiliation or country history determines the activism of the Catholic Church in these countries. I argue that country history has a greater influence on the role of the Catholic Church in a country’s politics than …

Body Image Perceptions Reflected In Social Media: A Guatemalan Instagram Study, Sarah Harris

Honors Theses

Guatemala has faced a long battle with colonialism, civil war, and an ensuing, rapid urbanization. Still today, the country exhibits high levels of malnourishment while also facing an ascending obesity epidemic. This project seeks to explore how the obesity epidemic has changed body image perceptions in the region. Through the use of social media accounts on Instagram, I aim to analyze how Guatemalan influencers use their platform to explore notions of varying body image perceptions in a country where food is culturally significant, malnutrition has plagued many communities, and obesity is growing in prevalence daily. This thesis aims to answer …

Cultural Memory Conflicted In Post-Conflict Peru: Constructing Heroes And Villains La Hora Final And La Casa Rosada, Reed Peets

Honors Theses

Building on this same theoretical platform, this project uses two critically-acclaimed contemporary cinematic representations of the internal armed conflict—La hora final and La casa rosada—as reflections of the ways in which the Peruvian cultural products of today are leveraged to reorchestrate collective understandings of the past.

The Normalization Of Detention Centers In The United States, Laura Beth Mulligan

Honors Theses

Since the beginning of 2022, 19,948 immigrants have been detained in the United States. Mistreatment of Latin American immigrants occurring across the 215 detention centers located in the United States has grown completely out of control in the more recent years. The U.S. detention system is one that is motivated by racism and superiority complexes of one race over another, leading to Latin American immigrants being treated as less than human. This Senior Thesis explores what a detention center is, the presence of detention centers in the United States, the power structure of ICE and other employees, with personal stories …

El Neocolonialismo: La Influencia Imperialista Del Turismo En Honduras, Kelsey Brodie

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the role of neocolonialism and imperialist forces in the development of Honduras throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. The United States was responsible for a series of coup d’états throughout the 20th century, paving the way for conformation to western and American ideals. These included several in Honduras, opening the doors to the banana farming industry which took control of the nation for decades. Later, the Honduran economy saw a shift from agriculture to tourism to comply with the new ideals of imperialist nations. While tourism continues to be a growing part of the economy, it has …

Cómo La Sostenibilidad Y El Ecoturismo Pueden Ayudar A Salvar Destinos Turísticos Populares En Puerto Rico, Joshua Paneto

Honors Theses

Puerto Rico is a popular tourist destination with a multitude of valuable ecosystems that both directly and indirectly contribute to the economic output of the island. Two of these ecosystems are the bioluminescent bays of Laguna Grande and Mosquito Bay, located on the island in Fajardo and Vieques respectively. More generally speaking, Vieques is also a popular tourist destination, due to the existence of the bay, in addition to various beaches and wildlife reserves. In the past decade however, the bioluminescent bays have blacked out on multiple occasions, creating a great deal of concern amongst policymakers, as well as the …

Being Female And Indigenous: Barriers To Reducing Bolivia's Maternal Mortality Rates Under Evo Morales, Channell Cole

Honors Theses

This thesis seeks to answer the question: What are the barriers to attempts to reduce Bolivia’s maternal mortality rate under Evo Morales? While Morales’ presidency began in 2006, the timeline is from 2004 to the present to account for changes due to his policy. Using activity theory and social capital theory, I argue that machismo and racism are two social factors that are barriers to efforts to reduce the maternal mortality rate. Machismo manifests itself uniquely in Bolivia, as I argue through a comparison to Paraguay. Machismo is also riddled with a history of anti-indigenous racism. I examine the Rockefeller …

The Impact Of Civil Society Engagement On Support For The Colombian Peace Accord, Victoria Gallegos

Honors Theses

This thesis asks the impact of someone’s civic engagement and civil society organization involvement on support for the 2016 Colombian peace agreement. Additionally, discussed is the impact of conflict exposure on engagement and involvement. Through an analysis of several variables taken from Vanderbilt University’s LAPOP data set, there is a positive association between conflict exposure and one’s civic engagement and civil society involvement. Civil society engagement then positively associates with support for the peace process.

Who Gets To Ride? A Case Study In Inequality And Public Transportation In Santiago, Chile, Melissa Sanguientti

Honors Theses

While the metro public transportation system in Santiago, Chile was intended to serve all citizens equally, this did not become a reality. Instead, the metro has become a symbol of the short comings and failures in the state's city planning and expansions, benefitting the richer areas of the city. With a grand promise that was never fulfilled, frustration grew over time. While smaller protests were targeting public transportation with the increase to the fare of the metro, protests sparked overnight in 2019. However, by looking at the travel patterns, commute times, spatial inequalities, decision-making of metro expansions, and comuna level …

Refugees Not Welcome Here: An Analysis Of Human Rights Transgressions Under The Migrant Protection Protocols, Claire Haxton

Honors Theses

On December 20, 2018 the Trump administration released a statement announcing the signing of an executive order implementing a new asylum program called the Migrant Protection Protocols. Under this legislation, third party nationals arriving at the United States’ southwestern border seeking asylum would be forced to remain in Mexico throughout the processing of their asylum application. This new protocol promised to limit false asylum cases and streamline meritorious applications while preventing migrants from exploiting loopholes in the former asylum system. However, critics argue that the Migrant Protection Protocols further endanger refugees and infringe on their human rights. This study aims …

Study Of Native Colombian Tribes: Art As A Means Of Inspiration, Sofia Fernandez

Honors Theses

Study of Native Colombian Tribes: Art as a Means of Inspiration, examines Latin American art, particularly Indigenous Colombian art as a source of inspiration for the creation of a series of artworks. This project considers two Colombian tribes: Wayuu and Okaina. It emphasizes these tribes’ ancestry, history, purpose, and traditions, with the objective of giving them a voice in a community where they are underrepresented and unknown. This thesis provides a critical look into the tribe’s traditions and artistic techniques through the creation of a variety paintings, drawings, and prints. This body of work concentrates on textiles and patterns from …

El Mar Y La Gente: Hacia Una Contextualización De Lo Indígena En El Botón De Nácar, Jonathan Braden Taylor

Honors Theses

El presente trabajo analiza las ramificaciones ontológicas, epistemológicas, y políticas del botón de nácar, un documental hecho en 2015 por el cineasta Patricio Guzmán. El siguiente análisis busca poner esta obra cinemática en el contexto de la formulación y el desarrollo del estado-nación chileno, lo cual ha ocurrido a expensas de las personas indígenas de la zona. Se observa que se emplea significación verdaderamente descolonizada en representaciones y discusiones de espacios acuáticos, lo cual engendra avances teóricos que utilizo para contextualizar el filme. Se sostiene que los efectos políticos de dicha significación descolonizada se ponen en marcha productivamente cuando son …

Una Deconstrucción Espacial: Movimiento Maricas Bolivia Y La Resistencia Indígena Cuir, Cooper J. Bussberg

Honors Theses

El legado (neo)colonial ha intentado borrar las experiencias Indígenas cuir en Abiayala. Sin embargo, existen cambios a esta historia. Grupos activistas se están adaptando a retos distintos por medios diferentes. Movimiento Maricas Bolivia es una organización activista de La Paz, Bolivia que ejerce activismo en su canal de YouTube donde publican varios videos informativos alrededor del tema Indígena cuir. En este proyecto, yo aplico una perspectiva teórica trans- Indígena hemisférica para aproximar a un entendimiento mejor de la resistencia Indígena cuir de Movimiento Maricas Bolivia. Utilizo varios críticos de los estudios Indígenas de varios sitios de Abiayala para promover la …

Success And Failure Of Indigenous Social Movements: A Comparative Case Study Of Ecuador And Chile, Jenna White

Honors Theses

This thesis is a comparative case study of the social movements of the Mapuche in Chile and the fourteen indigenous tribes in Ecuador. I study their social movements by utilizing the structural strain theory of social movements. This theory states that people in society experience deprivation, the people recognize the deprivation, a solution is proposed and this ideology is diffused to the society, events occur to begin motion of the movement, the society (including government) need to be open to change, and eventually there will be mobilization of resources in order to form a successful social movement. The dependent variable …

Immigrants: A Threat To The Economy Or Cultural Identity? A Case Study Of Haitian And Venezuelan Immigrants In Chile, Erin Geist

Honors Theses

Historically, countries often faced the difficult task of favoring one immigrant group over another. Typically, this is in response to their inability to support those immigrants due to an unstable economy. However, some scholars argue that during times of economic prosperity, excluding immigrants may be the result of the group’s incapacity to assimilate to the nation’s “cultural identity”. Since Chile’s conception as a nation and as one of the most prosperous Latin American countries, they have received notably minuscule immigration rates. As a result, Chileans prides themselves as a relatively homogeneous country. Consequently, in 2018, President Sebastián Piñera differentiated visas …

Acoso Visual: Staring Back At The State And Gender Conformity, Juan Luna

Honors Theses

A semi-autoethnographic piece that uses a radical transfeminist lens to interrogate hegemonic systems of gender and race in the Dominican Republic through the violence that Trans and Gender Nonconforming people face. While focusing on trans violence, this thesis explicitly turns its gaze away from Trans/Gender Nonconforming people and interrogates the state, cisnormativity, and gender conformity. This thesis explores how acoso visual (visual accosting) is a historically informed process that works to border trans/gender nonconformity out of the idea of Dominicanidad. Ultimately, this text reminds Trans/Gender Nonconforming individuals that they are not the reason for the transphobia that they experience, and …

Increasing Quechuan Identification Through Language Acquisition, Emily Mcandrew

Honors Theses

A language spoken by 3.7 million people in Peru and by several thousands more in the surrounding countries in the Andean region, Quechua as an indigenous language plays an important role not only in the rich history of the area but also the modern society. Through a history of colonization and racial injustice against indigenous groups, Quechua has survived as one of the strongest language groups in Latin America. Peru has been leading the way in bilingual education focused around acquisition, but does this focus on the key aspects of language acquisition for Quechua function in order to improve cultural …

La Reina De Los Carteles: Los Beneficios Y Los Peligros, Emily Monac

Honors Theses

This paper examines the experiences of women in real life and television programs involved with drug cartels in Mexico. For women, life centered on narcotic trade in Mexico may be framed by both terror and abuse. However, there also exists a certain power dynamic achieved by women in positions of power in cartels. These real life women are known as “Las Flacas,” a self-given label that affirms both their reclamation of sexuality and also their acquiescing to a patriarchal society. Narcofiction exists as a new art form of processing and reacting to a life heavily influenced by drug trade in …

La Economía De La Violencia: La Ciudad Juárez Y El Mercado Libre De La Muerte, Kritika Amanjee

Honors Theses

This thesis explores the utilization of human life to further the parallel economies of manufacture and narco-trafficking in Mexico. It begins by recalling the impacts of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on Mexico’s local economies. Shifts in economic dynamics that resulted from NAFTA internally displaced thousands of impoverished Mexicans, ultimately pushing them into the growing economies of manufacture and narco-trafficking. The manufacture industry and its effects on the common people are examined with a specific focus on Ciudad Juárez, a border city in the state of Chihuahua. The growth of maquiladoras attracted thousands of young women to work, …

Preliminary Analysis Of Hieroglyph And Iconography Placement On Freestanding Monuments At Copán, Honduras, Elizabeth Koenen

Honors Theses

This paper analyzes the placement of hieroglyphs and iconography on freestanding monuments at the ancient Maya site of Copán, Honduras. Preliminary spatial analysis using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) highlight two potentially important findings. First, stelae in the main civic-ceremonial precinct (Principal Group), while erected in the most centralized and public location in the city, are not always placed to allow for public viewing of their fronts. Second, differences may exist in the number of logographic and syllabic glyphs used on a object depending on the type of object and its location. Further research and data collection are needed in order …

“¿Qué Coño Es Esto?”: Exploración De Identidad De Género Y De Orientación Sexual En La Mucama De Omicunlé, Vianny C. Lugo Aracena

Honors Theses

La mucama de Omicunlé (2015) es una novela escrita por la autora dominicana Rita Indiana, que lidia con temas que son considerados tabúes dentro de la sociedad dominicana: sexualidad, identidad de género, y espiritualidad afrodescendiente. Indiana utiliza la espiritualidad afrodescendiente para facilitar la exploración de las respectivas identidades de género y de orientación sexual en los personajes principales, Acilde y Argenis. El utilizar la espiritualidad afrodescendiente también permite ver a la novela como un texto literario que utiliza el patakí, una narración que contiene conocimientos afrodescendientes, como elemento estructural principal. Los temas que normalmente caracterizan a los patakíes son abundantes …

“La Política Del Avestruz”: The Regulation Of The Black Market For Medical Abortion In Chile, Sophia M. Bartels

Honors Theses

This thesis seeks to answer the overarching question of how the black market for medical abortion is regulated in Chile. In answering this question, this thesis responds to the two sub questions: why is the Chilean government ineffective at regulating the black market for medical abortion in Chile, and how have non-governmental actors filled this vacuum through informal regulation? Although the Chilean government has one of the highest levels of state capacity in Latin America, it has surprisingly allowed this black market to exist in almost complete impunity. In this thesis, I argue that although the Chilean government has the …

La Paisana Jacinta: El Programa Que Causa La Risa Para Algunas Y El Sufrimiento Para Otros, Rachel Wyman

Honors Theses

Examino el papel de la comedia en La Paisana Jacinta en la naturalización de la discriminación racial. La identidad denigrada que se asigna a La Paisana Jacinta origina en los estereotipos populares de la población indígena en Perú, no es solamente una interpretación de la cultura andina migrante. Entonces, analizo los comentarios de los usuarios fans en las redes sociales para entender como el programa ha ganado popularidad, incluyendo la reacción a la censura del programa. También, examino la reacción de las organizaciones humanas y indígenas que desean imponer la censura y el fin inmediatamente del programa. La Paisana Jacinta …

The Effect Of Americanization On Latin American Culture: A Comparative Study Using Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions And Pop Music, Jason Robert Shockey

Honors Theses

In 1980, Dr. Geert Hofstede published a book outlining his methodology for quantifying and objectively comparing cultures based on six distinct dimensions. However, since Dr. Hofstede's research focused primarily on adult demographics, it may not adequately predict reality once the younger generation assumes a place of ideological primacy in society. My project aims to determine Americanization's impact on current Hispanic scores to see if they remain consistent with tradition or shift towards the United States' values. To accomplish this, I developed a scale similar to Hofstede's and analyzed the Billboard Top 40 list for 2014.

De La Inseguridad A La Estabilidad: Como Pablo Neruda Utiliza El Amor Y La Poesia Para Superar El Exilio, Marissa Peck

Honors Theses

This thesis explores exile and its effects on the lives of those who experience it. Pablo Neruda, the great Chilean poet of the 20th century, lived in exile for three years, during which he continued to write and publish his poetry. The negative and positive consequences of exile, such as the loss of identity and the experience of traveling and knowing others, respectively, can be seen clearly in the poetry of Neruda during and after his exile. Exile has a great effect on the personal life of the exiled and this logically is expressed in the exile’s work, especially for …

When The Walls Talk: Political Graffiti At La Universidad Nacional In Bogotá, Colombia, Abbott Grey Matthews

Honors Theses

Graffiti in Latin America is often political. This thesis considers the political graffiti found at la Universidad Nacional (UNAL) in Bogotá, Colombia. Unlike many other nations in the region, Colombia has not experienced the same political history of repressive dictatorships. As a result, the current literature on political graffiti does not cover the outlier case of Colombia. This research uses survey responses from and interviews with students at UNAL in order to better understand what the graffiti says and how it impacts students at the university. Moreover, this thesis seeks to answer why political graffiti persists at UNAL despite attempts …