<p> This project argues that the National Park Service (NPS) functions as an agent of the state in perpetuating American imperialism throughout the Pacific World through presenting WWII narratives of sacrifice as worthy of inclusion into the nation. These narratives, I argue, reinforce American occupation in islands and regions that have contested relations to the nation. This project is informed by scholarship in rhetorical criticism of public memory and in American Studies analyses of the nation as an empire. Methodologically, I have combined fieldwork at each park site and official public interpretive materials, with historical archives related to the formation, design, and management of the parks to understand the relationship between past and present. Part I of this project examines War in the Pacific National Historical Park in the American territory of Guam and American Memorial Park in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. I focus my argument here on how NPS narratives of WWII cannot be separated from historical and contemporary American military interests in the Mariana Islands and the Pacific World. Part II approaches the three units of the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument in Hawai&rsquo;i, Alaska, and California, with each state&rsquo;s focus, development, and accessibility being appreciably different. I argue that all are concerned with the legacies of militarized land use and narratives of sacrifice for and belonging to the nation.</p>

<p> This research stems from my questioning regarding the lack of research of precolonial archaeological sites and their almost complete absence in the new industry of tourism. I chose my field site on the city of Granada because of the historical importance in the economy of the country, its foundation as the first establishment of Spanish colonizers, and its centrality today in Nicaraguan tourism. Babb (2004) argues that the introduction to tourism industry provides the opportunity to the Nicaraguan government to remake its image to the outside. This remaking of the country&rsquo;s image will affect how Nicaraguans view themselves. In that sense my main question is: what are the effects of tourism on the identity of granadinos? I argue that the Nicaraguan government takes an active position in presenting tourists with a modernized (not indigenous or black) Nicaraguan community by silencing their past and present, and presenting to tourists only the European heritage of the country; such narratives gives a partial representation of the Nicaraguan identity to foreign visitors; at the same time it projects and naturalizes Nicaraguan identity as &ldquo;mestizo.&rdquo; I conclude tourism narratives are reinforcing a mestizo identity through the colonial heritage. Young mestizos as well as indigenous people continue to admire and emulate foreigners&rsquo; accents, clothing, sports, hairdo, etcetera.. I believed that the reason for these changes were rooted in the introduction of tourism and new cultural expressions, however, from this research I concluded that is rooted in the effects of the colonial period on the identity of the population. For centuries the Spanish crown and later the national governments eroded the foundation of the indigenous identity, thus the origins of mestizo identity as well. Thereby creating an identity crisis among both ethnic groups and a deep tension on the subject of identity, furthering the racialization of indigenous and Afro-descendant communities. Mestizaje successfully silenced indigenous populations, and ignored the indigenous origin of mestizos. However, currently mestizos do participate in indigenous cultural expressions departing from the hegemonic concept of mestizo - as in complete opposition to indigenous identity -, although they deny or ignore and racialize indigenous people. I consider that the introduction of tourism has brought changes in the Nicaraguan population. The government narratives based on colonial identities create a new environment where colonial relationships are reproduced. In my opinion this is a negative impact of tourism, however, it may lead to new conversations about colonialist interactions, ethnic identity and racism that remain covert in the everyday lives of Nicaraguans. </p>

<p> This dissertation summarizes 22 months of field research beginning February 2015 and ending October 2016 among Nashville's undocumented Hispanic community. The goal of this project was to understand and identify the barriers this population encounters in utilizing the U.S. legal system using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Initial research consisted of formal, recorded individual and group interviews of 26 undocumented Hispanics and 15 key informants who work closely with Nashville's undocumented community. In addition, hundreds of other undocumented immigrants were observed and informally interviewed during this time. Once saturation was reached in the interviews, the qualitative prong of the research ended. All recorded interviews were transcribed and coded and various themes were identified. The qualitative data revealed eight common themes barring the undocumented community's utilization of the legal system. These were: 1) fear of deportation, 2) structural barriers, 3) cultural barriers, 4) real and perceived discrimination, 5) unawareness of legal rights, 6) unawareness of legal processes and structure, 7) lack of community empowerment, and 8) lack of specific legal self-efficacy. </p><p> To confirm the qualitative findings, a 69-item survey instrument was prepared and administered to a non-randomized sample of 350 undocumented Hispanic immigrants living in the Nashville area. The survey's quantitative data confirmed the existence of these eight barriers in varying degrees among the respondents. The survey data indicated the isolated effect of each identified barrier varied amongst individuals based on such factors as life experience, current political climate, and demographics. This research indicated that there is no lone barrier keeping the undocumented community from utilizing the U.S. legal system. Rather, it is the intersectionality of these barriers working in unison, which bars Nashville's undocumented community from utilizing the legal system.</p><p>

<p> This integrated literature review compiles past and present literature on the African Holocaust or Maafa to provide a more in-depth understanding of the unique sociopolitical narrative of the enslavement and oppression of Africans and African Americans for half a millennium in the United States. This study integrates historical data, theoretical literature, and clinical research to assess immediate and sequential impacts of the traumatization of the African Holocaust on enslaved and liberated Africans, African Americans, and their descendants. This investigation engages literature on trauma (Root, 1992), historical traumas (Duran, Duran, Brave Heart, &amp; Yellow Horse-Davis, 1998), historical unresolved grief (Brave Heart &amp; DeBruyn, 1998), and multigenerational trauma transmission (Danieli, 1998) to explore claims of slavery and relentless oppression leaving a psychological and behavioral legacy behind to the contemporary African American community (Abdullah, Kali, &amp; Sheppard, 1995; Akbar, 1996; Leary, 2001, 2005; Poussaint &amp; Alexander, 2000; B. L. Richardson &amp; Wade, 1999). By and large, this study provides a comprehensive exploration and critical examination of Leary&rsquo;s (2005) Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome theory (PTSS), which suggests that the traumatization of slavery and continued oppression (i.e., racism, discrimination, and marginalization) endured by enslaved Africans in the United States and their descendants over successive centuries has brought about a psychological and behavioral syndrome prevalent amongst 21st century African Americans. Findings from the critical analysis revealed that in addition to inheriting legacies of trauma from their enslaved and oppressed African ancestors, contemporary African Americans may have also inherited legacies of healing that have manifested as survival, strength, spirituality, perseverance, vitality, dynamism, and resiliency. Clinical implications from this research underscored the importance of not pathologizing present generations of African Americans for their attempts to cope with and adapt to perpetually oppressive environmental circumstances. Further quantitative and qualitative research that directly tests the applicability of PTSS within the African American community is needed to better grasp the representational generalizability of PTSS. Lastly, rather than focus on the repeated victimization of African Americans, the findings from this study suggest that future research should focus on the mental sickness of African Americans' oppressors in addition to identifying and delineating intergenerational legacies of survival, resilience, transcendence, and healing birthed out of the historical trauma of slavery.</p>

<p> This thesis is a study about Mapuche rural-urban, indigenous migration in Chile and how Mapuche have experienced their individual and familial migratory processes. Previous studies on Mapuche migration have taken a macro approach to examine this phenomenon and have concentrated on the experiences of migrants after their migration has taken place. This thesis, adding a new perspective to the current body of knowledge, studies the migration of Mapuche beginning with the inception of the process and continues through to trace their settlement in Santiago. With this, the study analyzes the character of Mapuche migration, examining the reasons and expectations behind this migration as well as how this process has been initiated and sustained through time. In addition to this, the study focuses on the social and cultural consequences that stem from Mapuche migrating and settling in Santiago, and pays special attention to the role that kin networks have in this process. This thesis, then, analyzes the particular characteristics of Mapuche rural-urban migration and considers the significance of individual agency in constructing different migratory paths by examining individual migration stories. In this thesis, I also examine the different mechanisms that Mapuche in Santiago have put in place to grapple with the social and cultural challenges behind their migration to and settlement in the city.</p>

This study explored the educational journeys of 17 academically achieving, low income and first generation college attending Latinas at three different selective institutions. While many studies have been dedicated to the reasons for the low graduation rates of Hispanics, this strength-based study focused on resiliency and on the relationships and strategies Latinas used to achieve success in the most unlikely of environments. The interviews considered: the ways in which Latina students persist and whether their pathways were consistent with Tinto’s traditional model of persistence; how students developed the scholastic capital required for persistence; and the ways in which culture and campus affected their persistence. The central themes fell into two broad categories: family and capital. Cultural context was found to be an essential component for academic success for these students, and family involvement was central to this context. Families wanted their daughters to become not just well-educated, but bien educadas, a term that includes formal education as well as cultural norms, values, and protocols. The study also revealed that the educational pathways of these women had been made possible thanks to teachers, friends or programs that helped expand the family’s social capital. However, the expansion of a student’s capital and her growing development of scholastic capital were experienced as hollow unless she was able to integrate these experiences into her cultural world in a meaningful way. Family, teachers, mentors, and micro communities all played an essential role in the integration of this capital and in helping students develop bi-cultural identities. Finally, the findings suggested that there may be some advantages for Latina students who attend a women’s college or are at least a strong women’s studies program. Because the Hispanic culture tends to be male dominated and perhaps because in the U.S. Hispanic populations tend toward higher rates of domestic violence, sexual assault, teen pregnancy, etc. all associated with poverty and lack of education, the students in this study gravitated toward education about women’s issues, women’s health, birth control, and women’s rights. The findings from this study offer guidance for ways institutions of higher education might betters support Hispanic persistence.

Cultural geographers have explored how the power to control definitions of place and dominant modes of their representation has naturalized the manipulation of environments and people. I am concerned not only with the impact of dominant ideologies, but with the interconnections of competing definitions of the West along ideological, material, and aesthetic lines. I discuss the ways in which American Indians, Asians, and Mormons experienced, shaped, and represented the American West to illustrate the various responses to it and the alternative plans for its development that are omitted from traditional discussions of the American West. I argue that the dominant ideas that shaped the environment of the West intertwined with ideas about race and that their intersection can be traced back to Thomas Jefferson's notions of American democracy. By focusing on a specific locale, the state of Idaho, and critically analyzing the policies of federal agencies informing its development and the legislation affecting Idaho's racial/ethnic minorities, I detail how the vision of an agrarian and all-white West became the controlling blueprint for its development. I focus on the period from 1805 to 2000 and use a comparative and cross-cultural framework that focuses particularly on Japanese Americans, but also includes Chinese, American Indians, and Mormons. My own travels through Idaho function as a framework by which my “reading” of the contemporary landscape reveals this historical connection between race and place in the American West.

<p> This grounded theory study explored the competing cultural expectations and cultural approaches by women from Latin American and Spanish-speaking Caribbean countries living in the United States. The study explored the following questions: In what ways do women from Latin America living in the United States establish priorities among potentially conflicting cultural expectations or roles? What internal conflicts result out of living between two cultures? What does the process for making sense of cultural expectations look like? How do Latin American women living in the United States make sense of this process? Using a constructivist grounded methodology, the research reflects the insights of 20 female participants from various Latin American and Spanish-speaking Caribbean countries. The data analysis resulted in five major findings, illuminating a framework for understanding the process for making sense of conflicting cultural norms, expectations, and cultural approaches. This is presented in four stages, (1) confronting the new norm/expectation, (2) recognition/acknowledgment of the conflicting cultural value/norm/expectation, (3) adapting to the new context/situation and (4) managing from a cultural standpoint. The main decision-making process related to cultural expectations was tied to: (a) what it meant to be a woman from their native country in the United States and (b) what this means when they return to their country of origin. Concluding with &ldquo;creating a new norm/dynamic,&rdquo; this becomes the &ldquo;balancing act&rdquo; or &ldquo;the dance between cultures.&rdquo;</p><p>

It is Jack London's attitude toward race which critics and scholars now find most embarrassing. Yet they offer no explanation of how this "regrettable flaw" arose in such an otherwise admirable socialist as London. My research shows that London's ideas and attitudes on race in general, i.e. racial evolution, social Darwinism, Aryanism, and eugenics, and on the superiority of the English-speaking branch of the Teutonic "race" in particular, as expressed in his fiction and essays, mirror those held by the majority of well-educated and prominent Americans prior to World War II. Chapter 1, "The Racial Education of Jack London," traces the emergence of London's racial consciousness from earliest childhood experience to the reason for his resignation from the Socialist Labor Party in 1916. Chapter 2, "Nineteenth Century Racial Theory," locates the major sources of London's belief in racial inequality in some of the most eminent race theorists of the period including Darwin, Galton, Huxley, Pearson, Spencer, Kidd, Haeckel, Weismann and others. Chapter 3, "Sexual Selection," shows how London's Yukon stories exemplify the "scientific" point of view by portraying human sexual behavior in terms of animal-like impulses which were thought to have evolved through the process of sexual selection. Chapter 4, "The Call of Kind," examines London's concept of gender, the "New Womanhood," and his faith in the "passion for perpetuation" (rightly guided) to improve mankind. Chapter 5, "Conclusion": London's stories dramatize the evolutionary superiority of the white man over all other peoples at a time when America needed to justify and explain her imperialist expansion abroad.

<p> Asian Americans are generally considered an educationally and economically successful minority in the United States, a perception known as the model minority myth. These images can negatively impact Asian Americans, especially in higher education, by neglecting their challenges and limiting the research conducted related to their struggles and obstacles in higher education. Since most studies involving Asian Americans focus on their enrollment in elite universities, there is not much recognition of Asian Americans in community colleges. This study focuses on one specific subgroup of Asians, Korean Americans. Although this group is more likely to attend highly selective colleges regardless of socioeconomic status, I focus on the Korean American students who attend community colleges. </p><p> This study aimed to explore the perceptions and experiences of Korean American students attending community colleges and how their perceptions and experiences influence the construction of their possible selves. More specifically, this study examined the opportunities and obstacles they experienced in community college and how these experiences intersected with model minority myths. This study also focused on the possible selves Korean American students might construct while attending community college. Possible selves are &ldquo;representations of the self in the past and they include representations of the self in the future&rdquo; (Markus &amp; Nurius, 1986, p. 954) and various self-conceptions that include &ldquo;the good selves, the bad selves, the hoped-for selves, the feared selves, the not-me selves, the ideal selves, and the ought-selves&rdquo; (Markus &amp; Nurius, 1986, p. 957). For this study, 29 Korean American community college students were recruited and semi-structured interviews were conducted regarding their high school experiences, community college experiences, and future goals and plans. Through data analysis inspired by a grounded theory approach, 40 codes were developed and three major themes emerged related to the experiences of Korean American students at community college. </p><p> The findings showed that before Korean American students attended community colleges, they negatively perceived community colleges as a place for those who did not get into four-year colleges or did not do well in high school, a perception strongly influenced by others such as parents, peers, or members of Korean communities. However, once they attended, many of them had positive experiences through the various academic and career services offered and interactions with faculty and peers. These positive experiences changed Korean American students&rsquo; negative views of community colleges. Although positive experiences changed their negative perceptions of community colleges, they consistently encountered negative perceptions from others which conflicted with their positive experiences. Korean American students also constructed various possible selves based on their academic and career goals. Most constructed positive possible selves if they had more specific academic and career goals and as well as the confidence to achieve them. These students thought community colleges helped develop their future goals but were ultimately ambivalent about their attendance at community college. Some believed community college was a foundation or stepping stone for achieving their goals while others thought attending community college would negatively influence their future. </p><p> This study is important because it explores an issue to which little scholarly attention has been paid and which has not been thoroughly investigated. Theoretically this study can contribute to the literature on possible selves and Asian Americans in higher education, give a deeper understanding of a particular group in relation to model minority stereotypes, and provide a guide for how to examine multifaceted elements which can influence the understanding of how community college students develop possible selves. This study also has practical benefits: it can promote how to better support Korean American students in order to help them succeed in achieving their goals in higher education.</p><p>