Ethnic Studies Commons^™

Ethnolinguistic Convergence And Divergence Within Dyadic Communication, Anna E. Pitman

Honors College Research

This study investigated just one dependent variable within communication: ethnicity. Ethnicity often influences language. The study examined interethnic communication behaviors through the lens of the Communication Accommodation Theory (CAT), as influenced by one of its offshoots, Ethnolinguistic Identity Theory (ELIT). Communication within CAT is given one of three labels—convergence, divergence, and maintenance. The study included four students at Harding University: two African American females, one Hispanic American female, and one Caucasian American female. The primary participant, an African American woman, had a recorded 20 minute conversation with each of the other three participants. Discussion questions provided were formulated to create …

A Slowly Starving Race: Land And The Language Of Hunger In Zitkala-Ša’S "Blue-Star Woman", Adam R, Brantley

Criterion: A Journal of Literary Criticism

This paper proposes that the motif of starvation in Zitkala-Ša’s 1921 short story, “The Widespread Enigma Concerning Blue-Star Woman,” is in fact a metaphor for the dispossession of Native American lands and its disastrous effects on Native American livelihood and culture. Though much scholarship has been done on sentimental rhetoric in Zitkala-Ša’s fiction, critics have not yet explored its connection to this the most immediate Zitkala-Ša’s concerns. This essay first unpacks letters from Zitkala-Ša’s personal archives to demonstrate her individual interest in dispossession, and then examines “Blue-Star Woman’s” ever-present language of hunger through this lens of land loss. In doing …

How Do Native American Women Win Elections In Non-Native Districts?, Opalina Peralta

Political Science Theses and Capstones

In light of the recent tensions between Native American tribes and non-tribal elected leaders over such issues as environmental protection and treaty violations, caused in part by the United States' disproportionately Caucasian electoral representation, I aim to bring light the obstacles that Native Americans face in electoral politics. I analyze state legislative elections in which Native American candidates win. Using the data from the 2016 National Census and from University of North Dakota, Professor Mark Trahant. I hypothesize that the reason many Native American candidates win is because they are tied to non-native elements of the community. The two candidates …

Constructing The "Not-Me", Selena A. Weltz

Toyon: Multilingual Literary Magazine

English 220 with Janet Winston

Ethnicity, Climate, And House Types As Mortality Factors In The New Orleans' 1878 Yellow Fever Outbreak, Gabriele Richardson

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

The following study is first a demonstration that even incomplete health data from 1878 New Orleans’ yellow fever outbreak can be used with modern epidemiological methods and achieve useful and revealing results. Accordingly, this research examines three possible associations between New Orleans’ population exposed to yellow fever and the environment they lived in, using 4,755 yellow fever cases, derived from the New Orleans Board of Health report, Cemetery Burial records, Hospital, Asylum, and prison registers, and New Orleans obituaries. The first relationship addresses the vulnerability to yellow fever for people born in Italy, France, Great Britain, and the German Empire, …

Critical Citizen Engagement: The Black Pete Controversy, Anti-Racism Activism, And Limits To Citizenship In The Netherlands, Lianne M.A. Mulder

Western Research Forum

Background

This research analyses the engagement of Dutch citizens with a migration background in anti-racism activism, specifically activism against the blackface caricature Black Pete. It aims to answer how and why their citizenship is questioned when they become critical participants of civil society, and how this relates to the history of Dutch colonialism, the denial of racism, and the self-image of white Dutch people as ‘good, tolerant, and innocent’ despite evidence to the contrary.

Methods

The research is based on literature and field research and uses a theoretical framework based on critical race theory, citizenship studies, and decolonial theory.

Results …

Sex Differences In Political Leadership In An Egalitarian Society, Christopher Von Rueden, Sarah Alami, Hillard Kaplan, Michael Gurven

ESI Publications

We test the contribution of sex differences in physical formidability, education, and cooperation to the acquisition of political leadership in a small-scale society. Among forager-farmers from the Bolivian Amazon, we find that men are more likely to exercise different forms of political leadership, including verbal influence during community meetings, coordination of community projects, and dispute resolution. We show that these differences in leadership are not due to gender per se but are associated with men’s greater number of cooperation partners, greater access to schooling, and greater body size and physical strength. Men’s advantage in cooperation partner number is tied to …

Exhibition Review: “Valeska Soares: Any Moment Now”, Amy Buono

Art Faculty Articles and Research

A review of Valeska Soares' exhibition titled "Any Moment Now" at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and later the Phoenix Art Museum in 2017 and 2018.

“I Feed You. I Clothe You. I Send You To School”: Barriers To Involvement Of Low-Income Minority, And Immigrant Parents For The Academic Achievement Of Their Children, Myrtle Dickson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Parental involvement has long been held as a critical variable in the academic outcomes of students. While research in this area consistently cites the positive impact of parental involvement across all racial/ethnic and socioeconomic groups, much still remain to be discovered regarding the parental involvement as well as the cultural parental practices that are unique to low income African American, Hispanic, and immigrant parents and families. Furthermore, this population of parents faces barriers to involvement that provide challenges not only for families but also for schools. Administrators and teachers in the k-12 settings must still consider the forms of capital …

The Bronx Was Brewing: A Digital Resource Of A Lost Industry, Michelle Zimmer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Bronx: a bucolic oasis laden with history, a suburb within city-limits, an urban warzone, and thanks to the recent renaissance, a phoenix of progress rising from the proverbial ashes of the fires that burned through the borough in the 1970’s. But many people are unaware that the Bronx also brewed.
Uncovering the brewing industry of the Bronx tells not only the story of the lost industry, but it also communicates the narrative of the development of the Bronx. The brewers were German immigrants who developed a thriving industry by introducing lager beer to the United States by taking advantage …

Low Perceived Control Over Health Is Associated With Lower Treatment Uptake In A High Mortality Population Of Bolivian Forager-Farmers, Sarah Alami, Jonathan Stieglitz, Hillard Kaplan, Michael Gurven

ESI Publications

Indigenous people worldwide suffer from higher rates of morbidity and mortality than neighboring populations. In addition to having limited access to public health infrastructure, indigenous people may also have priorities and health perceptions that deter them from seeking adequate modern healthcare. Here we propose that living in a harsh and unpredictable environment reduces motivation to pursue deliberate, costly action to improve health outcomes. We assess whether variation in Health Locus of Control (HLC), a psychological construct designed to capture self-efficacy with respect to health, explains variation in treatment uptake behavior among Tsimane Amerindians (N=690; age range: 40–89 years; 55.8% female; …

Latinx/Chicanx Students On The Path To Conocimiento: Critical Reflexivity Journals As Tools For Healing And Resistance In The Trump Era, Jesica S. Fernández, Alejandra Magaña Gamero

Ethnic Studies

Anzaldúa’s concept of conocimiento guides our analysis of Latinx/Chicanx students’ Critical Reflexivity Journals (CRJ) produced in an Ethnic Studies classroom at a predominantly-white institution. Through a thematic analysis procedure of students’ CRJ entries, which we describe as written testimonios, we discerned how Latinx/Chicanx students’ writings engaged their identities, reflexivity, healing, and resistance on a path toward conocimiento. Grounding our theoretical and empirical analysis in Anzaldúan thought, conocimiento is characterized by a deep reflexive critical consciousness that unfolds across seven interconnected stages. Conocimiento builds toward a liberatory transformation that Anzaldúa describes as spiritual activism, the seventh and final stage of conocimiento. …

Rita, Rita, Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

Rita Alkhaledy grew up in Sadr City, a poor suburb of Baghdad. Her father is an Iraqi Arab and her mother was Kurdish Iranian. Her mother lived in fear that she would be cast out of Baghdad as being an outsider in Iraq was frowned upon. Her father served in the Iraqi army in the 80s and was gone a great deal, leading to a strained relationship. Their relationship was mended when her mother died from cancer.

After the Iraq war, Rita and her brothers realized that their lives were in danger. They had to move from house to house …

The Whiteness Project Of Gentrification: The Battle Over Los Angeles' Eastside, Jaime Guzmán

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For many years, the city of Los Angeles has declared war on communities of color. In the past decade, former communities of color like Echo Park, Silver Lake, and Highland Park have all been converted into predominantly white, affluent neighborhoods. In essence, working-class people of colors' neighborhoods are being uplifted in order to welcome a much more affluent population to town. The newest target of Los Angeles' gentrification for the past couple of years has been the greater Eastside. In this project I present my critical intervention of gentrification as a whiteness project. This critical intervention argues that gentrification …

The Truth About Literature: An Examination Of Emotion And Ethics Across Genre, Christian Alexander Simms

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

The following thesis presents strategies for reading ethically across a series of texts while discussing the emotional labor writers endure throughout their writing processes. By examining the current pedagogical approaches in composition studies, readers of writing can interpret the use of emotion in texts as a rhetorical strategy, while also recognizing instances of its social construction beyond the classroom. Once providing evidence for how writers execute emotion in their work, the thesis continues by discussing how J. Hillis Miller’s theory of ethics is applied to the narrative structure of stories and texts, and how readers can recognize the emotional strategies …

Retention Of Women Of Color In Higher Education, Edith Romero

Matt Meier Award

This research paper focuses on the factors that contribute to the retention of women of color in higher education. Research has shown that students of color are at a higher risk of not returning to their institutions of higher education due to financial difficulties of their families, the lack of family support and the way in which the campus climate affects them uniquely.This research aims to answer the question: how does Hermanas Unidas at Santa Clara University contribute to the retention of women of color in higher education? While focusing on the three main factors that contribute to the retention …

2013-14 Everyone Counts Learning Community On Race & Racism, Lewis Walker Institute For Study Of Race And Ethic Relations

Diversity Learning Communities

The Diversity and Multiculturalism Action Plan is the strategic plan for the University as it relates to diversity and inclusion. It aligns with the University Strategic Plan Goal #4: Ensure a diverse, inclusive, and healthy community. WMU President Bailey charged Dr. Warfield, Vice President for the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, with leading a council to develop the DMAP. Over 75 WMU community members assisted in its development. It was adopted by the Board of Trustees in 2006. The DMAP defines terms such as diversity, multiculturalism, institutional bias, global, culture, and affirmative action so that our community has a shared …

Documenting Sociopolitical Development Via Participatory Action Research (Par) With Women Of Color Student Activists In The Neoliberal University, Jesica S. Fernández, Jasmyne Y. Gaston, Madeline Nguyen, Jaia Rovaris, Rhyann L. Robinson, Danielle N. Aguilar

Ethnic Studies

Political activism attests to the sociopolitical development and agency of young people. Yet the literature sparingly engages the intersectional subjectivities that inform the sociopolitical development of young people, especially women of color. Important questions remain in the theorizing of sociopolitical development among youth engaged in political activism within higher education settings. Thus, we focus on the following question: What experiences informed or catalyzed the sociopolitical development of women of color student activists within a racialized neoliberal university in the United States? In addressing this question we demonstrate how student-led participatory action research (PAR) within the neoliberal university can facilitate and …

"Seu Tesouro São Penas De Pássaro": Arte Plumária Tupinambá E A Imagem Da América, Amy Buono

Art Faculty Articles and Research

"Os povos tupinambá do Brasil dos séculos XVI e XVII foram a primeira grande cultura de arte plumária das Américas encontrada pelos europeus. Os tupi eram uma sociedade agrícola seminômade, que habitava as florestas ao longo de quatro mil quilômetros da costa brasileira3. Como a cultura tupi foi majoritariamente efêmera, centrada em tradições cerimoniais que envolviam dança, som, movimento e adornos, eles permanecem uma das grandes sociedades do Novo Mundo menos conhecidas. A maior parte dos traços da cultura material tupi se perdeu, com exceção de algumas cerâmicas, armas e, mais importante, muitas peças deslumbrantes de arte plumária."

Radical Black Drama-As-Theory: The Black Feminist Dramatic On The Protracted Event-Horizon, Jaye Austin Williams

Faculty Journal Articles

In this essay, I elaborate my present project, grounded in what I call drama theory, the critical theoretical dimensions of dramatic writing, and address the deeply troubling intramural tensions across Black Studies, between those who read blackness, and black cultural production, through largely futurist, celebratory lenses; and those who apply a structural analysis to blackness as the site against, upon, and through which the world coheres its soci(et)al apparatuses and machinations. I situate myself within the latter constellation, and sample here two plays by Suzan-Lori Parks to demonstrate how I translate the analyses of antiblack violence by black feminist …

Ali, Ali, Twila Bird

TSOS Interview Gallery

At eighteen fate placed Ali and his family in the center of hostilities in northern Afghanistan. Warring militant factions killed hundreds of people in his village. Ali helped identify and bury dozens of his friends and neighbors in a mass grave.

We spent days and nights in the mountains and blocked on the borders. I crossed the mountainous border between Afghanistan and Pakistan walking with my handicap. Then it took us another sixteen hours to cross the border between Pakistan and Iran, also in very high mountains of more than 2500 meters. The Iranian police were killing people on the …

Jeanusnat, Jeanusnat, Tsos

TSOS Interview Gallery

Jeanusnat’s father, who was chief of a Nigerian community, was murdered by an enemy community. The murderer intended to kill Jeanusnat and his mother as well, but they fled to neighboring Niger. There, Jeanusnat parted ways with his mother, who stayed at the church with a family, and Jeanusnat crossed into Libya in the back of a truck. But once in Libya, danger persisted. He was confronted by some robbers who stabbed him with a knife and beat him, leaving injuries on his legs and shoulder. In Tripoli, a man offered him temporary refuge, where Jeanusnat stayed until he decided …

Jenyffer Nascimento’S Epic Poetry Of Black Female Empowerment Jenyffer Nascimento: A Poesia Épica De Empoderamento Da Mulher Negra, Sarah S. Ohmer

Publications and Research

This article presents results of auto-ethnography, literary analysis, and fieldwork research to answer an underlying, perhaps unresolved, concern, relevant to this dossier: how can we produce an ethical dialogue as transnational Black Feminists, among Black Brazilian women, and North American Black women, in an ethical manner, while realizing that one may (not ever) be a part of the “carnival without you in it.” Fertile Earth/ Terra Fertil tells a long overdue epic story to an audience within the poetry: Black women, family members, other times a Black man, Brazil, white women, or “you,” undefined. Joy to pain to chaos, sensuality, …

Exemplary Welshness : The Role Of The Transnational Welsh Heritage Network And Being Welsh In Patagonia, Kimberly Anne Berg

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

In recent years, the Welsh Diaspora community in Chubut has gained significant visibility in Welsh and other media in light of the 150th anniversary of the settlement’s establishment. In addition to the commemorative sesquicentenary celebrations taking place in July of 2015, the performance of Welshness has become increasingly congruent with homeland displays of the familiar aspects of Welsh national identity. In large parts, Welsh Patagonian language and heritage revitalization efforts have been facilitated by the transnational Welsh heritage network, composed of Welsh national institutions and Welsh Patagonian heritage associations collaborating with the expressed goal of maintaining a distinct Welsh identity …

Impact Of Acculturation On Body Mass Index In Haitians, Nirva Berthold

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Longer-term immigrants residing in the United States exhibit physical health decline related to higher body mass index (BMI). Theories on immigrant acculturation have been used to examine health patterns by length of stay in the United States. The purpose of this cross-sectional study, guided by the Schwartz model of acculturation, was to examine the effect of acculturation and length of stay in the United States on BMI in a sample of Haitian immigrants living in the Northeast Metropolitan area. The research question was used to examine the effects of acculturation and length of stay on BMI in the convenience sample …

Latino Parents With Lesbian, Gay, And Bisexual Children And The Catholic Doctrine Towards Homosexuality, Axel Monroig

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Parents who experience their children's coming out encounter emotional reactions that could compromise their ability to function, particularly when challenged by the Catholic doctrine towards homosexuality. It is not well known how Latino parents experience their children's coming out and how they mediate their Catholic identity. The purpose of this research was to explore the experiences of these parents considering phenomenology as the method of inquiry. The theoretical lens was based on the parental acceptance-rejection theory. The research questions addressed how Latinos experienced the coming out of their children and how they mediated their identities as Catholics and as parents …

The Relevance Of Caste In Contemporary India: Reexamining The Affirmative Action Debate, Shambhavi Sahai, Shambhavi Sahai

CMC Senior Theses

With the changing significance of caste and caste identity, this thesis explores the role of affirmative action or "reservations" in Indian higher education. Specifically, it aims to reopen the debate on the dominance of a "creamy layer" among the OBCs in an increasingly nationalist India. Viewing caste through the lens of ethnic identity, this thesis draws comparisons between the identity of OBCs and Scheduled Castes and Tribes, OBCs of the "Hindi Belt" and OBCs of the South, followed by an analysis of the politicization of caste identity today. The thesis concludes with an evaluation of affirmative action today and possible …

“An Awakening Of Critical Consciousness: Unfurlings Of (Re)Memory, Resistance And Resiliency”, Prisma L. Herrera

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis does not adhere to “traditional” academic criteria which I feel tends to be rigid, constrained ways of regurgitating knowledge. It is not easily digestible, nor is it something that offers concrete answers. Rather it is a critical understanding of many of my experiences in the last four years of education, with a specific focus on the most recent events that have unfolded in my personal and academic life. This thesis is a journey. It is by witnessing communities in New York City, Bolivia, Tlaxcala, Mexico City, Chiapas and Southern California that continue to struggle and hope in the …

Raça, Jinshu, Race: Whiteness, Japanese-Ness, And Resistance In Sūkyō Mahikari In The Brazilian Amazon, Moana Luri De Almeida

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation presented an analysis of how leaders and adherents of a Japanese religion called Sūkyō Mahikari understand and interpret jinshu (race) and hito(person) in a particular way, and how this ideology is practiced in the city of Belém, in the Brazilian Amazon. The teachings of Sūkyō Mahikari classify humanity into five races (yellow, white, red, blue/green, black/purple) and five religions (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism). In this classification, the original humans - hito, the kingly race ōbito, and the God-given supra-religion sūkyō - deteriorated into ningen (people), the other races, and shūkyō (religions) along an …

Global Religion And Local Faith: Korean Churches In Beijing And Tokyo, Edward J.W. Park

Asian and Asian American Studies Faculty Works

Korea Christian churches and missionaries have a prominent presence around the world. In cities such as Yanji and Los Angeles, Korean churches are an essential part of century-old Korean ethnic communities that trace their origins to Japanese colonization that began in the late-1800s. More recently, the economic success of South Korean corporations has resulted in Korean churches and missionaries in global metropoles such as Beijing, London, and Singapore that serve thriving Korean communities anchored by corporate transnationals, entrepreneurs, and international students. This same economic growth has financed Korean missionaries from Africa to Central Asia to undertake projects ranging from health …