Latin American Languages and Societies Commons^™

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CouRaGeouS Cuentos: A Journal of Counternarratives

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Oregon Latino Agenda For Action Stronger Together Fuerza Unida Report: Executive Summary, Cynthia Carmina Gomez, Ronald L. Mize

University Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Welcome to the Oregon Latino Agenda for Action (OLAA) Biennial Summit 2016. With the help of various organizations and community leaders, OLAA held our first ever summit in Salem, Oregon, in 2010. OLAA’s first statewide summit was designed to provide an opportunity to gather as a community, under the banner of “One United Voice - Una Voz Unida.” The end result was a gathering of our diverse Latino community in Oregon which started a dialogue intended to articulate the ways in which we could gather with the intent of improving the lives of all Latinos in Oregon. This initial Summit …

Dinámicas Políticas Y Proyectos Culturales En La Posrevolución Cubana (1989-2015): Paideia, Diáspora(S), And Generación Cero, Walfrido Dorta

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation examines the relations between the projects Paideia, Diáspora(s), Generation Zero, and the cultural politics of the Cuban State. Through the analysis of a wide range of objects, such as programmatic documents, journals, literary works, blogs, and online magazines, the research focuses on the ways through which certain alternative projects intervene in state cultural politics. The first chapter concentrates on the project of cultural politics undertaken by Paideia (1989-90). I argue that Paideia introduces an antagonistic relationship between intellectuals and the State, questioning the institutional system of culture and restoring critical agency to intellectuals in order to obtain higher …

A National Bilingual Education Policy For The Economic And Academic Empowerment Of Youth In St. Lucia, West Indies, Gabriella Bellegarde

Capstone Collection

This campaign portfolio argues the case for a national bilingual education policy on the island of St. Lucia, where youth speak both St Lucian Creole and St. Lucian standard English. The portfolio consists of a policy paper and brief, an advocacy plan, a communications plan, monitoring and evaluation plan. The Bilingual Education Taskforce (BET), made up of teachers, parents and principals, is an advocacy organization that discovered the need for a bilingual education intervention when they observed, assessed and analyzed the written work of struggling readers at their school, the Anse la Raye Infant School on the west coast of …

Exploring Three Colombian-Andean Folk Style (Danza, Pasillo, And Bambuco): An Analysis And Arrangement Of Three Colombian Pieces For Flute And Piano, Jesus Castro Turriago

Dissertations

This dissertation contains an analysis, comparison, and transcription of three Colombian pieces for flute and piano, written by composers of three different styles of folk music: pasillo, bambuco, and danza. An understanding of the historical context of these Colombian musical genres, and comparison of these instrumental pieces for flute and piano to those of other Colombian composers, informed my subsequent transcription and edition. The selected musical material comprises Bandolita, a pasillo composed by Luis Uribe Bueno, Bambuquísimo, a bambuco by Leon Cardona, and Adiós a Bogotá, a danza by Luis Antonio Calvo.

Ciudad Letrada Y Poder En La Novela Del Caribe Hispánico Contemporáneo: La Noche Oscura Del Nino Avilés, Bachata Del Ángel Caído Y La Cazadora De Astros, Amilkar Ernesto Caballero

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation analyzes Edgardo Rodríguez Julia’s La noche oscura del Niño Avilés, Pedro Antonio Valdez’s Bachata del ángel caído, and Zoé Valdes’s La cazadora de Astros from the perspective of the intersection between intellectuality and power. Its main thesis is that these three writers are “political” writers who postulate “possible worlds” to reconfigure the divisions of the Social world carried out by power vectors in their respective nations. These reconfigurations are based on “detour” strategies that attempt to deconstruct the canonical aesthetic forms and the discourses of truth established by those vectors. The first chapter analyzes the way the three …

La Violencia Terrorista En La Narrativa Vasca Del Siglo Xxi, Montserrat Fuente-Camacho

Department of Modern Languages and Literatures: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Teniendo en cuenta la evolución tanto de la opinión pública sobre ETA, como la del tratamiento del tema del terrorismo desde la literatura, este trabajo se centra en la narrativa vasca del siglo XXI, analizando tres obras literarias de diferente género: una recopilación de cuentos, una novela y un cómic o novela gráfica. En cada capítulo se estudia un aspecto relacionado con el terrorismo de ETA: el silencio, las víctimas y el perdón. En el primer capítulo se argumenta que además de la violencia de ETA, el silencio es un elemento que une los cinco relatos de Letargo (2004), de …

(Re)Imagining Haiti Through The Eyes Of A Seven-Year-Old Girl, Iliana Rosales Figueroa

Journal of International Women's Studies

Haitian-American author Edwidge Danticat’s new novel Claire of the Sea Light (2013) explores themes of love, loss, and death. The first character that is presented to us is Claire of the Sea Light, a seven-year-old girl, whose mother died giving birth to her and who is missing. It is at the intersection of this little girl’s loss that all the other characters and topics unfold. Madame Gaëlle, an upper class woman who has a fabric shop in Ville Rose, decides to adopt Claire in order to give her a better life. In this essay I demonstrate that Edwidge Danticat articulates …

Reassessing Caribbean Migration: Love, Power And (Re) Building In The Diaspora, Andrea Natasha Baldwin, Natasha K. Mortley

Journal of International Women's Studies

Traditional research has framed Caribbean migration as a socio-economic issue including discourses on limited resources, brain drain, remittances, and diaspora/transnational connection to, or longing for home. This narrative usually presents migration as having a destabilizing effect on Caribbean families, households and communities, more specifically the impacts on the relationships of working class women who migrate leaving behind children, spouses and other dependents because of a lack of opportunities in Caribbean. This paper proposes an alternative view of migration as a source/manifestation of women’s power, where women, as active agents within the migration process, in fact contribute to re building relationships, …

Claiming The Politics Of Articulation Through Agency And Wholeness In Two Afro-Hispanic Postcolonial Narratives, Silvia Castro Borrego

Journal of International Women's Studies

Following a context-based approach and the tenets of post-positivist realist theory, this paper will analyze two post-colonial Afro-Hispanic novels immersed in their articulation of moving towards Caribbeanness within the phenomenon of Diaspora Literacy: María Nsue Angüe’s Ekomo (1983) and Michelline Dusseck’s Caribbean Echoes (1997). As part of the Diaspora Literacy, these texts will be read employing the search for wholeness as a theoretical tool, towards an epistemology of anti-colonial feminist struggle. These texts take active part in a decolonizing process that fosters a definition and vision of agency which makes wholeness possible, becoming an active expression of black women’s spirituality …

A Subtlety By Kara Walker: Teaching Vulnerable Art, Marika Preziuso

Journal of International Women's Studies

In late Spring 2014, the nonprofit organization Creative Time commissioned artist Kara Walker to create her first large-scale public installation. Hosted in the industrial relics of the legendary Domino Sugar Factory in Brooklyn, Walker’s A Subtlety, or the Marvelous Sugar Baby was as controversial as it was revered. The powerful presence of the installation, coupled with its immersion in historical consciousness, makes A Subtlety rich in educational value. This article engages in a comparative reading of A Subtlety in the light of female writers and thinkers from the Caribbean, but also incorporates some of the generative questions Walker’s installation has …

Finding Your Own Magic: How Obeah And Voodoo Provide Women Agency In Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea And Tiphanie Yanique's Land Of Love And Drowning, Matthew Cutter

Journal of International Women's Studies

One of the most important functions of Caribbean literature is to give voice to characters that would be otherwise voiceless. These characters are often slaves, women, racial minorities, and poor people; in other words, anybody who has been touched by the devastating oppression of a colonial society. The oppressed in the Caribbean have often turned to their belief in Obeah in order to assert themselves in the face of the colonizer. Obeah and magic are still ingrained in the culture of the Caribbean people because the culture of the European colonizer is still influencing society in the Caribbean.

Through this …

Carving Caribbean Spaces In Between: The Life Of Ruth Gourzong In 20th Century Puerto Limon, Costa Rica, Natasha Gordon-Chipembere

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper attempts to make visible the community and their descendants of free Jamaican blacks who immigrated into the Atlantic Coast of Costa Rica (specifically Puerto Limon) at the turn of the twentieth century to help build the American owned Northern Railway and work on the banana plantations owned by the American owned United Fruit Company. I illustrate the life of my great grandmother, Ruth Gourzong as an example of a woman from this community who managed to thrive against the odds of racism and sexism during her life time in Costa Rica. In order to fully appreciate the context …

"Everything Remains The Same And Yet Nothing Is The Same": Neocolonialism In The Caribbean Diaspora Through The Language Of Family And Servitude, Laura Barrio-Vilar

Journal of International Women's Studies

This essay examines Jamaica Kincaid’s Lucy, a novel that tackles the process of decolonization from old and new forms of colonialism through the language of servitude and family (specifically, mother-daughter relationships). The novel’s protagonist is not only an example of the wave of West Indian migration and the feminization of labor, but her agency also provides Kincaid with the necessary platform to deploy her views on U.S. imperialism. I propose reading Lucy’s evolution toward self-determination as not only an individual but also a collective experience. I interpret the novel as an allegory that can help us better understand the …

Wifredo Lam, The Shango Priestess, And The Femme Cheval, Paula Sato

Journal of International Women's Studies

This article examines Afro-Cuban painter Wifredo Lam and his iconic construction of Afro-Cuban identity. From the vantage point of a literary scholar rather than art historian, and in keeping with Lam’s description of his paintings as “poetry,” I read his artwork as terse lines of verse, rich in metaphors. Although Lam is regarded as the painter of Negritude, commonly understood as a male-centered movement, he distinguishes himself from his contemporaries by incorporating in his brand of Negritude two female figures as metaphors of the power to decolonize the mind. One of those figures is his Afro-Cuban godmother, Mantonica Wilson. Healer, …

Julia Alvarez And Haiti: Transgressing Imposed Borders In In The Time Of The Butterflies, A Wedding In Haiti, And Protests Against Ruling 0168-13, Ellen Mayock

Journal of International Women's Studies

Throughout her writing career Julia Alvarez has been examining definitions of the “Americas” and rethinking conceptualizations of the nation. Her multiperspectivist literary works have given voice to women of the Dominican Republic, Haiti, the United States, and to those who, as Alvarez says, “shift from foot to foot.” This article looks at Alvarez’s recent activism along the Haiti-Dominican Republic border and calls upon Alvarez’s In the Time of the Butterflies (1994) to establish how the author uses the feminist and activist transgressions of the Mirabal sisters to speak against the Dominican legacy of anti-Haitian sentiment and political action, so firmly …

The Politics Of Natural Knowing: Contraceptive Plant Properties In The Caribbean, Rachel O’Donnell

Journal of International Women's Studies

This paper considers the eighteenth-century ‘voyages of discovery’ to the Americas within the framework of colonial history and the development of modern scientific practice and method. It uses a feminist methodological approach toward concepts of natural knowledge and knowledge production. The essay looks specifically at knowledges of particular plants from the Caribbean and their properties, focusing on one plant still used for fertility throughout the region. I investigate the centrality of Caribbean natural knowledge to the development of differing historical perspectives on nature as well as the relationship between the development of European botanical sciences and natural knowledge in the …

Fanm Vanyan: A Cultural Interpretation Of Resilience In Haitian Women, Castagna Lacet

Journal of International Women's Studies

The purpose of this study was to explore the factors that promoted resilience in Haitian women earthquake survivors. The literature on mental health among Haitians is sparse. Furthermore, the concept of resilience is not easily translated across cultures. In the aftermath of the devastating 2010 Haiti earthquake, relocated victims struggled to adjust. This study looks at what factors helped women adjust to their new environment and cope with the traumas and losses suffered from the earthquake. A qualitative design was used to discover and describe resilience. Findings indicate that cultural values and strengths were key factors in the women’s perseverance.

A Narrative Review Of Maternal Depression Research Focusing On Women Of Caribbean Descent In The Diaspora And Caribbean Women In The Region, Fatimah Jackson-Best

Journal of International Women's Studies

Maternal depression is a global public health issue (Almond, 2009); however, much of the existing research on conditions like the ‘baby blues’ and postpartum depression have been conducted with White women in North America and Europe. This narrative review seeks to expand the scope of maternal depression research by including and analyzing maternal depression studies conducted with Caribbean descent women living in the Diaspora and women in the English-speaking Caribbean alongside some of the work from North America and Europe. Through this engagement with the existing research three thematic areas emerged. These are: widely used prevalence and incidence rates of …

Social Erotics: The Fluidity Of Love, Desire And Friendship For Same-Sex Loving Women In Trinidad, Krystal Ghisyawan

Journal of International Women's Studies

Love takes many forms and can serve different functions in a person’s life. Some forms, such as romantic love, familial love, and love within friendship, while sometimes distinct, at other times cannot be separated. This paper discusses love and friendship for same-sex loving women in Trinidad, exploring this mutability of love, the functions of love and intimacy in these women’s lives, the role of social media and social circles for finding love, all while considering the notion that love amongst same-sex loving women is an act of resistance. Forty same-sex loving women were individually interviewed, and this paper is written …

Interview With Patricia Mohammed: The Status Of Indo-Caribbean Women: From Indenture To The Contemporary Period, Lomarsh Roopnarine

Journal of International Women's Studies

The following interview with Patricia Mohammed discusses the status of Indo-Caribbean women from indenture to the contemporary period. The interview seeks to understand why Indo-Caribbean women have been marginalized in the general historiography of the Caribbean and how the status of Indo-Caribbean has evolved in a predominantly patriarchal Caribbean plantation system. Some central questions in the interview are as follows: Are women better off in the Caribbean than their ancestral home in India. Are they still subjected to patriarchal trends in the home and at the work place, or any other place in the Caribbean? If they are, what sort …

Introduction: Women And Gender: Looking Toward "Caribbeanness", Allyson S. Ferrante, Diana Fox

Journal of International Women's Studies

In this special issue of the JIWS, fourteen authors explore varying iterations of “Caribbeanness” and what it means to identify its specific cultural unity through diversity in literature, various forms of activism, and constructions of feminism, identity, femininity, masculinity, and sexuality.

Art Collectors In Network And Identity Narratives: Contributions To A Cartography Of The Genre Of Types And Costumes In South America, Josefina De La Maza, Juan Ricardo Rey Márquez, Catalina Valdés, Carolina Vanegas Carrasco

Artl@s Bulletin

One of the best-known visual manifestations of nineteenth-century Latin America is costumbrismo, a genre that describes social types and popular subjects. Scholarship has usually understood this genre as an illustration of early Republican times produced by the gaze of European artists, proposing a hierarchical structure in relation to the production and consumption patterns of these images. Following the path opened in the last decade by new studies, this paper contributes to the ongoing debates on costumbrismo, by examining the role played by a South American network of historians and collectors modeling identity narratives throughout the twentieth-century.

Les Transferts De « L’Art Total » De La Suisse Au Brésil : Une Modernisation Très Particulière, Ana Paula Cavalcanti Simioni

Artl@s Bulletin

Cet article considère les projets d’art décoratif réalisés par John et Regina Graz, un couple pionnier dans l’introduction de l’idée d’ « art total » au Brésil (1920-30). On s’intéresse à la façon dont ils transposèrent dans un contexte très différent des modèles et des hiérarchies appris durant leur formation à Genève, selon un processus de réception sélective qui correspondait aux projets d'identité et de distinction de l'élite locale brésilienne. Plus largement, cette étude de la réception des arts décoratifs au Brésil permet de découvrir d'autres modèles artistiques modernistes que ceux venus de Paris, auxquels on résume encore l’histoire de …

L’Art Espagnol De L’Europe À L’Argentine : Mobilités Nord-Sud, Transferts Et Réceptions (1890-1920), Laura Karp Lugo

Artl@s Bulletin

Au tournant du XX^e siècle, Buenos Aires était une vitrine privilégiée pour la diffusion des artistes espagnols qui, pour promouvoir leur œuvre, ne bénéficiaient dans leur pays que d’une faible structure. Réfléchissant sur les imbrications entre la situation du marché de l’art espagnol et la réception des artistes espagnols en Argentine de 1890 à 1920 environ, cette étude contribue à éclairer les raisons de cette immigration massive et la manière dont ces circulations artistiques se sont opérées. Cet article analyse des questions d’identité et d’histoire du goût, dans une approche intercontinentale qui relève de la méthode des transferts culturels.

Les Peintures De Paysages De Johann Moritz Rugendas : Un Exemple De Transferts Artistiques Entre Europe Et Amérique Latine Au Xixe Siècle, Lucile Magnin

Artl@s Bulletin

Cet article examine deux séries de peintures de paysages réalisées par le peintre voyageur Johann Moritz Rugendas dans les années 1830 : un corpus d’esquisses à l’huile peintes lors de son voyage au Mexique, et un autre ensemble de peintures effectuées lors de sa traversée des Andes entre Santiago du Chili et Mendoza. Il pose la question du transfert et de l’adaptation de techniques apprises et de courants de pensées intégrés en Europe, à des paysages de type nouveau vierges de toute représentation artistique. Il traite également de l’impact qu’eurent les œuvres de cet artiste dans les pays latino-américains où …

Del Entusiasmo Al Desencanto: Ironía Y Modernidad En La Obra De Tres Poetas Tzántzicos, Juan Carlos González Granja

Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

In this dissertation I study the poetry of the Tzántzicos, an Ecuadorian cultural movement that in the 1960s intended to subvert the social order and assert the role of literature in the destabilization of the capitalist society. I analyze the poetry of Ulises Estrella, Raúl Arias, and Humberto Vinueza as a biography of a generation of leftist intellectuals engaged with the Revolution, and as a meaningful moment in the history of Ecuadorian modernity. I identify two moments in the continuum of this poetry across the decades from the 1960s to the present: enthusiasm and disenchantment. The moment of enthusiasm registers …

Fragmentation And Multiplicity In Cuban-American Identity: In Cuba I Was A German Shepherd By Ana Menéndez And Memory Mambo By Achy Obejas, Daimys E. Garcia

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Maria Lugones offers a new way of perceiving the world, which makes visible that fragmentation is not a valuable and transgressive understanding of identity, as Western philosophy and some political theory suggests. What Lugones believes in, as a strategy of resistance to the dominant gaze, is multiplicity – mestizaje. Using Lugones’s framework, this thesis will look at the different aspects of Cuban-American characters in In Cuba I was a German Shepherd by Ana Menéndez and Memory Mambo by Achy Obejas. Each novel offers insight into how characters develop and understand themselves (and others) when they use language that shows that …

Gritos En El Desierto: Denuncia Y Resistencia En Las Obras De Las Escritoras Wayuu Estercilia Simanca Pushaina Y Vicenta Marí­A Siosi Pino, Lindsay H. Perwak

Dissertations and Theses

The way we read and interpret literature is frequently influenced by factors that operate beyond the scope of the average reader's awareness. In this thesis, selected works by two Wayuu writers, Estercilia Simanca Pushaina and Vicenta Maria Siosi Pino, are analyzed and interpreted in an attempt to unveil some of these behind-the-scenes agents and issues, as well as explore how the stories' classification in the children's literature genre reveals a deep-rooted colonial tendency to infantilize indigenous individuals in contemporary Colombia.

Despite the fact that the two authors, both mestizo women who self-identify with the Wayuu indigenous group of northern Colombia, …

Francisco Pedro Do Amaral (C. 1780-1830), Amy J. Buono

Art Faculty Books and Book Chapters

A biographical essay on Francisco Pedro do Amaral (c. 1780–1830), Afro- Brazilian painter, stage designer, and decorative artist.