American Studies Research Works

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    The Careers of Two Ritas: Latinas, Hollywood, and the Dilemmas of Anglicization
    (2014) Sabin, Jessica; Paoletti, Jo
    This project is focused on the career of two Latina actresses, Rita Hayworth and Rita Moreno, and how their roles and success in film were contingent upon their race and identity. What this work will explore is how Hayworth’s transformation from “Latina” to “Anglo” and Moreno’s refusal to conform to the whitening of her image tells us about American cinematic expectations during this time period and how they shaped overlapping ideas about race, gender, and sexuality. I used film analyses of Gilda (1946) and West Side Story (1961), combined with American Studies theories of racial formation, tropicalizations, and Latino labeling in the U.S., to explain how a Latina’s success in film was intimately linked to the whiteness of her image in Hollywood. My original contribution is to frame the project in this comparative way and introduce the concept of Anglicization and how it has a positive influence on the success of a Latina actress. In regard to cinema, there is a pronounced lack of diversity in central roles, and it suggests that in order to achieve greater success, one needs to embody a whiter identity.
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    The Vietnam Veteran: A Victim of the War's Rhetorical Failure
    (1988-02-22) Hollihan, Thomas A.; Klumpp, James F.
    Argues that from defense and media coverage of the Vietnam War, an image of the character and activities of those fighting the war emerged. Within the defense of the war two justifications fought for dominance: a romantic call to idealism and a pragmatic materialist call to complete a task started. These contradictory motivations for the war colored the image of the soldier who fought the war as he became a concrete symbols caught in the contradiction. After the war, survivors had to then struggle with this image produced to defend the war.
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    Richard Nixon's Anti-Impeachment Campaign: America's Paradise Lost
    (Fred McMahon, 1974-05-01) Brock, Bernard; Klumpp, James F.
    Analysis of Richard Nixon's April 29, 1974, speech during the Nixon impeachment crisis. Interprets the speech as a quest narrative.
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    Book Review of Carmen Lomas Garza by Constance Cortez
    (Latino Studies, 2011) Ontiveros, Randy
    This article reviews Constance Cortez's 2010 monograph on the Texas-based artist Carmen Lomas Garza. It appears in Volume 9, Issue 4 of the journal Latino Studies.
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    America the Charity Case
    (2005-10-21T13:22:27Z) Michel, Sonya
    The U.S. government has inappropriately relied on private philanthropy to provide relief in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Charities are not up to the task, and corporations have taken advantage of the situation to promote themselves. All of this has consequences for the victims of this disaster. Americans should be able to count on relief as a right of citizenship, not a matter of charity.