In 1968 the Los Angeles community witnessed the up rise of thousands of Chicano students when they walked out of their high school on an early morning in March. The purpose of this study was to further understand the 1968 student walkouts as presented by student participants. The study was carried out as a phenomenological study and used a Critical Race Theory (CRT) framework to interpret the students' interpretation of the Walkouts.

Over the course of a modern lifetime, television viewing accounts for a significant amount of information taken in by viewers. Within that consumption lies a potential problem. Viewers may learn erroneous messages about people and the world. Since television has characterized Latinos in ways that have emphasized cultural stereotypes, viewers may learn to perceive them in a corresponding manner. A questionnaire was administered to a sample of 403 students from five universities and two community colleges located in Northern California. The respondents completed a seventy-one item questionnaire. Five key variables were utilized to measure relationships between them. The key variables included: learning about Latinos from television, positive perceptions of Latinos, negative Latino stereotypes, willingness to communicate with Latinos, and self-esteem. Frequency, correlation, and regression analyses indicated that there was significant interplay between the key variables. The results revealed an association between learning about Latinos from television and negative Latino stereotypes. Similarly, lower willingness to communicate with Latinos was associated with negative Latino stereotypes. However, higher willingness to communicate with Latinos was associated with positive perceptions of Latinos. Likewise, willingness to communicate with Latinos was positively associated with self-esteem. A multiple regression analysis indicated that learning about Latinos from television and lower willingness to communicate with Latinos were predictors of negative Latino stereotypes. Conversely, a second regression analysis indicated that higher willingness to communicate with Latinos and positive interaction with Latinos were predictors of positive perceptions of Latinos.

This thesis explores the role of translation in the production and manipulation of identities in the contemporary Americas as exemplified in the work of Guillermo Gómez-Peña. Underscoring the instrumentality of borders vis-à-vis dominant constructions of identity and in connection with questions of language, race, and citizenship, I argue that translation not only functions as an agent of hegemonic superiority and oppression, but also as a locus of plurivocity and hybridization. Drawing from the concepts “continuous variation” (Deleuze and Guattari [1987] 2004), “coloniality of power” (Mignolo 2000), and “hybridization” (García-Canclini 1995), I discuss the connection of translation with three main topics: monolingualism, globalization, and racial hybridity. First, I discuss the influence that the dominant ideology of the nation-state has exerted on the way translation has been conceptualized since translation studies emerged as a field. Then I turn to colonial legacies in the Americas and the role of translation in situations of language hegemony as shaped by forces of assimilation and diversification. Finally, I look at translation as a crucial agent for the production and legitimization of Latin American identity throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Viewing translation as a performative and transformative activity, I critique a number of contemporary approaches to translation and I point to new understandings of translation as a cluster concept (Tymoczko 2007) in order to expand translation theory and practice beyond Western paradigms.

Katherine Anne Porter regards Mexico as her "familiar country." lndeed, Mexico in the art of this gifted American writer is more important than generally believed for, as William Nance says, "Mexico entered into her earliest work as both motivating force and subject matter." Miss Porter has traveled extensively in Mexico and lived there on several occasions. Her highly developed artistic sensibility has allowed her to gain more than a mere familiarity with the country, its inhabitants, and its history. Naturally, her deep knowledge of the culture is reflected in her artistic production, part of which is devoted exclusively to Mexico. This thesis presents a brief study of Miss Porter's fiction which deals with that country: it attempts to demonstrate a change in the author's perspective of it, evinced in those stories that have Mexico as a setting: namely, it shows how Miss Porter starts out deeply involved with the culture in the stories of ''Maria Concepcion", "The Martyr", and "Virgin Violeta", and how, slowly, the theme of alienation evolves in the stories "Flowering Judas',' "That Tree", and "Hacienda", interpreted as Miss Porter's disillusionment with the failure of the Mexican Revolution. This study intends to contribute to the field of Inter-American Studies in the sense that it deals directly with inter-cultural relations within the North American continent and with the understanding between cultures, seen through the eyes of a most accomplished writer. If there is a person who could be called truly inter-American, Miss Porter would be the perfect model, because she embodies the ideals of understanding between the different cultures of the North American continent.

Wandering Sagebrush is a collection of eight unified short stories. The main themes of the thesis include: the struggle of identity and how one finds the people and places to call family and home. The stories focus on family we make, family we lose, family we choose, and the decisions one makes in the name of family.

This thesis aims to unpack the impact the legalization of street vending and the subsequent regulation had on sidewalk vendors. Although legalization occurred state-wide through Senate Bill 946 in September of 2017, the rules and regulations for vending were passed at a city-level, and I am focusing on the City of Los Angeles specifically. Through interviews with government officials, non-profit partners and advocates, and vendors from different parts of the City, I analyze information around the policy itself, its history, and the impact it has and is expected to have on vendors and their businesses. While vendors have been central to advocacy and the policy process, the creation of a permitting system in the City of Los Angeles has been less transparent. By interviewing stakeholders, relying on existing economic, political, and sociological literature, and gathering opinions from vendors themselves, I develop various policy recommendations to further empower vendors and integrate them into Los Angeles’ formal economy. I recommend a permitting model that is backward-mapped and stems from the needs of and feedback from vendors in order for it to be more aligned with the goals and needs of vendors themselves.

The purpose of this study was to explore the daily life of the younger generation of Mexican Americans through a phenomenology design. Specifically, in regard to how the culture-sharing pattern of biculturalism is reflected in their lives and the way they construct their bicultural identity. The study utilized rich qualitative data to paint a clear and descriptive picture of the internal process of biculturalism within eight Mexican American college students. Ultimately, the data analysis aimed to collect and reflect their voices and the stories. This was done through three distinct data methods that complemented each other: interviews (oral), photo elicitation (visual), and document analysis (written). Results indicate that, the way bicultural individuals organize and respond to their culture in terms of behavior and cognition, is independent from the feelings they experience while engaging in cultural frame switching. No matter how well the participants are able to organize their dual cultures and compartmentalize them in their life, they still struggle with conflicting and opposing feelings. Nonetheless, even though their cultures and ideologies can clash at times and feel contradictory, this young generation can still manage to respond and function in both cultures, but to varying degrees.

This thesis uses in-depth analysis of historical Los Angeles Times articles to trace the changing representations of the Latino community in the media. Focusing on themes of patriotism and citizenship, this thesis draws out the subtleties of syntax and semantics that silently influence public opinion. The Zoot Suit Riots and the Chicano Moratorium serve as the main historical backdrop, leading to a concluding exploration of Donald Trump’s campaign rhetoric surrounding immigration and the Latino community.

My study aims to reveal how ideologies, the way we perceive our world, what we believe, and our value judgments inextricably linked to a dominant discourse, have real and material consequences. In addition to explicating how these ideologies stem from a Western philosophical tradition, this thesis examines this thought-system alongside selections from Sandra Cisneros’ Woman Hollering Creek and Caramelo or Puro Cuento. My project reveals how Cisneros’ spatial narratives challenge ideologies concerning the border separating the United States and Mexico, which proves significant as the project of decolonization and understanding of identity formation is fundamentally tied to these geographical spaces. Through the main chapters in this thesis, it is proposed that Cisneros’ storytelling does not attempt to counter fixed ideas of spaces and identity or an alleged objective Truth and single History by presenting a true or better version, but offers alternative narratives as a form of resistance to dominant discourse.

In this thesis the author explores the notion that American Chicana/o literature serves as an interactive pedagogical site that nurtures a blend of academic and street discourse, proposing the writing of those who exist on the "downside" of the border of non-standard English and academic discourse-basic writers be acknowledged.