Grounded in subaltern studies, a body of work that analyzes the viewpoints of those who are outside of the social, political and geographic power structure, this paper strives to illuminate the Nueva Canción, or “New Song” movement. Emerging in Latin America during the 1960s, Nueva Cancion celebrated the lives of indigenous and laboring class communities, but was largely made up of figures from positions of racial and economic privilege within the larger system. Investigating the seemingly contradictory politics of representation present, this paper discusses how the movement sought to champion disenfranchised figures, while simultaneously casting such figures as incapable of representing themselves; thus rendering them voiceless. At the center of my inquiry is Mercedes Sosa, a prominent Nueva Cancion figure of local and international recognition, who, as a woman of mixed European and indigenous ancestry, attempted to traverse the gap between the movement and its sentimentalized subject matter. By using Sosa as a focal point, this paper aims to illustrate the complex dynamics of the social and political climate in Latin America from 1960-1982, that enabled Sosa to function neither as producer or subject, but as what can be referred to as a “knowledge mover,” circulating the dominant ideology at the same time as effectively challenging it.

NSFW (“Not Safe For Work”) is an acronym used to indicate that a website, a picture, or a link contains inappropriate (usually pornographic) content. One could say that all of 4chan.org is NSFW. 4chan is an imageboard where communication takes place in the form of pictures and images posted by anonymous users and deleted minutes after they appear online. This anonymity and ephemerality of communication unleashes levels of racism, sexism, homophobia, and general malevolence unseen in Social Web communities like Facebook. However, 4chan operates with virtually no advertisement (or profit-motive) while Facebook is now a publicly traded corporation, with a mandate to generate revenue for its stockholders by monetizing its assets, which happen to be the words, pictures, jokes, and plans of its more than 1 billion users. Discourses surrounding the Social Web speak in terms of “openness,” “connectivity,” and “transparency,” promising a more civil online community. However, these trends make personal data and communication susceptible to appropriation by capital. How has 4chan remained a largely non-commodified space in the midst of the corporate colonization of the Social Web, and what do we make of its sociopathic ethos? I studied the community and signifying practices of 4chan's random board /b/, finding that although the fundamental anonymity and ephemerality of communication on the board free up participants to be racist, sexist, homophobic, and generally malevolent to degrees unseen in the Social web, these same conditions create a space for truly free speech (in both the monetary and behavioral sense), creating a novel mode of signification and a space for subversive political consciousness in the process.

Colloidal zinc oxide nanocrystals (NCs) become charged with electrons upon reduction with decamethylcobaltocene. Understanding this redox chemistry can further develop research on quantum dot sensitized solar cells and other various applications of NCs. The goal of my project is to determine whether this electron transfer can be characterized by an equilibrium constant K_eq, and if so, to see which variables in the reaction affect the K_eq. Two models were tested: (1) in which the concentration of NCs would affect the K_eq, and another (2) in which it would not. Using data from optical titrations, I found that the K_eq is affected by NC concentration and is therefore better described by model (1). Similarly, other variables are currently being tested in order to refine a working model that can accurately describe the reaction of NCs with reductants. The contribution of a simple model for these charge transfer processes can be applied to various areas.

This research will illuminate shared discourse between the Chicano Movement and the Undocumented Youth Movement to highlight the intersectionality of identities. The Chicano Movement has been studied extensively by scholars and much has been said about the machista exclusions of women and Queer Chicana/os. My research seeks to examine the Undocumented Youth Movement and how this group has changed the typical exclusionary elements of its predecessor by making active efforts for inclusion. Through theoretical framework surrounding Queer and Chicano identity and my own personal experience, I will compare cultural production created during the Chicano Movement by Gloria Anzaldua, Cherrie Moraga y otras compañeras and the Undocumented Youth artivismo of Yosimar Reyes and Julio Salgado, who identify as “Undocu-Queer” artists. Their work contributes to an inclusive social movement crossing borders of sexuality, gender, citizenship, and race. Artivistas are providing new narratives and integrating it in U.S. society by claiming agency and demanding change in a country where anti-immigration laws are becoming more restrictive. The contributions of artists like Salgado and Reyes add to the strength of this movement. This research will add to a broader understanding of social movements, immigration policies in the U.S., and allow for a deeper understanding of the way culture fuels and defines social movements and politics. Additionally, through my own journey of understanding my Self and learning to survive through learning, creating and producing art I seek to queer the discourse that is occurring ahora in the Undocumented Youth Movement.

Colonization in the 16th century permitted the creation of borderlands of indigenous groups in Mexico. As Mestizos became the majority in the country, indigenous groups rested in a borderland of injustice and inequality. To this day, indigenous groups still live in the struggle for justice. My aim is to research Los Triquis from San Juan Copala, Oaxaca and explore the realities surrounding the conflict that is taking place there; especially the implications in shaping Triqui identities around this conflict. Though various scholars have examined the paramilitary conflict in San Juan Copala, Triquis along with a study of their identify formation have been left out of the picture of the conflict. I intend to focus on the direct consequences on the individual rather than on the nature of the conflict itself through analyzing interviews with experts on the conflict and videos with first-hand accounts by Triquis who have escaped such violence. Since 1988, rising Triqui paramilitary groups allegedly helping Triqui people in San Juan Copala against injustices from the government, have created a paramilitary conflict. The resulting violence has led to the displacement of thousands of Triquis, who find it impossible to return home as they are attacked by their own people once they try. The particularity of this conflict is the government’s hidden involvement and it has affected every age and gender group in San Juan Copala thus changing the dynamics of interaction.

The infamous dictator Augusto Pinochet came to power through a bloody coup on September 11, 1973 and drastically changed the face of the Chilean government. His regime instituted strict policies of neoliberalism that led to the privatization of the university system. Forty years after the coup, many of these policies remain in place, untouched and accepted as the reasons behind Chile as the ‘economic miracle’ of South America. However, tensions under these neoliberal policies, specifically in the university system, fomented a recent eruption of political activism in May of 2011. Why is it that Chile, one of the most economically ‘successful’ countries in South America and the ‘pride’ of the IMF and World Bank models, is seeing the rise of a powerful student movement against neoliberal legacies? My research juxtaposes the master narrative of Chile as a ‘model country’, in terms of hegemonic modernity, against the experiences of the Chilean university students who have fought to challenge it. I argue that the catalyst behind the student movement can be in part explained by the legacies of Pinochet’s repression and the political struggles of past generations. This contradictory temporal space forms a ‘generational borderland’. These generational ruptures combined with the legacies of repression, have led to the emergence of new forms of innovative and marketable protest, cultivated longevity for the movement through the mistrust of politicians, and inspired a reinvigoration of the Communist Party of Chile.

The purpose of my research is to examine the impact of an Afro-centric prototype (ACP) on target populations utilizing Community-Based Education (CBE). I define an Afro-Centric Prototype as a distinctively positive symbol that frames black people with an affirming perspective that promotes a constructive self-image. I characterize CBE as instruction occurring outside typical school facilities, and instead in community centers, bookstores, libraries, faith centers, etc., commonly accessible to the public. ACPs can exist as a person, object, or geographical region, and is communicated through language that results in black student confidence building and impacting non-black students in a similar manner. The ACP in my research is St. Maurice, a black General of the Holy Roman Empire that originated from the Nubian Kingdom of Africa. My non-profit organization, The Good Pharaoh Foundation was in the land of St. Maurice in 2011. My discoveries in Africa pointed to extensive evidence of this ACP’s impact on western civilization, culture, and society. Maurice is venerated amongst the early Kings of Europe and all Popes of the Church. Present-day leaders such as Colin Powell have been inducted into the order of St. Maurice. His influence on European and African culture are both fascinating, and world-impacting. I will hold a series of ACP lectures on St. Maurice and compare the resulting impact on black students occurring in CBEs to classical school classrooms. I will also investigate if the CBE sessions create a demand for additional research, activities, and publications that further promote the Afro-Centric prototype of St. Maurice. I hypothesize that positive learning experiences will occur in the CBEs indicating a need for allocation of further resources in CBE environments.

Lucha libre, or Mexican Free Wrestling, is both sport and entertainment with strong connections to the history of Mexican cultural production. Employing ethnography, historical research, and media documentation, that includes a film and an interactive art exhibition, my research produced a complex examination of the mind, soul and body of a gendered and transnational identity formation within lucha libre. My earlier ethnographic study of Lucha Libre Volcánica, a local school and performance group, found that male and female performers use physical embodiment and characterization to achieve a fluid gender boundary. Now my focus centers on a specifically female gendered standpoint and the cultural implications on women’s roles in US and Mexican society as a result of the sport’s transnational migration. Ethnographic research of Princesa Quetzal in Ciudad Victoria, Mexico, Las Poubelles in Los Angeles and La Avispa in Seattle illustrates how their involvement in lucha libre parallels a metaphorical struggle of “la lucha” (the fight) for three possibilities – visibility, empowerment, and a new identity or transnational cultural hybrid. Framing their performances within the historical context of post-revolutionary Mexico and the migratory movement of Mexican culture to Los Angeles and Seattle sheds light on how the perfect climate was created for the development of both lucha libre and female empowerment as evidenced in studies of cultural production by Heather Levi, Jose Muñoz, Laura Gutierrez, Eric Zolov, and Laura Pérez. It will not only open your eyes to the experience of being a female wrestler within a masculine world but also emphasize the important implications beyond the wrestling ring into the social fabric we all share.

Early medical philosophers describe psychiatric illnesses as natural, biologically bound entities with clear definitions. However, other thinkers have begun to trace the source of these definitions to a more political root. I argue that the very language we use to diagnosis, define, and treat mental illnesses is influenced by the social and political climate, and that this language has been creating an increasing number of borders within the spectrum of human experience since the introduction of the DSM (the primary mental health diagnostic tool in the U.S.) in 1952. Using discourse analysis as a tool to examine the four editions of the DSM, I will discuss how the change in language of the last 60 years has followed political and social movements of the times. In particular, an investigation into the changing language describing and defining gender and sexuality disorders will uncover these changes. Psychiatry has been using particular language to create and negotiate the line between “normal” and “abnormal” since the origin of the field. Individuals labeled using this fluctuating language have to negotiate all the legal, social, political and cultural consequences of this line, and understanding the origins of these borders will shed some light on the human experience behind them.

Food Deserts are most commonly described as just that – deserts, empty, void and lacking. The newer term, Food Swamp, implies there is too much of a bad thing. Food Deserts are a community defined by barriers restricting the opportunity for healthy food including a lack of access to food retailers, availability of nutritious foods, or affordability of foods. The dominant academic and public policy discourse has primarily aligned with the environmental rather than social justice movement, the consequences of which can be seen in a local, sustainable, fresh food movement that treats the symptoms of a broken food system by simply introducing more healthy food, failing to acknowledge its responsibility in addressing the root causes of hunger, poverty and racial oppression. The dominant, deficit-based view of food deserts misrepresents and silences the experiences of these communities, misshaping how they are made visible and understood. Approaches that use language focusing on the deficits of a community while ignoring the role that race has played in their current environment lead to blaming, “othering” and only serve to reinforce borders of power and race. Communities that have focused on their strengths, existing assets and are working with their racialized environment (as opposed to ignoring it) towards food justice have experienced higher rates of sustained community involvement. Through a comparative discourse analysis, I examine and report upon the consequences of deficit-based language focusing on problems and deficits and look into the importance of strength-based approaches towards more environmentally just policies.

How did the Indian English novel function within the Indian independence movement? Literature illuminates unique narratives not necessarily communicated by other forms of print media like newspapers and history books, and these stories exert a very different kind of influence. In the particular instance of Indian English novels around the time that India gained independence from Britain, literature established power through its inherent cultural capital, its role in imagining nations, and its critical abilities. These novels embodied traits of both the colonized and the colonizer, allowing them to occupy a position of notable political and cultural influence. Drawing on theories on literature and nationalism, this study employs close readings of novels by Rabindranath Tagore and Mulk Raj Anand within the context of historically evident politics and cultural phenomena of the time period to explain the role Indian English novels played in revolutionizing India. An understanding of the factors enabling the novel’s influence will illuminate how India’s independence was imagined and realized. Situating Indian English novels of the Indian independence movement in their historical and social context may yield further understanding to the way historical events played out and reveal more of literature’s effect on the societies in which it is produced.

According to recent estimates from the PEW Research Hispanic Center in 2006, more than half (6-7 million) of all the unauthorized migrants living in the United States entered the country clandestinely by evading customs and immigration inspectors at ports of entry by hiding in vehicles, trekking through Arizona desert, wading across the Rio Grande or otherwise eluding the Border Patrol. However, the Mexican border experience encompasses more than crossing a physical barrier in dangerous conditions. This experience begins from the time individuals decide to make the treacherous crossing to the time they settle in their US communities. While previous research has examined the border-crossing experience (Durand, J., Massey, D. S, 2004), few have offered a comprehensive understanding that considers the context of preparation, crossing and consequently the context of arrival. This research attempts to make such a contribution. In addition, this work considers the critical role that gender plays in households and social networks that shape distinct border-crossing and settlement experiences for Mexican men and women. By interviewing Mexican immigrants and engaging in literature review, interviews with members of one community in the lower Yakima Valley in Eastern Washington will provide an in-depth exploration of migration to the Pacific Northwest; helping us understand the cultural, social, and economic context for the harrowing journey and include their accounts in the broader research of area studies in Eastern Washington.