This thesis analyzes at how Latinx Hip Hop artists from Chicago act as organic intellectuals within their community and how they use their platform as artists to challenge the narratives created by government officials that aim to criminalize their community in an effort to normalize and justify the policing of their neighborhoods.

This thesis does not adhere to “traditional” academic criteria which I feel tends to be rigid, constrained ways of regurgitating knowledge. It is not easily digestible, nor is it something that offers concrete answers. Rather it is a critical understanding of many of my experiences in the last four years of education, with a specific focus on the most recent events that have unfolded in my personal and academic life. This thesis is a journey. It is by witnessing communities in New York City, Bolivia, Tlaxcala, Mexico City, Chiapas and Southern California that continue to struggle and hope in the face of neoliberal, power-hungry nation-states, that propels me forward and brings me hope and a renewed sense of consciousness as to where I want to go.

This film thesis has become a staple in the documentation of the Chicano movement. Chicano Moratorium documents the Social Justice March on August 29,1970 in East Los Angeles. This peaceful anti-war demonstration turned into a police riot. Thomas Myrdahl, creator, and his associate, Nick Sherbin, from USC, filmed the event. The film was used by Chicano Leaders who screened the film for various congressmen in Washington DC as part of their case for legislative reform. Over the years, the film has become iconic. The Social Justice March has become an important event that bound the Chicano Community in demanding social change. This film and metadata were donated by Thomas Myrdahl.

Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari’s overhaul of the national education system in the early 1990’s offers an example of how neoliberal governments have reworked education systems and curriculum to fit neoliberal economic models. Part of the goal of this overhaul was to reconstruct a national identity that would support the development of neoliberalism in Mexico, where the post-Revolutionary national values ran contrary to those of neoliberal capitalism. This thesis explores the reconstruction of national identity through the use of educational policy in Mexico to rewrite historical narratives to promote the government’s neoliberal agenda. It examines the changes implemented in educational policies to understand the fundamental shift in the government’s approach to education and in the neoliberal agenda directing that approach. Next, it analyzes the historical narratives presented in one state-sponsored primary history textbook to investigate how the historical narrative is revised. The findings suggest that the new educational policies apply a neoliberal framework to the public education system, and that reframed historical narratives are designed to highlight capitalist values, such as individualism, Western notions of modernity, and the maintenance of social order, while downplaying and criticizing revolutionary nationalism.

Through the analysis of Judy Baca's mural, The Great Wall of Los Angeles, Baca's reevaluates muralism to create her revisionist take on the Mexican tradition of muralism. The piece combines different cultural and historical perspectives that convey the diversity of California, and bring people together through shared experiences. In addition to portraying the histories of minority races, ethnicities, religions and sexuality, the piece was created by a diverse team of community members who each contributed their own viewpoints to the piece. Unlike the traditional practice of muralism, Baca works with community members to create a mural that includes a varied sense of identity so as to facilitate social change and foster community.

The 1960s and 1970s represent a pivotal period in US history and there is a growing body of critical research into how the massive changes of the era (re)shaped institutions and individuals. This dissertation furthers that research by focusing its attention on the creation of the Chicano Indian American Student Union (CIASU) at The University of Iowa in 1971 from an Interdisciplinary perspective. CIASU as the subject of study offers a site that is rich in context and content; this dissertation examines the ways in which a small group of minority students was able to create an ethnically defined cultural center in the Midwest where none had existed prior and does this by looking at the intersection of ethnic identity and student activism. Covering the years 1968-1972, this work provides a "before" and "after" snapshot of life for Chicano/a and American Indian students at Iowa and does so utilizing only historical documents as a way of better understanding how much more research needs to be done. I explore the way in which various social movements such as the Anti-War Movement, the Chicano Movement, the American Indian Movement, the Women's Movement and the cause of the United Farm Workers influenced founding members Nancy V. "Rusty" Barceló, Ruth Pushetonequa and Antonio Zavala within their Midwestern situatedness as ethnic beings. My dissertation draws from and builds upon the work of Gloria Anzaldua in Borderlands/La Frontera by interrogating the ways in which CIASU and its "House" acted as a self-defined "borderlands" for the Chicano/a and American Indian students. I examine the ways in which the idea of "borderlands" is not limited to any one geographical area but is one defined by context and necessity. Also interrogated is how performativity of ethnic identity worked as both cultural comfort and challenge to the students themselves as well as to the larger University community through the use of dress and language, especially "Spanglish". This dissertation examines the activism of CIASU within the University context and out in the Chicano/a and American Indian communities as liberatory practice and working to affect change. Specifically, presenting alternatives for minority communities through actions such as Pre-School classes and performances of El Teatro Zapata and Los Bailadores Zapatista and recruitment of Chicano/a and American Indian high school students. On campus, activism through publication is examined; El Laberinto as the in-house newsletter provides insight into the day-to-day concerns of the students and Nahuatzen, a literary magazine with a wider audience that focused on the larger political questions of the day, taking a broader view of the challenges of ethnic identity as a way to educate and inform. This dissertation views CIASU as a "bridge"; the students worked to create alliances between themselves and the larger University population as well as Chicano/a and American Indian communities. With the recent fortieth anniversary of CIASU it is evident the founding members' wish "to preserve our heritage and our identity" (Daily Iowan, November, 1970) continues and the organization they founded, now known as the Latino Native American Cultural Center, still serves the needs of Latino and American Indian students at Iowa.

This paper is an exploration of the meaning of mixed racial identity and the representation of such experience by multiracial artists. By analyzing the art of Amalia Mesa Bains, Richard Alexander Lou, and Samantha Wall, I examine how such self identified artists address the concept of the mixed race and in-between experience noting whether they take a celebratory approach or more resistive approach. I then expand on why I chose this topic and why I used specific methods to create and depict my own personal multiracial experience.

This dissertation is a comparative study of the formal institutionalization of Chicana/o Studies programs in four-year colleges and universities between 1970 and the present, and of how variations in institutionalization create different community engagement dynamics for Latina/o populations both on- and off-campus. This research examines the impact of program and university-level characteristics on the formal institutionalization of these programs and the embedding of community engagement within program mission statements. Moreover, the dissertation examines tensions, balancing acts, and trade-offs between achieving program stability and satisfying legitimizing demands of academic labor. Program-level characteristics include formal classification as either a Chicana/o Studies program or cognate (e.g., Mexican American Studies, Hispanic Studies, Latin American Studies, etc.) or a more generalist ethnic studies program (e.g., ethnic studies, cultural studies, American Studies, etc.). University-level characteristics include locus of control (i.e., public or private universities), institutional wealth, total student body and minority enrollments, histories of campus protest, and regional diffusion. The findings indicate complex and distinguishable relationships among program classification, formal program institutionalization, and community engagement prospects; and that predictors for institutionalization partially predict efforts to work with minority populations off-campus. Complicating these relationships suggests a need to consider variations in program-level institutionalization and dedicate future work to this level.

Purpose. The purpose of this study was to identify the causes that result in Hispanic youth dropping out of high school prematurely. Procedures. A questionnaire was mailed to 150 California high school principals. In addition, 32 Hispanic students who dropped out during the 1984-85 school year were interviewed. Findings. High school principals identified low achievement, employment, lack of parental support and truancy as the major causes for Hispanic students dropping out of school. Students on the other hand, identified only truancy as the most influential cause for leaving high school during the 1984-85 school year. Significant differences among principals' perceptions of causes were noted by principals in an urban setting. They placed more importance on employment, peer pressure, poor reading skills, poor math skills and truancy than did principals in a suburban and rural setting. Additionally, principals with increasing Hispanic student enrollment differed from principals with declining Hispanic student enrollment by placing more importance on employment, low teacher expectation, poor reading skills and truancy. Identified causes relating to school completion or non-completion provide implications for programs which address the needs of potential dropouts. These programs should furnish intensive academic remediation, small class size with varied course offerings, and academic incentives. Additionally, flexible scheduled school-based programs which promote student ties to potential employers and provide Hispanic students equal opportunity are suggested. Finally, truancy should be addressed prior to students reaching high school. School districts concerned with the dropout problem should develop better methods in the identification of dropouts and study current employment programs and the extent to which they meet Hispanic student needs. Recommendations. (1) Replication of this study should be made to determine the differences between factors that cause male and female students to drop out of school. (2) A study focusing on specific truancy factors, including causes, local practices, and truancy intervention programs is highly recommended. (3) A study related to the effectiveness of utilizing truance coordinators is highly recommended. (4) A study focusing on the correlation between English proficiency and student dropout rates is highly recommended.

This thesis takes a feminist and spatial approach to the analysis of ire'ne lara silva's collection of short stories flesh to bone, a continuation of the Anzaldúan body of thought. The thesis introduces two aspects–spiritual and spatial–to the wounds suffered by the Chicana collective Self which can be found within the characters and plotlines of lara silva's stories, and which had previously been outlined by Anzaldúa herself. This thesis also explains in depth the steps necessary to achieving the never-ending Coyolxauhqui Imperative, which is Anzaldúa's idea that to heal the collective Self, individuals must continue to create and tell the stories of our ancestors and ourselves as survivors instead of victims. Throughout this analysis, it is elucidated that lara silva has created herself a new theory to add to the Anzaldúan framework, called Tomiccama Tomiccanacayo, which translates from Nahuatl to mean: "We are protected by the hands and bodies of our ancestors". Thus, this thesis finds that, within flesh to bone, this new theory is asserted as a method of continuous healing and as an addendum to Anzaldúa's Coyolxauhqui Imperative. This study adds lara silva into the Anzaldúan academe and explains her words' significance to Chicana spatiality. My argument for the existence of lara silva's theory is important because of a continued necessity for collective female healing and the creation of art reaffirming the female Self to new generations of daughters becoming women.