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Assessing Urban Tree Coverage Along The U.S.-Mexico Border: A Gis Analysis Of Paso Del Norte, Melanie Escobar May 2024

Assessing Urban Tree Coverage Along The U.S.-Mexico Border: A Gis Analysis Of Paso Del Norte, Melanie Escobar

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In recent years, researchers have extensively studied the spatial distribution of social demographics and urban tree canopy (UTC) in urban cities, but very few, to this date, address U.S.-Mexico border cities. To date, there is no research that assesses the distribution of urban tree canopy (UTC) in the city of El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, along the U.S.- Mexico border. Leveraging advanced mapping techniques and GIS tools, the study performs comparisons between countries (Juárez vs. El Paso urbanized areas and intra-country (within each country). It compares land cover classifications, assesses variations in UTC distribution across census tracts and …


Trials Of Belonging: Indigenous Peoples' Struggle With Law And Power In Twentieth-Century North America, Kevin Thomas Guay Jan 2020

Trials Of Belonging: Indigenous Peoples' Struggle With Law And Power In Twentieth-Century North America, Kevin Thomas Guay

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Spanning multiple fields of scholarly inquiry, the bulk of this study concerns itself with competing notions of sovereignty, citizenship, boundary-making, and belonging in twentieth and twenty-first century Indigenous North America. Situated at the productive confluence of Borderlands history, Native American and Indigenous Studies, Critical Legal Studies, and Immigration history, this Dissertation analyzes the numerous treaties, codes, edicts, bylaws and other expressions of settler colonial jurisprudence that penetrated the everyday lives of Indigenous peoples across North America. These statutes-designed to limit Native power, dissolve Indigenous cultural identity, and strip tribal peoples of their landholdings and personhood-constituted an ongoing settler colonial project …


Mother Nature, Lady Justice: Ecofeminism And Judicial Decision-Making, Jonathan Alexis Picado Jan 2020

Mother Nature, Lady Justice: Ecofeminism And Judicial Decision-Making, Jonathan Alexis Picado

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Ecofeminism offers a feminist perspective that links gender to how humans relate to the natural world. As such, this framework explores the connections between the oppression of nature and the oppression of women, such as widespread views that both women and nature are property, are to be dominated, and are most valuable when cultivated and curated by men. I apply this philosophical and sociological framework to judicial decision-making, where women judges should view environmental issues as women's issues and thus be more likely to vote in favor of the environmental protections relative to her male peers. I evaluate this theory …


At The Mercy Of The Mexican Supreme Court: The Implications Of Party Capability On Indigenous People's Cases, Alan Cardenas Jan 2020

At The Mercy Of The Mexican Supreme Court: The Implications Of Party Capability On Indigenous People's Cases, Alan Cardenas

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Indigenous Peoples in Mexico have long struggled in securing their rights in colonizing states. Applying party capability theory, this paper seeks to empirically understand the Mexican Supreme Court's behavior in cases pertaining to Indigenous Peoples. This paper thus evaluates the degree to which the Mexican Supreme Court is indeed an impartial actor that produces "equal protection under the law" for everyone (Galanter, 1974). Specifically, this paper examines the questions: To what extent does the Mexican Supreme Court protect Indigenous Peoples' rights? Are Indigenous Peoples legally affected by the power disparity perpetuated by the inequality in the country? This paper thus …


"Only Steers And Queers Come From Texas": The Texas Sodomy Statutes And The Making Of An Other, 1860-1973, Jecoa Ross Jan 2016

"Only Steers And Queers Come From Texas": The Texas Sodomy Statutes And The Making Of An Other, 1860-1973, Jecoa Ross

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Thesis explores the history of sodomy as it has been conceptualized through the creation and enforcement of the Texas sodomy statutes between 1860 and 1973. In analyzing state court cases, legislative records, and newspaper accounts, I argue that the evolution of the concept of sodomy from its inception as a broad criminal category in the 1860 Texas sodomy statute to its more-narrow conceptualization by Texas legislators as a behavioral characteristic of homosexual status in the 1973 homosexual conduct statute was a political and historically contingent process. This process was political firstly in that it allowed for the construction of …


Constructing A River, Building A Border: An Environmental History Of Irrigation, Water Law, State Formation, And The Rio Grande Rectification Project In The El Paso/Juárez Valley, Joanne Kropp Jan 2016

Constructing A River, Building A Border: An Environmental History Of Irrigation, Water Law, State Formation, And The Rio Grande Rectification Project In The El Paso/Juárez Valley, Joanne Kropp

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The Rio Grande in the El Paso, Texas, U.S./Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico, Valley has a long history of human use from prehistoric to modern times. Formal irrigation began in the 1600s, mainly for viticulture, changing to cotton and pecans in the 1900s. The Rio Grande was subject to bed shifting and flooding that, after 1848, affected the location of the international boundary. During the Great Depression the U.S. and Mexican governments sponsored conservation projects to provide jobs and increase agricultural production. The 1933 “Convention - Rectification of the Rio Grande” was the culmination of interstate and bi-national agreements to divide Rio …


In Search Of Refuge: Mexican Refugees And Asylum Seekers To The U.S. From 1980 To The Present, Taylor Kristine Levy Jan 2014

In Search Of Refuge: Mexican Refugees And Asylum Seekers To The U.S. From 1980 To The Present, Taylor Kristine Levy

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

An estimated 130,000 Mexicans have been murdered since 2006, with another 27,000 having been officially "disappeared;" approximately 2-3% of the adult Mexican population has been forced to leave their homes due to this violence, many of whom have entered the United States seeking refuge (Molloy, 2013; Olivares, 2012). These refugees have emigrated using a variety of both authorized and unauthorized channels, with a significant (and increasing) number applying for political asylum in the United States (Lyst, 2013). This Thesis seeks to provide a historic background and comprehensive analysis of the identity and struggles of the four types of modern Mexican …


Does God Favor The Unequal Allocation Of Resources? A Study Of The Effects Of Religion On Ethnic Conflicts, Irene Rebeca Mendoza Jan 2009

Does God Favor The Unequal Allocation Of Resources? A Study Of The Effects Of Religion On Ethnic Conflicts, Irene Rebeca Mendoza

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Ethnic conflict and religious conflict are two types of conflict that are too often studied as one type of conflict. Additionally, conflicts that involve the fight over resources are today a type of conflict which appears to be on the rise. Additionally, contrary to what some scholars have argued for centuries, religious influence over people's behavior also has continued to rise. Today there is a worrisome landscape in the global landscape, ethnic conflicts are currently ongoing throughout the globe in areas such as Congo, India-Pakistan, Israel-Palestine, Sudan, Sri Lanka, and most notably Iraq. Ethnic conflicts in the past appear to …