Latin American Languages and Societies Commons^™

Rebellion Under The Palm Trees: Memory, Agrarian Reform And Labor In The Aguán, Honduras, Andres Leon

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

On December 9, 2009, the Unified Peasant Movement of the Aguán (Movimiento Unificado Campesino del Aguán; MUCA) occupied over 20,000 hectares of oil palm covered lands in the Aguán region in the Honduran northern coast. This was the latest, and probably most dramatic, chapter in the region's tumultuous recent history. This dissertation explores this history and the process of creation of the Aguán region from the perspective of a set of impoverished peasant families that migrated from different parts of Honduras towards the Aguán from the 1970s onwards, in search of a better present and future.

It asks about the …

Privilege In Haiti: Travails In Color Of The First Bourgeois Nation-State In The Americas, Philippe-Richard Marius

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Who are the elites in the poorest country of the Western Hemisphere? Do Haiti's elites constitute themselves in a Blackness vs. Whiteness/Mulattoness opposition? Through the investigation of these questions, the central thesis of this ethnography emerges as the material unity in privilege of Haiti's colorist fragments. Noirisme, a fundamentalist strain of Haitian black nationalism that reached hegemony in the dictatorship of François Duvalier in the 1960s, is in marked retreat in contemporary Haiti. Its lingering influence nonetheless continues to foster a black qua black sociality among privileged black nationalists. Mulatto nationalism as political project and public discourse lapsed into …

Heredia, Zayas Y La Traducción Del Parnasianismo, Lily Ramos

Spanish: Student Scholarship & Creative Works

The publication of Les Trophées by José Maria de Heredia in 1893 earned the author an immortal seat in the prestigious French Academy and translations of his work followed suit. In this project, I analyze the effect of Antonio de Zayas' translation of the sonnets into Spanish by exploring the literary qualities of the translation, as well as the impact it had on the Ibero-American context.

Vanguardia Mujerista Haciendo Escuela: An Oral History Of Cuban Feminism, Marie Eszenyi

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

The high rate of female political participation in Cuba has led many journalists, political scientists, and activists to claim that the country is quite possibly the most feminist in Latin America (Torregrosa, 2012). As the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality (2012) indicates, Cuba ranks third in the world for female participation in legislative bodies. Indeed, Cuba has a long history of female political and revolutionary involvement that positions Cuban feminism both on the forefront and the margins of the economy, governmental institutions, culture, society, military systems, and the workplace during various historical points. Moreover, Cuba’s location just 90 miles …

Blood From Blood And Earth From Earth: Examining Cultural Identity In Second And Third Generation Hispanic Americans, Caroline E. Culbreth

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

To what extent does a Mexican American identify with Mexico? With the U.S.? How are these identities formed? Through a series of semi-structured interviews with second- and third-generation descendants of migrants emigrating from seven Spanish-speaking Latin American countries, I explore what it means to be Hispanic American. I begin by examining the informants’ perceptions of boundaries between the broad Hispanic and American ethnic groups and their self-defined positions relative to those boundaries. Having established this position, I then analyze the impact of external conceptions of authenticity and access to “ethnic raw materials” in their construction of this ethnic identity. Findings …

Dominican And Haitian Relations: Changing Constitutions And Migrant Rights, Tiffany Busch

Honors Projects

The Dominican Republic and Haiti share the island of Hispaniola. The two nations’ shared history can best be described as tumultuous. The French and Spanish long fought for control over the small island before ultimately becoming two independent nations. Tensions still exist between the nations. The Dominican Republic, operating under antihaitianismo, fears that the influx of Haitian people will be detrimental to the country’s economic and cultural well-being. As a result, deportations have increased. Human Rights Watch has condemned the Dominican Republic for its unethical deportation methods. Moreover, the Dominican Republic enacted a new constitution in 2010 with more …

Improving Rhode Island’S Health Care System: Lessons From The Cuban Model, Sarah R. Moffitt

Senior Honors Projects

Improving Rhode Island’s health care system: lessons from the Cuban model

Cuba is world renowned for its health care system. In regards to international health crises, Cuba is a leader in sending workers abroad and training doctors from all over the world. Within its own borders, the Cuban model provides free access to all citizens in which every individual has a primary care provider. Cuba boasts high vaccination rates, a long life expectancy, low infant mortality rate, and a population that is one of the healthiest in the western hemisphere.

The purpose of this research project is to evaluate the …

Changing Relationship With The Land And One Another In Pindoyú, Paraguay, Kathryn E. Peters

Latin American Studies ETDs

This thesis is about agricultural transition in the face of globalization in the community of Pindoyú, Paraguay. Utilizing the extended case study method, the experiences of people of Pindoyú are documented through partcipant observation, individual and household interviews, and auto-ethnographies in order to illuminate theory on the articulation of modes of production, moral economy, and Marxist ecology. Rooted in Meillassouxs understanding of the domestic mode of production and Wolpe's extended view of the articulated modes of production, it argues that people in Pindoyú are participating in the capitalist mode of production while also practicing values incongruent with capitalist production. Findings …

“Somos Mujeres Y Seres Humanos:" Historias De Vida Y Sanación Con Inmigrantes Latinas Sobrevientes De Violencia Domestica, Sofia Halperin-Goldstein

Hispanic Studies Honors Projects

While storytelling has been a source of resistance and survival within communities of color for centuries, the therapeutic potential of the personal narrative has only recently been recognized and adopted by health-related fields. Based on a year-long oral project history project with eight immigrant Latina mothers and survivors of domestic violence, this thesis examines the connection between healing and storytelling in the specific context of trauma and societal oppression. The value of this project extends beyond the act of recording an oral history, given the intersectional discrimination experienced by the participants as women of color, immigrants, and members of the …

Legislated Equality: Gender Quotas In A Latin American Context And The Story Of Mexico, Joe Dingmann

Honors Theses, 1963-2015

Female legislators are becoming much more common and so are legislative acts focusing on increasing the number of women in elected bodies. These acts are an attempt at creating rules, designed in a positive way, to foster social change and fix one of the most predominant issues in society. A prevalent strategy for greater female representation in decision-making bodies is electoral gender quotas. Electoral gender quotas are one method that attempts to raise the descriptive representation (raw numbers) of women in elected within legislative bodies. These quotas have been enacted around the world beginning in the early 1990s. Because electoral …

Gold, Water, And Governance: The Stakes In The Santurbán Páramo Debate, Amanda Hooker

Latin American Studies ETDs

Currently in Santander, Colombia, a contentious debate over the demarcation of a protective boundary of the Santurbán Páramo is underway. For the approximately 9000 páramo residents, the collateral effects of the outcome could result in dispossession of lands and livelihoods. This paper will argue that status quo Colombian territorial zoning, at the service of Canadian mining interests cast domestically as the principal 'locomotora' (driving force) of national development, allows different expressions of state and civil society actors to either bypass or use environmental protections as means of personal gain and/or capitalist expansion. Mobilizing under a discourse of conservation, down-stream urban …

Natural Resource Revolutions: Mexico And Cuba Within The Sphere Of U.S. Hegemony, Joseph J. García

Latin American Studies ETDs

The improbable trajectories of Mexico and Cuba give rise to compelling questions: in what ways have the revolutionary governments of Mexico and Cuba been able to practice successful defiance of the United States hegemon of the twentieth century? And how has that defiance helped to define U.S. foreign policy in Latin America? This dissertation presents a detailed examination of the contexts surrounding both the Mexican and Cuban Revolutions and their struggle against imperialist-driven interventions by the United States in Latin America and the Caribbean. I argue that through strategic decisions, the Mexican and Cuban revolutionary governments were able to ward …

Microconsignment As Magic Or Sleight-Of-Hand: How Social Entrepreneurship Affects Women's Political And Economic Participation In Guatemala, Briana Bardos

Honors Scholar Theses

Much research has been done on increasing the amount of female participation in both the formal economy and political sphere across the globe. This project seeks to go beyond this idea and analyze whether economic empowerment leads to increased political participation. By analyzing a specific type of empowerment, social entrepreneurship, through the specific lens of Soluciones Comunitarias’ MicroConsignment Model, my paper looks to explore if and how women in Guatemala are affected by this model politically and economically. Existing work in the field of women’s social movements makes clear the linkage between social mobilization and positive outcomes, such as increased …

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 …

Uncommon Convergences: A Hemispheric And Comparative Approach To The Great Gatsby And Pedro Páramo, Ariel Jade Santos

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Over the past thirty years, American literary scholarship has shifted focus away from a national approach centered on the United States to a hemispheric methodology that includes all of the countries within this hemisphere. As scholars begin to break down the once iron-clad borders that stood between the American canon and the authors of our hemispheric neighbors, new opportunities have arisen for literary exploration. As an original contribution to this field of scholarship, my thesis project uses a hemispheric and comparative methodology to identify and examine the manifestations of reification and patriarchy in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925) …

La Evolución Del Personaje Femenino Y Su Transformación Político-Social En La Obra De Julia Álvarez "En El Tiempo De Las Mariposas", Lorena M. Villarreal

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

En esta investigación, se analizara la evolución del personaje femenino y su transformación político-social en la obra literaria de Julia Álvarez, En el tiempo de las Mariposas. Se analizará el rol social pasivo del personaje femenino y su transición al rol político social activo. La novela histórica se basa en la historia de la República Dominicana “Las hermanas Mirabal” consideradas iconos nacionales, por lo tanto se tomará en cuenta el aspecto histórico. Me basaré en la teoría crítica de la Estilística y estudios de Avelina Aguilar, Willie Muñoz y Julia Álvarez, así como mi propia aportación. Me apoyaré también en …

Inmigración Latina Y El Racismo En Los Estados Unidos, Robert M. Pezán

Celebrating Scholarship & Creativity Day (2011-2017)

A través de toda la historia de los Estados Unidos, hasta antes de que fuera considerado los Estados Unidos, siempre ha habido inmigrantes que han venido a esta nación en búsqueda de una vida mejor. La mayoría de la gente que actualmente vive en los Estados Unidos vive aquí gracias a sus antepasados que inmigraron a este país durante algún periodo de su vida. Aunque no todos los estadounidenses son considerados inmigrantes, sus pasadas generaciones fueron en algún momento inmigrantes y pudieron tener éxito asimilándose a la cultura que existía en el pasado. Aunque no siempre ha sido un resultado …

“Mi Alma Cantará”: Tracing Issues In Music Education Within The Colonial And Contemporary Latin American Church, Kerry Digiacomo

Senior Honors Theses

Music education and institutionalized Christianity have been criticized by historians and ethnomusicologists for their role in the domination and transformation of indigenous Latin American cultures since the late 15th century. However, indigenous peoples, including Amerindians as well as more recent mestizo and Ladino people groups, have also taken an active role in transforming European musics to reflect an emic understanding of their own cultural identity. Music education within the Latin American church has provided an interface for these complex interactions between foreign and native cultural influences. This paper will explore the connections between colonial and contemporary-era music education movements in …

Citizenship Without Borders: Understanding Empathy And Domestic Direct Service As Powerful Approaches To Making Global Connections That Matter, Courtney Tielking

Honors College Theses

By unraveling a case study on Georgia Southern University's Alternative Break program, this research examines the relationship between empathy and globalization. Alternative Breaks are week-long trips, during University holidays, which facilitate and encourage direct service, immersion in a specific social issue, and guided reflection sessions. Four active Alternative Break participants and advisors were interviewed to outline accurately and depict their experience with culture-based Alternative Break trips. Their stories demonstrate an alternative to traveling abroad in order to achieve a sense of global citizenship. The research suggests that through empathy and direct service, one can become a global citizen without ever …

Order Of Acquisition: A Comparison Of L1 And L2 English And Spanish Morpheme Acquisition, Kyle A. Mcferren

Senior Honors Theses

This paper examines the order of acquisition for grammatical morphemes in Spanish and English first and second language learners. Brown’s first morpheme order study, conducted in 1973, laid the foundation for what would become one of the most common types of study conducted within the field of second language acquisition. The four orders of acquisition relevant here are examined and compared in order to support the roles of salience, morphophonological regularity, complexity, input frequency, and native language transfer in first and/or second language acquisition. The conclusion is that these five determinants work interdependently in determining the difficulty of acquiring a …

Between Confession And Realism: Lack, Vision, And The Construction Of Identity In Rafael Arévalo Martínez’S Una Vida And Manuel Aldano, Maria Spitz

School of American and Global Studies Faculty Publications with a Focus on Modern Languages and Global Studies

The present study explores the relationship between generic ambiguity in Una vida (1914) and Manuel Aldano (1922) by the Guatemalan Rafael Aróvalo Martínez, and the Darwinian/Spencerian discourse with which the narrator attempts to construct an identity that will grant him a legitimate speaking subjectivity in the face of his inability to adapt to the changes in the Spanish American letrado’s role within societies at the periphery of modernization. Through an analysis of the narrator’s development and the emerging relationships between sexuality, language, genre, and vision in Arévalo Martínez’s short novels, the reader will note the irresolute tension between confession and …

Boletín V.20:No.2 (2015), Fordham University Latin American And Latino Studies Institute

Boletín (Fordham University. Latin American and Latino Studies Institute)

No abstract provided.

Neocolonialism, Liberation Theology And The Nicaraguan Revolution, John Hindley

Undergraduate Craft of Research Prize Papers

This paper will attempt to answer an important question regarding the study of revolutions in developing countries: how does Liberation Theology address the problems of neocolonialism that plagues the Latin American continent? The analysis will use the Central American nation, Nicaragua, and its Sandinista revolution as a country case. This question is important to the study because it helps to understand the extent or the kind of an impact religion has on revolutions. In Latin America, the population is majority Roman Catholic. Due to this, the hierarchy of the Church and the laity has had a certain influence on the …

El Arconte Del Archivo: El Personaje De Urrutia Lacroix En Nocturno De Chile De Roberto Bolaño, Mariana Romo-Carmona

Open Educational Resources

Esta lectura se enfoca en lo que se omite de la historia chilena, aquella conflagración de cultura contra barbarie, su legado de opresión. En el contexto de la obra de Bolaño, la literatura del continente cobra un significado que rompe con las ideas tradicionales de los fundamentos de la nación, para revelar la opresión colectiva y aquí, en particular, se revela al narrador como personaje en tanto su papel dentro de la novela y de la historia, su conciencia homofóbica y racista dentro del paisaje literario.

La Voz, Spring 2015, El Instituto: Institute Of Latina/O, Caribbean, And Latin American Studies

La Voz

La Voz is the official newsletter of the El Instituto: Institute of Latina/o, Caribbean, and Latin American Studies. The newsletter provides a sampling of graduate, undergraduate and faculty initiatives across the campus and the hemisphere.

Festival De Lasa2015: La Emergencia De Un "Cine Del Otro"--El "Cine Del Otro" En Emergencia, Claudia Ferman

Latin American, Latino and Iberian Studies Faculty Publications

Esta edición del Festival evidencia una vez más la vitalidad de la producción audiovisual latinoamericana, así como su estrecha vinculación con las luchas populares en el continente. Sin duda, el potencial de este cine se ha visto multiplicado gracias a la revolución digital, que ha acercado a la gente una tecnología de comunicación de gran flexibilidad y eficacia. El cine comunitario y el cine regional son testimonio de esta estrecha vinculación entre las tecnologías audiovisuales digitales y la producción de un “Cine del Otro”: el cine indígena, el cine de las periferias suburbanas, el cine comunitario son todos ellos expresiones …

Mapping Indigenous Self-Determination In Highland Guatemala, Patricia A. Mcanany, Sarah M. Rowe, Israel Quic Cholotio, Evelyn Caniz Menchu, Jose Mendoza Quic

Anthropology Faculty Publications

The challenges of building research partnerships around community mapping are critically reviewed in reference to the politics of heritage and identity among Indigenous Maya communities in highland Guatemala. This paper discusses how the goals and interests of archaeologists meshed with those of indigenous mappers in five communities that chose to participate in the mapping program. Based on responses to a survey about the mapping project, participants report joining in order to enhance self-determination, gain cartographic literacy, and improve life opportunities. Community authority over the project and a broad base of participation (including young and old, male and female) proved essential …

“The Preservation Of Indigenous Knowledge In Contemporary Mexico In El Cultivo Del Maíz En Yojovi By Javier Castellanos Martínez.”, Ida Day

Modern Languages Faculty Research

The author applies an ecocritical perspective to the study of Javier Castellanos' 1988 monograph of Yojovi corn farmers' testimonies, El cultivo del maíz en Yojovi. The author's ecocritical lens establishes Yojovi rights to determine food sustainability practices and to determine land resource use. In particular, the author examines the conflicts between Yojovi knowledge of corn varieties and their cultivation and the pressure to alter their practices to adhere to genetically modified corn crop production. She also reveals the conflicts between Yojovi narratives that situate humans within their natural habitats and the Western scientific paradigm's narratives that tend to separate humans …

Considering Triple Self-Portraiture In The Work Of María Izquierdo, Brooke Lashley

The Quiet Corner Interdisciplinary Journal

This paper looks to María Izquierdo’s paintings, Prisioneras (Prisoners) of 1936 and Sueño y presentimiento (Dream and Premonition) of 1947, as case studies for activating a theory of triple self-portraiture. The theory reflects how plurality arises in the singular or in single significations of the self and disrupts homogeneity in thinking about identities for the self and others within the genre of self-portraiture. In activating a theory of triple self-portraiture, I found three forms of the self in Izquierdo's works: the self as oppressed (the past); the self as oppressing (the current); and the self as an emancipator (future). Although …

Otra Vez El Mar Y La Psicología De Carl Gustav Jung, Ángela Martín Pérez

The Quiet Corner Interdisciplinary Journal

Poco antes de su muerte, el profesor Carl Gustav Jung aceptó realizar un trabajo de divulgación de sus ideas que se publicó bajo el nombre de El hombre y sus símbolos. En esta obra, el psicólogo suizo recupera su estudio de la estructura de la personalidad, que él entendía compuesta por cinco elementos conceptualizados por el Ego, la Persona, la Sombra, el Anima o Animus y el Sí Mismo. En el proceso de desarrollo del sí mismo, el sujeto se rodea de ciertas circunstancias en las que descubre su Persona, se enfrenta con la Sombra y se encuentra con …