Latina/o Studies Commons^™

Pedro Aceves Mfa Thesis, Pedro M. Aceves

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

My Work is about looking at Cruising through a queer decolonial lens. Using multiple mediums such as photo, glass, Augmented reality, and film, I explore these queer histories and aesthetics through not just an anthropological approach but also an artistic epistemological approach weaving together narratives of prehispanic and modern queer Latinidad.

The Masa That Holds Us: Indigenous Epistemologies And The Food We Share, Necahual Gamboa

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

The U.S. higher education system is built on histories and infrastructures of colonization, white supremacy, and western imperialism. Among many of the institutions produced from a history of domination and genocide, the systems of higher education need to shift their focus to decolonial frameworks including Indigenous epistemologies (ways of knowing and being) in order to work toward true reparations between these imperial systems and the Indigenous people they have displaced and disregarded. This project brings these systems into question, but also uses art, prose, and storytelling to better align with what it means or what it could look like to …

Apoyo En Comunidad: A Proposed Manual For Latinx And Hispanic Support Groups, Yadira Diaz Romero

Psychology Doctoral Specialization Projects

Navigating college life can be difficult; add to that the complications of navigating different cultures and it creates a chasm for young adults to overcome. This is true for many Latinx college students who often attend colleges where few resources exist to offer support in navigating these social and cultural issues in their everyday life. Additionally, while group therapy is championed as a treatment modality for many, few groups exist that target Latinx communities, especially Latinx college students. This project aims to highlight these social and cultural issues faced by Latinx individuals and provide clinicians with a treatment manual to …

Navigating University Of Denver As A Latinx Male-Identifying Undergraduate Student, Quisi Rodriguez-Oregel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Students of color continuously persist at a lower rate than their white counterparts in higher education. Particularly for Latinx males, the number is lower than Latinx women. Universities have incorporated Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) strategies to focus on their diverse student population and address issues of race, ethnicity, class, and gender. Despite these efforts, low retention rates for Latinx males persist. This study explores how Latinx male undergraduate students navigate a predominantly white institution as well as explore some of the challenges of DEI efforts at that institution. I conducted participant observations at the University of Denver (DU) and …

Cultural And Structural Barriers Of Utilizing Mental Health Services In A School-Based Setting For Latinx Populations, Silvia Lozano, Bridgette Guadalupe Calderon

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This qualitative research study aimed to reduce mental health service disparities in Latinx communities and helps fill in the gap by addressing cultural and structural barriers to utilizing MHS in a school-based setting for Latinx youth. There is limited research regarding Latinx parents’ perspectives and the reservations they have on utilizing school-based mental health services (MHS) for their children. This study identified six important themes: cultural factors, trust and rapport, reservations, access and awareness, parental involvement and challenges, and school-based resources. Implications for school districts are that they can use these findings to increase early intervention mental behavioral health programs …

The Breakbeat Poets: Translocal Placemaking In The Contemporary Midwestern Lyric, Andy Oler

Publications

In the introduction to the Haymarket Books collection The BreakBeat Poets: New American Poetry in the Age of Hip-Hop (2015), co-editor Kevin Coval asserts that the anthologized poems are not simply influenced by hip-hop; “these poems are hip-hop.”¹ The anthology’s focus on a genre, a cultural phenomenon, might seem like an odd fit for a special issue on placemaking. Its national frame might seem too expansive for the study of regionalism (though there is a history, established by James Shortridge, of conflating the Midwest with the nation).² But The BreakBeat Poets is also attentive to more precise versions …

Shades Of Justice: Exploring Colorism In The Hispanic Community And Its Legal Battle For Equity, Christel A. Infante

Honors Undergraduate Theses

This thesis focuses on the racial disparity within the Hispanic and Latinx communities as injustices exist within the community and the workplace. Racial disparities in the United States have been a persistent and deeply rooted issue that has plagued the nation for centuries. Despite significant progress in civil rights and anti-discrimination legislation, disparities in areas such as education, employment, and criminal justice persist. Understanding the factors contributing to these disparities is essential for addressing systemic inequalities and fostering a more just society. The analysis of this thesis primarily focuses on the cases and ramifications of Hispanic persons within the workplace, …

Developing More Equitable And Critically Conscious Organizations: Testimonios And Critical Platicas With Black And Latino/X Lgbtq+ Male Chrd Leaders, Mario Burton

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This dissertation connects the recent DEIB movement within organizations to larger social justice movements, specifically those that impact workers and the workplace. Critical human resource development (CHRD) professionals, who serve as “insider activists”, are highlighted due to their work to continue movement objectives within organizations. Through testimonios and critical platicas, this study explores how Black and Latino/x LGBTQ+ CHRD professionals, in particular, are experiencing the workplace, especially as it relates to their engagement with how DEIB is practiced within organizations. Through this study, these professionals provide insights into the ways that workplaces can be redesigned and reimagined to be …

Transfer Pathways: Ensuring Transfer Student Success, Jonathan Vega Martinez, Fabián Torres-Ardila, Lorna Rivera, Michelle Sunday

Gastón Institute Publications

This report reflects the partnership between the University of Massachusetts Boston’s Gastón Institute and Bunker Hill Community College’s Center for Equity and Cultural Wealth to build cultural inclusivity in curricular and co-curricular practices with the diverse student bodies served by both postsecondary institutions.

The partnership was created with the aim to develop activities and create data, including data sharing and joint data collection, to explore and create common research questions that will help close diversity gaps across the two institutions. This report is part of a study that seeks to improve the partners’ understanding of student transfer pathways between these …

Divergence: Toward A Neurodivergent Latinx Liberative Social Ethic, Rudolph P. Reyes Ii

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A significant problem facing neurodivergent Latinxs is the invisibility of their marginalization and oppression. Neurodivergent Latinxs are invisible in dominant society and theological discourse. While neurodivergence and disability are not synonymous, the failure to recognize the marginalization of disability contributes to neurodivergent invisibility. Disability is depoliticized when disability is conceived as an issue of individual embodiment rather than a social issue of acceptance, accessibility, and equality. Neurodivergent Latinxs are erased, and the physical, epistemic, and institutional violence against them go unnamed.

This research project uses the hermeneutical circle for ethics in formulating praxis in combating the oppression of neurodivergent Latinxs. …

Exploring The Intersectional Higher Education Experiences Of Latinx Students, Miguel A. Trujillo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The intersectional experiences of Latinx students in higher education have largely gone underexplored in the literature, particularly when it comes to Latino men. The current literature treats the experiences of the Latinx community as a monolith, when there are multiple potentially impactful intersectional aspects of identity that could influence our lived experiences, such as generational status, documentation status, country of origin, and gender. This three-manuscript dissertation addresses these gaps in the literature by both conducting research that is more descriptive of our respective within-group community and by focusing on the impact that gender may play in the experiences of Latinx …

The Domestic Worker In Latinx Fiction: The Discursive Formation Of Latinidad, Constance Von Igel De Mello

English (MA) Theses

The figure of the domestic worker in Latinx and Latin American fiction is a prominent character, permeating multiple genres and geographic locations. Post-colonial and feminist engagement with literature begs us to engage with the racialized and gendered constraints of this character in order to understand the borders of latinidad as based on the exclusion of certain bodies, predominantly black ones. Using the domestic worker characters from Julia Alvarez’s How the García Girls Lost Their Accents (1991) and Edwidge Danticat’s The Farming of Bones (1998), and underscoring their historical and socio-political background of Hispaniola, we can understand the embodied context of …

Obesity Heterogeneity By Neighborhood Context In A Largely Latinx Sample, Ashley W. Kranjac, Dinko Kranjac, Zeev N. Kain, Louis Ehwerhemuepha, Brooke N. Jenkins

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

Neighborhood socioeconomic context where Latinx children live may influence body weight status. Los Angeles County and Orange County of Southern California both are on the list of the top ten counties with the largest Latinx population in the USA. This heterogeneity allowed us to estimate differential impacts of neighborhood environment on children’s body mass index z-scores by race/ethnicity using novel methods and a rich data source. We geocoded pediatric electronic medical record data from a predominantly Latinx sample and characterized neighborhoods into unique residential contexts using latent profile modeling techniques. We estimated multilevel linear regression models that adjust for …

Girls From The Heights: From Mexican Spitfire To Maddy Perez, Gabi Martinez

[Archive] Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

The stereotype of the “Spicy Latina” is as prevalent today as it was in the early days of film, and tracing its origins leads to the discovery of a complicated root system of prejudice and stereotype. From the days of Lupe Velez and the film Mexican Spitfire, to the TV shows Modern Family and Jane the Virgin, Hollywood has never seemed to know how to portray Latinas in all of their complexity. This paper investigates how the white male gaze has shaped the perception of Latinas in the media, and how even the modern, more diverse media landscape contributes …

Un Guisado: Allí, Allá And The Space In Between, Quinn A. Briceño

MFA in Visual Art

I am a Guisado: a savory stew. A blend of two worlds: one of Nicaragua, and the other of the United States. I am both Nicaragaüense y Estadounidense. As an artist, I work with painting and collage as a form of image making that carefully takes inspiration from those traditions to create a new narrative. In my work, I examine both my struggle with identity and how I came to be the person I am today. As I am both Nicaragüense and Estadounidense it is important that my paintings reflect those two worlds.

The ingredients making up my …

Historical Underpinnings And Consequent Effects Of Labor Exploitation Of Mexican And Central Americans In The United States, Andrew Elkins

World Languages, Literatures and Cultures Undergraduate Honors Theses

The experience immigrants have today working and living in the southern United States is defined by systems that have developed out of lingering racist attitudes and reactions toward these individuals. The flow of people across the U.S.-Mexico border has a long history, and it is characterized by patterns that have continued from early guest worker programs to the present-day flow of migrants, both legal and undocumented. Also continually present is the racialization of these migrants, which has often forced them to work and live as marginalized members of American society. This project will explore the establishment of Mexican American citizen …

Latinx On The Rise Mentoring Program’S Impact On Graduating Student’S Professional Integration Past Undergraduate Studies, Lucero Martinez-Salas

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Mentoring programs are implemented to create a space for skill and information transmission between a mentor and mentee. Mentoring programs are typically implemented in an academic setting with professors or peers acting as a mentor and students as mentees. Based on the under-representation of Latinx students in higher education and further career paths, mentoring with this population could be positively impactful to their student experience. This thesis focuses on the Latinx on the Rise mentoring program and the experience of the mentees with a focus on the Latinx student experience. Implications for implementation of such programs and their impact will …

Benefits Of Co-Constructing Latinx Consciousness Within Schools, Elizabeth Cruz Reyes

Capstone Projects and Master's Theses

Within the Latinx community, there are arguments about identity labels, who can speak better Spanish, who is a better Latinx, and how Latinx culture should be maintained. Latinx consciousness originates from Gloria Anzaldúa’s (1987) concept of mestiza consciousness and the respective work that Gloria Anzaldúa has inspired. Latinx consciousness involves the complex: spiritual, personal, social, political, economic, and historic factors that influence the lives of Latinx students. This senior capstone defines Latinx consciousness and examines the benefits of co-constructing Latinx consciousness. The benefits are framed within the context of education, Latinx attitudes, language use, language loss, and cultural longevity. The …

Impact Of Formative Childhood And Adolescent Experiences In Latinx Children Of Immigrants Adulthood: Analysis Of Educational, Health, And Social Implications, Alma P. Lopez

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

As the rates of immigration rise within the United States, it is essential to discuss and bring awareness to the neglect and discrimination that immigrants and subsequently the children of immigrants face within the nation. We know about the journey of immigrants and the effects of such but what about their children? Those who did not specifically make the travel to a foreign country but had the “privilege” to be born there? The aim of this study is to investigate the impacts of children of immigrants’ experience in their childhood with this identity and their potential effects into their adulthood …

Listening To Voices Of Latinx Immigrants In Rural America, Jacqueline Smith

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this phenomenological qualitative study was to capture and gain an understanding of Latinx immigrants’ lived experiences during their transitions from their native countries to rural Arkansas. Using purposeful criterion-based sampling, the population of interest was five Latinx immigrant students and families who migrated from their native countries to the state of Arkansas. The analytic strategy included a single-case model of each family’s transcription, two-case model, cluster analysis to identify likeness, document portrait, and subtheme development. The structural descriptions that formed the essence of the experience resulted in three themes: education, migration, and emotional experiences. The three overall …

"We Had To Rely On Each Other": Voices Of Latinx Foster Youth With Experiences In Care With Siblings, Isabella B. Ginsberg

PSU McNair Scholars Online Journal

Relationships between members of sibling groups have been found to impact well-being for children who enter foster care (Herrick & Piccus, 2005). Being placed in stranger foster care is often challenging and can be traumatic with children reporting confusion, worry, and loss of identity and sense of belonging (Herrick & Piccus, 2005, Unrau et al, 2008). While there is some research that explores the experiences of siblings groups in foster care and others separately that examines Latinx children in foster care, there is very little information that looks into the potentially unique experiences of Latinx individuals who were in care …

Los Graduados; Factors Affecting First-Generation Hispanic Males Attainment Of A Terminal Degree, Frank Figueroa

Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this phenomenological study was to understand and explore factors that led to the attainment of a terminal degree as perceived by first generation Hispanic males in Southern California. A secondary purpose of the study was to determine, of the factors identified, which were perceived to have the greatest impact on attainment of a terminal degree by first generation Hispanic males in Southern California.

Methodology: This phenomenological study collected data via semi-structured interviews and review of artifacts. The study sample involved 13 First-Generation Hispanic Males in Southern California who have attained a terminal degree. Bandura’s Self-Efficacy Theory …

Latinx Political Leadership In Massachusetts (2021), Leyi Andrea Perez, Fabián Torres-Ardila, Christa Kelleher

Publications from the Center for Women in Politics and Public Policy

Fact Sheet provides an overview of Latinx political leadership and representation in Massachusetts.

Natural Law And Latinx Social Ethics: A Narrative Approach, Mathew D. Scruggs

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation will argue concepts rooted in Latinx social ethics provides a corrective to acontextual and ahistorical, Euroamerican natural law frameworks by positing natural law as a type of moral reasoning rooted in the contexts, histories, and narratives of particular communities. Rooting natural law in the narrative practices of Latinx communities not only reveals the need for justice for oppression against Latinx bodies from the wider community, but also offers a corrective to ahistorical and acontextual Euroamerican natural law frameworks. A Latinx natural law functions as a radical and prophetic critique against systems of oppression that destroy the lives of …

Leading Hispanic Serving Community Colleges: Latinx Faculty Perceptions About The Aacc Competencies, Sanjuanita Chavira Scott

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

Latinx students are likely to enter postsecondary education at a community college. This phenomenon has led to the increase in community colleges being designated as Hispanic Serving Institutions. The designation of Hispanic Serving is not driven by mission, but rather by number of enrolled students who identify as Latinx. This preliminary descriptive study examined the perceptions of faculty at four Hispanic Serving community colleges in Texas regarding their proficiency on leadership competencies for faculty, whether there were differences in the perceptions of Latinx and non-Latinx faculty members, and whether certain leadership competencies influence faculty members’ decisions to pursue leadership opportunities. …

La Isla Silenciada: A Study On Puerto Rican Attitudes Towards The U.S. Federal Government’S Response To Hurricane Maria And Its Impact On Puerto Rico’S Status, Lizbeth Acevedo

Senior Independent Study Theses

Puerto Rico’s ongoing economic crisis and the inadequate emergency response to the devastation of Hurricane Maria are deeply tied to the island’s neo-colonial political arrangement with the United States. The two-principle alternative political arrangements—statehood and independence—are the subject of vigorous ongoing debate both on the U.S. mainland and the island. However, the results of periodic plebiscites on the island are often poor indicators of the island residents’ true preferences on the matter because they are often subject to politicization and abstention campaigns. Therefore, I use a survey with a representative sample of island residents conducted in the aftermath of Hurricane …

Dialogic Identity Construction: The Influence Of Latinx Women's Identities In Their Health Information Management Practice, Maria A. Caban Alizondo

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The purpose of this qualitative research was to study the experiences of Latinx women who lead in health information management in the United States. Latinx health information management professionals are faced with everchanging workplace dynamics and biases in which they are repeatedly reminded of their individual and ethnic differences that require them to construct and co-construct new facets to their identities in social contexts. By grounding this work in narrative inquiry and viewing identities critically, space is given for delving deeper into the specifics of how gender, ethnicity, culture, and class influenced Latinx women’s leadership practice. Interviews offered the opportunity …

The Controversy Of American Dirt, Margaret Cantú-Sánchez

American Dirt

This presentation talks about the current criticism and controversy surrounding the book American Dirt. The presentation includes information on panelists and questions to consider while reading the text.

Panelist: Benjamin "Josh" Doty; Diane Gonzales Bertrand; Diane Duesterhoeft, Alex Salinas, Cathy Whitlow

“I’M Real I Thought I Told Ya”: Developing Critical Media Literacy Through U.S. Latinx Digital Media Representations, Solange T. Castellar

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis explores how audiences engage with U.S. Latinx media representations through the practice of critical media literacy. I interrogate how media consumers construct critical media literacy through interacting with U.S. Latinx figures on digital media platforms, particularly on the social-media app, Twitter, and the user-generated video content platform, YouTube. Throughout this thesis, I argue that users on these platforms who engage with U.S. Latinx pop culture figures, like Jennifer Lopez and Belcalis Almanzar (Cardi B), read, digest, and comprehend a variety of multimedia images, texts, or videos, and that this engagement becomes an accessible form of critical media literacy, …

She Se Puede: Exploring The Career Development Of Latinas In The San Francisco Bay Area, Brittney Varela

Master's Theses

The professional identities of Latinas in the United States have undergone some major changes in recent times. As women and ethnic minorities, Latinas are a part of two underrepresented groups facing inequities in the workforce. This research focuses on the career development of ten Latinas in the San Francisco Bay area, with their stories and experiences publicized on a public podcast. She Se Puede podcast consists of ten episodes recorded at the University of San Francisco, discussing career development and major factors that limit the professional advancement of Latinas. This applied project was designed around scholarly research and in-person interviews, …