The following thesis argues that in order to reach underrepresented communities, preservation efforts must be engaged at the local level. A way to begin to do this is to utilize analytical methods that find value in the ordinary and affirm the dynamic and referential character of buildings and the values we ascribe to them. Applying these methods to increasingly challenging preservation projects can help shape a broader yet more acute representation of our shared heritage. The thesis begins with a review of the American Latino Heritage Initiative within the framework of the Westside neighborhood of San Antonio, Texas. Intended as a large-scale effort to bring attention to the role of “Latinos” in the U.S., the initiative is evaluated for its efficacy at the local level. The interface of national goals and local needs, general characterizations and specific qualities, and standardized processes with particular circumstances brings forth the challenges of preserving places, which the current preservation system was not designed to protect. Mexican and Mexican American communities established an important cultural and physical center in San Antonio at the beginning of the 20th century. While some of the physical remnants of this rich history have been lost, others endure in the people and buildings that inhabit the Westside. Valuable local preservation initiatives have helped record their stories and highlight their significance. Nevertheless, formal preservation organizations have, until recently, failed to recognize the significance of the Mexican American heritage of the Westside. In recent years, the San Antonio Office of Historic Preservation and local groups have collaborated to begin to designate landmarks in the Westside. This thesis examines five of these buildings with the intent of identifying what makes them stand out as important landmarks in the community. Analytical mapping considers the spatial relationships between the buildings and their surrounding areas, and temporal mapping examines the change in use of each case study. A typology of values is generated from this analysis categorizing the distinguishing characteristics of the buildings. Together these exploratory methods start to define a language that goes beyond historical and aesthetic significance to recognize social, cultural and use values.

<p>This dissertation explores motivation in Japanese American learners of their heritage language. This area of study is significant because existing research primarily looks at heritage language learners as “balanced bilinguals” and limits their learning purpose to professional motivations. Also, research on “passive” or “receptive” bilinguals and the impact of history and ethnicity on motivation builds new knowledge in the field from which other scholars can construct their own studies. Through my interview-based case studies and autoethnography, I found that historical, social, and ethnic identity factors contribute considerably to the motivation to maintain or reject the heritage language. My findings reveal that the traumatic events of WWII such as the forced incarceration of over 110,000 people of Japanese descent led to the loss of the heritage language and a denial of the heritage culture. I also discovered that third generation Japanese Americans are motivated to learn Japanese for professional reasons whereas fourth generation Japanese Americans study Japanese to gain a stronger sense of ethnic identity.</p><p><br></p>

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A healthy civil society depends on citizens who have mature critical thinking skills and a willingness to entertain opposing points of view. The development of critical thinking in young adults has long been studied, but there has been little agreement on what the attributes of critical thinking are and how to reliably assess them. While many studies have attempted to assess the critical thinking abilities of college students, none have yet measured critical thinking through using the Critical Thinking Analytic Rubric (CTAR) to assess first-year college students' writing. This study used a modified version of the CTAR rubric to investigate students' critical thinking in writing completed for an American Heritage course. Four hypotheses were tested: (1) that raters would use the rubric with high inter-rater reliability estimates; (2) that there would be a significant relationship between the scores from the earlier holistic rubric used in the 2015 Hansen et al. study and the scores from the analytic rubric used in this study; (3) that there would be a significant relationship between analytic scores and ACT and GPA scores; (4) that there would be a significant relationship between essay score and gender. Findings included the following: (1) The inter-rater reliability for the overall scores of the papers was 0.898, which exceeds the 0.70 acceptable level. However, the inter-rater reliability for sub-scores was negative and required further investigation. (2) There was no significant relationship between the scores of the Hansen et al. study and this study. (3) There was no significant relationship between essay scores and ACT and GPA scores. (4) There was a significant relationship between essay scores and gender, with female students scoring higher than male students.