Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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Item Metonymies of Color: The Material Discourses of Race in the Irish and Mexican American Experience(2021) Rivera, Patrick Sean; Brighton, Stephen; Anthropology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Objects and artifacts are potent signs of cultural values, and in popular media they are often used as external signs of racial identity. This dissertation investigates how certain objects and settings come to be identified as characteristic of particular racial groups, and how stereotypes about material culture are then exploited to justify discriminatory political policy. I conduct an analysis of the visual representation of Mexicans and the Irish in U.S. media, beginning in 1840 and continuing to the present era. I identify when and why certain artifacts, like potatoes or sombreros, began to be used as stereotypical signs of each group. In each case, I examine how these metonymies were employed as weapons in contemporary political struggles over land, jobs, and representation. Drawing on the records of Mexican and Irish representation, I develop a theoretical model I term "the material discourses of race” to identify the three ways that objects are turned into signs of racial identity, and to explain why certain objects are repeatedly employed to construct an idealized image of whiteness in U.S. visual culture.Item FROM MÚSICA DE CARRILERA TO CORRIDOS PROHIBIDOS AND NORTEÑA: MOBILITY, MEANING, WAR, AND THE RECONTEXTUALIZATION OF MEXICAN MUSICAL STYLES IN COLOMBIA(2017) Vergara, Patricia; Rios, Fernando; Music; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation analyses the adoption and multiple layers of recontextualization of Mexican musical styles in Colombia since the 1930s, particularly música norteña and corridos, story-songs that narrate current events perceived by listeners to be “the pure truth” about the Colombian conflict involving insurgent guerrillas, paramilitary squads, military officials, and drug traffickers that plagued the country for nearly six decades. The dissertation analyses the processes of music production, circulation, and reception that enabled the rise of a Colombian genre family of Mexican-inspired musical practices that thrives today, in spite of being dismissed by the Colombian culture industries for their supposed lack of artistic value and authenticity. Through a historic and spatial perspective this study examines long-standing rhetorics of class and race difference in Colombia, from the nineteenth-century elite’s conceptions of nation, modernity, and civilization to the project of multiculturalism that currently undergirds Colombia’s peace and nation building efforts. It highlights how these enduring discourses have been implicated in the disenfranchisement of both the participants and the musical practices that are the subject of this study. A boom in the production of corridos in Colombia coincided with the intensification of the conflict throughout the 1990s. Named “corridos prohibidos” (forbidden corridos), the production and distribution of these compositions has since relied on the informal economy, since they continue to be shunned by Colombian mass media channels. The political economy of corridos prohibidos thus provides an apt case study of how contemporary musicians and audiences have forged relationships with musical piracy that they view as a beneficial partnership, differing drastically from the attitudes of the traditional recording music industry and its professionals. This dissertation presents the current practices of corridos prohibidos and Colombian música norteña as vibrant spheres of cultural production from which participants derive a range of meanings and ways to mediate their lived experiences of violence and disenfranchisement, as well as pleasure and respite.Item Legados de Guerra Civil en "Las Españas": infancias, exilios y memorias.(2017) Gomez-Martin, Maria; Naharro-Calderón, Jose María; Spanish Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation examines Spanish Republican Exile’s second generation‘s literary production in Mexico after the Civil War (1936-1939): a selected group among “the children of war,” born in the homeland before 1934. Even if they diverge in literary genres or stylistics, all these authors share their own traumatic traces and violent conflict experiences. Therefore, it is essential to analyze the effects of this trauma in order to understand the lost Spanish imaginaries that these children recreated in their works. Likewise, it is fundamental to acknowledge their nepantla liminal condition (a náhuatl word for “in between”). Their double alienation and shared lack of Spanish and/or Mexican identities allowed them to recreate a new space where fiction and reality, memory and imagination converged. Specifically, these revised interpretations of selected works (Carlos Blanco Aguinaga, José de la Colina, Manuel Durán, Tere Medina Navascués, Nuria Parés, Luis Rius, Enrique de Rivas, Roberto Ruiz, Tomás Segovia, and Ramón Xirau) are based on exile as existential discourse transfigurations, as well as their own transient beings’ complex introspections. But we also highlight Roberto Ruiz’s resistance to traumatic expatriations by projecting a narrative of transnational transcendence. KEYWORDS: Spanish Civil War legacies, children, exile, second generation, trauma, memory exiles, memories.Item Translating the "Other": A History of Modernist Literature in the American Southwest, 1903-1945(2016) Horton, David Seth; Wyatt, David; English Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)William Carlos Williams wrote, “The classic is the local fully realized, words marked by a place.” There are now significant studies celebrating the “classic” regional literatures of Ireland, New England, and the American South. But what if the place is out-of-the way, and what if the words that mark it are difficult if not impossible to translate? The American Southwest is one such place, a literary region only recently coming into view. My dissertation forwards this project by focusing on how cultural work produced in the Southwest might represent the region despite the many difficulties of translation involved. Biographical, literary, historical, and archival materials allow for an interdisciplinary approach positioning Southwestern texts within the broader traditions of European and American modernism. My chapters explore the limits of cross-linguistic and cross-cultural understanding. As with Pound’s approach to translating Chinese poetry, which did not entail learning Chinese, Mary Austin argues that she need not master an indigenous language in order to translate Native American texts. Instead, she claims to mystically comprehend their essential meaning, thereby enabling and limiting her insights into the region. While Espinoza’s El sol de Texas emphasizes the challenges faced by immigrants fleeing the Mexican revolution, Venegas’s Las aventuras de don Chipote offers a model for how to cope with such challenges by a process I term “transnational mimicry.” The lexical switching between English and Spanish provides numerous opportunities to mimic and mock southwestern cultural traditions, a strategy linking the region to other colonized spaces throughout the world. The texts of Luhan and Lawrence constitute spectacularly failed attempts at translating otherness. Luhan romanticized the local cultural geography, whereas Lawrence interpreted it through a Eurocentric point-of-view. Together, their work represents the epistemological limits of a vision dominated by Anglo power structures. I conclude with Cather’s southwestern novels and suggest that while Death Comes for the Archbishop is a novelistic illustration of Benjamin’s argument that all translations are marked by at least some degree of incommunicability, it also illustrates Ricoeur’s contention that a belief in translatability is foundational to any act of interpreting a text produced by an “other” human being.Item Symbiotic Cities: Buenos Aires, Montevideo, and Mass Culture, 1910-1960(2016) Richter, Daniel Alex; Williams, Daryle; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation examines how Buenos Aires emerged as a creative capital of mass culture and cultural industries in South America during a period when Argentine theater and cinema expanded rapidly, winning over a regional marketplace swelled by transatlantic immigration, urbanization and industrialization. I argue that mass culture across the River Plate developed from a singular dynamic of exchange and competition between Buenos Aires and neighboring Montevideo. The study focuses on the Argentine, Uruguayan, and international performers, playwrights, producers, cultural impresarios, critics, and consumers who collectively built regional cultural industries. The cultural industries in this region blossomed in the interwar period as the advent of new technologies like sound film created profitable opportunities for mass cultural production and new careers for countless theater professionals. Buenos Aires also became a global cultural capital in the wider Hispanic Atlantic world, as its commercial culture served a region composed largely of immigrants and their descendants. From the 1920s through the 1940s, Montevideo maintained a subordinate but symbiotic relationship with Buenos Aires. The two cities shared interlinked cultural marketplaces that attracted performers and directors from the Atlantic world to work in theatre and film productions, especially in times of political upheaval such as the Spanish Civil War and the Perón era in Argentina. As a result of this transnational process, Argentine mass culture became widely consumed throughout South America, competing successfully with Hollywood, European, and other Latin American cinemas and helping transform Buenos Aires into a cosmopolitan metropolis. By examining the relationship between regional and national frames of cultural production, my dissertation contributes to the fields of Latin American studies and urban history while seeking to de-center the United States and Europe from the central framing of transnational history.Item Too Much to Belong: Latina/o Racialization, Obesity Epidemic Discourse, and Unassimilable Corporeal Excess(2016) Griff, Ellen Cassandra; Paoletti, Jo B; American Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This project examines the discursive constructions of Latina/o bodies as excessive in order to examine how Latinas/os are excluded from belonging to the U.S. nation-state. By approaching Latina/o Studies from a Fat Studies perspective, it works to more adequately address the role of embodiment in determining processes of racialization that directly impact Latinas/os in the United States, especially in light of the role of race and racism in “obesity epidemic” discourse. This dissertation argues that cultural and even physiological explanations about the Latina/o propensity for “overweight” and “obesity” create a discourse that marks the Latina/o body as demonstrating an unassimilable corporeal excess. In turn, the rhetoric of “diversity” and “multiculturalism” are rendered inapplicable to Latinas/os, as demonstrated by both nativist and seemingly pro-immigrant discourses that posit Latina/o physical excess in the form of fatness as detrimental and even dangerous to the U.S. nation-state.Item “Never Give up:” The Strengths and Strategies Used Among Undocumented College Students From Central America to Access and Persist in U.S. Higher Education(2015) Hernandez, Belkis Pamela; Espino, Michelle M.; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The purpose of this study was to identify the strengths and strategies that undocumented college students from Central America used to access and persist in United States higher education. A multiple-case study design was used to conduct in-depth, semi-structured interviews and document collection from ten persons residing in Illinois, Maryland, Ohio, Texas, and Washington. Yosso’s (2005, 2006) community cultural wealth conceptual framework, an analytical and methodological tool, was used to uncover assets used to navigate the higher education system. The findings revealed that participants activated all forms of capital, with cultural capital being the least activated yet necessary, to access and persist in college. Participants also activated most forms of capital together or consecutively in order to attain financial resources, information and social networks that facilitated college access. Participants successfully persisted because they continued to activate forms of capital, displayed a high sense of agency, and managed to sustain college educational goals despite challenges and other external factors. The relationships among forms of capital and federal, state, and institutional policy contexts, which positively influenced both college access and persistence were not illustrated in Yosso’s (2005, 2006) community cultural wealth framework. Therefore, this study presents a modified community cultural wealth framework, which includes these intersections and contexts. In the spirit of Latina/o critical race theory (LatCrit) and critical race theory (CRT), the participants share with other undocumented students suggestions on how to succeed in college. This study can contribute to the growing research of undocumented college students, and develop higher education policy and practice that intentionally consider undocumented college students’ strengths to successfully navigate the institution.Item Clinical Practice in Prenatal Care: Perspectives of Latina Mothers, Healthcare Providers, and Scientists on Male Circumcision(2015) Colon-Cabrera, David; Freidenberg, Judith N; Anthropology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study examines how the interplay between biomedical and ethnomedical perspectives impacts on reproductive health services and consumer decision to circumcise among Latinos in Prince Georges County, Maryland. International research influenced circumcision decision-making during prenatal care: little is known about how neonatal male circumcision (MC) is understood at local clinics; about what patients and providers know regarding circumcision benefits; and the reasoning behind the choices made regarding MC among Latinos. What are the beliefs, practices, and policies regarding MC at community clinics and the international research that influences these policies? Ethnographic research was conducted in three clinics in the state of Maryland including participant observation in the clinics, and interviews with healthcare providers, Latina women who sought services, and scientists and policy makers currently active in MC research. The study explored the interplay between biomedical and ethnomedical knowledge of prenatal care services. Interviews were also conducted with six scientists and policy makers currently active in MC research. The study found that as a reproductive health procedure MC illustrated a complex interplay between biomedical and consumer knowledge. Specifically, healthcare providers did not talk about MC to patients mainly because: 1) They thought that the majority of the Latina women seeking services did not want the procedure; 2) The clinics are constrained for resources and circumcision is not a priority when compared to other prenatal care topics deemed more important in the short prenatal visits. In addition, the policy makers and scientists made assumptions referring to the discussion of circumcision by reproductive and sexual health services clinics when providing prenatal care to clients. Their knowledge relied exclusively on the results of clinical trial data, and how this data could inform policy and clinical guidelines. This dissertation contributes to understanding how services impact MC decision-making and increase the pool of data in regards to the feasibility of overarching MC policies aimed at infants. In addition, this research recommends to critically examine MC as a biomedical practice that is now being rationalized as an HIV prevention strategy.Item THE NEW SOUTH: A CASE ANALYSIS OF LATINO STUDENTS ATTENDING A HISTORICALLY BLACK UNIVERSITY IN NORTH CAROLINA(2013) Mena, Salvador Bienvenido; Komives, Susan; Counseling and Personnel Services; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of Latino students attending a historically Black university in North Carolina. The study was guided by the revised campus climate framework by Milem, Chang, and Antonio (2005). A case study methodological research design was used to explore the following two research questions: (a) What is the Latino student experience at an HBCU that is intentionally seeking to promote Latino student success? (b) How is the campus climate, as defined by Milem et al. (2005), experienced by Latino students at an HBCU? Individual interviews with 13 students, 3 faculty, and 2 staff members were conducted along with the examination of the case site (e.g., review of the institution's strategic plan). The study revealed five areas of focus for understanding and enhancing the Latino student HBCU experience: 1. The decision-making process by Latino students for enrolling at an HBCU; 2. Latino student acclimation to the HBCU campus environment; 3. The cultural dissonance experienced by Latino students in the HBCU setting; 4. The benefits of diversity derived from Latino student enrollment at an HBCU; and 5. Latino student engagement within the HBCU environment. Recommendations for future research and practice based on these five identified areas were made.Item Our Ladies: Third Space Identities in Chicana Artistic Expressions, 1970-2000(2013) Booker, Hilkka Marja; Rodriguez, Ana Patricia; Spanish Language and Literature; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation examines Chicana feminist artistic expression in literature and in the visual arts produced between 1970 and 2000, when intense questioning of Chicana identity politics and border subjectivities emerged in both literature and the arts. Chicana feminists explored problems of the subordination of women, both in mainstream U.S. discourse and within the Chicano Movement, which had hitherto focused on masculine strategies of self-definition in the attempt to shape a communal Latino identity. The works studied include the poetry of Lorna Dee Cervantes (Emplumada 1981), Alma Villanueva (Bloodroot 1982), and Pat Mora (Borders 1986); the photographic autobiography of Norma Cantú (Canícula 2001); and visual art by Ester Hernández (La Virgen de Guadalupe Defendiendo los Derechos de los Xicanos 1975), Yolanda Lopez (Guadalupe series 1978), and Alma Lopez (Our Lady 1999). Utilizing Gloria Anzaldúa's notions about mestiza consciousness and Cherríe Moraga's "theory in the flesh," I explore Chicana creative works and examine the development of multiple subjectivities that are a product of Borderlands thinking, mediated by Chicana everyday experiences. Theories of location, such as Edward Soja's Third Space provide a framework for my study. Moreover, I theorize that in these works the female body becomes an important site of contestation for the sexist and masculinist practices of the Chicano Movement and the oppressive conditions of dominant culture.