Nigerian immigrant women undergo constant navigation of their personal identities when conflicting cultural dynamics sometimes engender a balancing act between their personal beliefs and the ongoing process of acculturation. Their new Southern environment offers its own traditional mores, as well as greater opportunities for economic advancement. This places Nigerian Immigrant Women in a position where they must reconcile their desires for personal independence and empowerment with societal expectations that emphasize more traditional gender roles. This study explores the interview narratives of Nigerian immigrant women, reinforced by fictional accounts from prolific African women writers, which provides a more nuanced discussion of the female experience within the Western Nigerian diaspora. Highlighted within this study are the ways in which these women navigate and reconcile their indigenous norms, religious beliefs, and gendered expectations with the different cultural understandings of the host diasporic spaces.

Female survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) in Nigeria endure harsh and traumatic experiences that affect their rights as women and their well-being. As the phenomenon of IPV persists in Nigeria, it is not only a family problem but a critical social and psychological problem. This study examined Nigerian female survivors’ hidden strength, agency, and resilience, rather than their powerlessness and vulnerability. Analysis of survey questionnaires, interviews, and secondary scholarship reveals that some Nigerian female survivors of IPV are able to cope whilst navigating stressful and traumatic experiences. The results also show that survivors’ ability to thrive and cope under stress not only results from individual traits and use of agency, but also from external support. This study infers sociocultural change and female empowerment. The results propose a need for interventions and further research on the development of the concept of resilience in female Nigerian survivors of IPV.

No description available.

This Master Thesis aims to discuss the language mix-up in the Philippines. Originally, the people speak different dialects because of the lack of interaction due to geographical isolation. The Spaniards brought Spanish to them, which became the official language of the government until the Americans came and made English the medium of instruction in the school. The trouble lies in the fact that English-speaking-and-loving Filipinos want English only, Spanish-speaking-and-loving Filipinos want Spanish only, Tagalog-speaking-and-loving Filipinos want Tagalog only while non-Tagalog-speaking Filipinos are either indifferent or prefer their respective dialects. This is the uncomfortable mess created by the principles of democracy and should be solved through democracy also by Filipino citizens who can sacrifice regional interest and personal preference for the sake of national unity and honor. The three languages can co-exist harmoniously together in the Philippines if the people can be tolerant, just as the various dialects too can live as long as they are needed and used.

The Chinese community in Malaya, Singapore, and British Borneo, as in all of Southeast Asia, is in the early stages of a radical change. This ethnic group, which already holds virtual control of the economy of these three regions, is now finding it necessary to also reach out for political representation, or even political control, in order to preserve its place in local society. Such participation in local affairs constitutes a great change for a group which has always maintained an orientation toward China, socially and politically, wherever its individuals might happen to live. The process of change is bound to be a painful one, as any break away from jealously held traditional values must be. There is, however, no real alternative; the choice must be between this change and an even more radically changed China. ... Malaya, Singapore, and British Borneo were chosen as the locale of this study for two main reasons. First, the similarities of the three are marked. They have made· up the major British colonial area of Southeast Asia, and the original population of the region was basically Malay. Second, the concentration of Chinese. population there is greater than in any other area outside China. Malaya with nearly half its population Chinese; Singapore, with a population which is four-fifths Chinese; and British Borneo, with almost one third of its people Chinese, are certainly in the position of having their future decided by the direction taken in the development of their Chinese community. The importance of the Chinese is enhanced by their relatively better educational and economic standing. Thus, it can be seen that a knowledge of the Chinese community in Malaya, Singapore and British Borneo, is extremely important in developing an understanding of the probably future development of these countries. Moreover, such knowledge is even more important in gaining foresight of the future of the Chinese in all of Southeast Asia.

The web of Mexican-American life is complex in its origins, its manifestations, and its degree of identification with or alienation from the dominant culture. A thesis of the length of this one can deal with all this complexity only in a superficial way. However, by a rather narrowly defined examination of a few children certain insights may be gained which could be used as a basis for generalization about other children of similar background, and perhaps even for some tentative generalizations about the problems of the Mexican-American community as a whole. With this purpose in mind -- to inquire intensively concerning the lives of a very few people for whatever insights may accure -- this study has been undertaken. It should be added that the present paper represents an ongoing study, and should be viewed as part of a larger whole. The conclusions drawn from it are offered at this stage for their suggestiveness rather than as an attempted "system" or explanation of Mexican-American life. Doubtless with further investigation new questions will arise, and these conclusions may require modification and refinement It is hoped that this continuing investigation may be of service to the peers of the children studied, who need much help in their travels along the way, and for whom, indeed, the route is not clear nor the goal certain.

My own experience as an American have led to questions concerning stratification of Negroes by Whites and Negroes by Negroes. What, if any, is the history behind these social distinctions, based primarily on variables such as race and skin-color gradations? Evidence as to achievements by people representing all races and skin-color gradations is more available today than say, during slavery, because of better opportunities for all citizens of this country to become informed vis the mass media. What is there in history that lends basis to these ridiculous myths based on race and skin-color gradations? Could the institution of slavery in the United States be associated with these startifications? If so, what are the aspects of slavery that helped produce these stratifications of Negroes by Whites and Negroes by Negroes? In addressing myself to this problem, I intend to first list and operationally define the key variables in my problem. Then the probable associations among these variables will be inferred, followed by a triangulative historical analysis utilizing multiple data from various sources, to test my problem. Webb, Campbell, et al view that triangulations of data is the best method of controlling for rival explanations and/or data combinations. It is my hope that this thesis will be an addition to the somewhat limited current collections of works about the Negro and stratification, by “insiders” such as myself.

Because so little has been written concerning the Negro in California and because the dynamic and romantic sequences in the development of this country have always interested me, I have become interested in knowing what part the Negro, free and slave, played in this panorama of events. Were there Negroes with early expeditions? To what extent did they migrate to the West when "gold fever" had become a nation-wide epidemic? Did they find gold? Where did they settle? What did they do? What difficulty did they encounter politically, socially, and economically? These are questions that have filled my mind, and to which I shall endeavor to find the answers.

This project provides a coalitional reading of Chinese Canadian literature, film, and history based on an allegorical framework of Asian-Indigenous relationalities. It tracks how Chinese labour stories set during the period of Chinese exclusion can not only leverage national belonging for Chinese settlers but also be reread for a different sense of belonging that remains attentive to other exclusions made natural by settler colonial discourses and institutional structures, that is, the disavowal of Indigenous presence and claims to sovereignty and autochthony. It contributes to important discussions about the experiences of racism and oppression that typically privilege the relations and tensions of diasporic and Indigenous communities but hardly with each other. What is more, this study aligns with a recent surge of interest in investigating Asian-Indigenous relations in Asian Canadian, Asian American, and Asian diaspora studies. The political investments driving this project show a deep commitment to anti-racist and decolonial advocacy. By examining how Chinese cultural workers in Canada have tried to do justice to the Head Tax generation’s experiences of racial exclusion and intersectional oppressions in fiction, non-fiction, graphic non-fiction, and documentaries, it asks whether there are ways to ethically assert an excluded and marginalized Chinese presence in the context of the settler colonial state. By doing justice to the exclusion of Chinese settlers in the national imaginary, do Chinese cultural workers as a result perform an injustice to the originary presence of Indigenous peoples? This thesis re-examines the anti-racist imperative that frames Chinese labour stories set during the period of Chinese exclusion in Canada: by exploring whether social justice projects by racially marginalized communities can simultaneously re-assert an excluded racialized presence and honour their treaty rights and responsibilities, it works to apprehend the colonial positionality of the Chinese diaspora within the Canadian settler state. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This project examines representations of Chinese labour and Asian-Indigenous relations in Chinese Canadian literature and film. By focusing on how Chinese Canadian writers and artists honour and remember the nation-building contributions and sacrifices of Chinese labourers in stories set in Canada during the period of anti-Chinese legislation policies such as the Chinese Head Tax and the 1923 Chinese Immigration Act, this thesis provides a critical look at the values and ideologies that these narratives may draw upon. It asks whether it is possible for writers and artists to commemorate Chinese labour stories without also extending the colonization of Indigenous peoples, forgetting the history of Asian-Indigenous relationships, or promoting work ethic values that may hinder community building with Indigenous peoples and respecting Indigenous ways of living and working off the land. This study explores questions of history, memory, national belonging, social justice, decolonization, and relationship building.

<p>My dissertation explores contemporary coming-of-age stories that employ spectral and relational narrative strategies to address readers, demanding a re-negotiated response from them. Drawing upon and extending the observations of critics who emphasize the role of liberalism and its contradictory legacies for post-colonial <em>Bildungsroman</em>, my research highlights a radically ethical potential in unsettling reiterations of this long-standing narrative form. The narratives that I have chosen to examine—namely, U.S. Latino/a and Canadian diasporic second-generation coming-of-age stories and African child soldier narratives—reflect a broad geographical and linguistic range, drawing attention to constitutive relationality and various kinds of haunting to call upon a globally entangled sense of disappointment and responsibility in a profoundly critical register. These coming-of age stories signal the need to imagine alternative ethical and political frameworks for reconceptualising the way we think about knowledge, responsibility, and belonging in twenty-first century planetary relations. Even as they inevitably participate in the global market for stories of otherness and epistemological and/or material dispossession, these texts challenge generic and market expectations, troubling the reader’s easy consumption of them. The open-endedness and ambiguity in the indirect, yet insistent, rhetorical manoeuvres of these narratives urge us as readers to confront complicated questions about global solidarity if we are to respond ethically to global, national and transnational realities.</p> / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)