The past 40 years has seen extraordinary growth amongst the Latino population in Washington State. Our study asks why the population of Latinos is increasing and what is driving the migration of Latinos to Washington State. After analyzing data from the U.S. Census from 1970-2010, we revealed that in the last decade the Latino population has risen in some Washington counties as much as 300%. Although the information from these government sources account for the general Latino population, the Latinos who are undocumented in the United States are more difficult to track. In lieu of these numbers we were able to access non-traditional data through a Seattle-based Latino organization that works with this specific population and confirmed the continued growth. Furthermore, the overall increase in the Latino population has seen the most dramatic rise in three Western Washington counties: King, Pierce, and Snohomish. Other data sources such as the Washington State Department of Financial Management and the U.S. Bureau of Economics revealed that since the 1970’s, industries such as construction and hospitality services in King County, port labor in Pierce County, and farming in Snohomish County were attracting this population. In addition to labor opportunities, we believe that the increase of Latinos in these counties can be attributed to the absence of restrictive immigration legislation such as laws set in place in states like Alabama and Arizona. Moreover, Washington’s liberal social tendencies and geographic location deflects much of the anti-immigrant sentiment that makes news headlines in states along the U.S. – Mexico border. According to a Pew Research study, by 2020 Latinos in the United States will account for approximately 19% of the population – a number that is likely to increase in Washington State and continually change the population, economic, and social landscapes.

In many ways, our contemporary understanding of the Modern Civil Rights Movement, and its associated successes and failures, has been severely limited through socio-historical and political machinations to collapse and periodize it. Rather than situating it within or connecting it to the broader historical continuum and highlighting the rich multiplicity of forms of struggle and survival, the simplistic narratives we receive through media (and other forms of cultural production) are ones of heroes and villains—of near-infallible visionaries and separatist and corrupt radicals, one that highlights the contributions of the few at the expense of the many. Two such groups whose historical agency and significance suffer from such undertakings are the Black Panther and the Young Lords Parties. It can be said that both groups have suffered not from a crisis of denotation, but one of connotation—referring specifically to the ways in which their collective contributions have been socially diminished as they are instead associated with fear, needless violence, corruption, militancy and relegated to the margins. Thus my research asks: how did these groups function as powerful symbols of transformation during Modern Civil Rights Movement? To what end? How and why were individuals within these groups and even the organizations themselves framed as threats to the social order and how would their objectification exacerbate their struggles for equality? I seek to uncover through a careful examination of foundational documents, news articles and other print media, interviews, and film, how socially produced marginalization enabled a multiplicity of violence against them (and their associated communities) and also illuminate some of the associated contemporary consequences.

Barack Obama's historic election to the United States presidency in 2008 focused national attention on the first Black president and his family as living and unequivocal proof of the triumph of equal opportunity and the end of centuries of racial strife. The visible role of elite women like Michelle Obama and Oprah Winfrey has often been explored, while less well understood is the role of everyday portrayals of Black women as they normalize colorblind paradigms of post-racialism and “neoliberal multiculturalism" (Goldberg 2009, 23). This paper analyzes three media texts, all released in 2008 - Neil LaBute's Lakeview Terrace, Tyler Perry’s The Family That Preys, and Beyoncé’s “If I Were A Boy” music video - focusing on representations of Black women as sexualized objects involved in interracial relationships with white men. The paper reveals that these ways of seeing serve the privileged white male gaze while falsifying racist and sexist realities. Offering key insights into the "post racial gaze," the paper exposes how Black women are being positioned to normalize pleasurable post-racial fantasies and to facilitate discursive shifts toward neoliberal multiculturalism.