This ethno-gerontological field study examined family caregiving in an aged colony of Latino immigrants from Cuba residing in the New Orleans Metro Area. Most of these families have been in this community for over three decades The empirical investigation based on five hypotheses compared caregiving burden among caregivers based on the effect of level of care, acculturation, traditional cultural value orientation, social support, and ethno-demographic aspects of the population. The study also examined caregiving impact, mastery, and satisfaction with the caregiving role; however, caregiving burden was the central variable of the study The sample consisted of 60 Cuban-American families caring for their dependent elderly (aged 65 and over) in a home environment. Caregivers were selected on the basis of assisting with at least three of the ten Activities of Daily Living (ADL's) (1989). Levels of caregiving were measured using the ADL's items. Data were obtained from caregivers regarding their level of acculturation utilizing the Behavioral Acculturation Scale (1978). Cultural value orientation related to person-nature, time, and relational orientations was measured utilizing items from the Intercultural Value Inventory (1990) and the original Value Orientation Scale (1961). Subjective burden along with other caregiving subjective experiences were measured using the Philadelphia Geriatric Center Caregiving Appraisal Scale (1989). Caregiver's social support was measured by various items examining enacted support, satisfaction with that support, and extent of the support network. The perception of emotional support was measured by a scale from the Caregiving Stress and Coping Study (1990). An ethno-demographic instrument was developed specifically for this sample based on Hernandez-Peck's (1980) study of elderly Cubans in Miami. The ethno-demographic instrument was used to measured the social history of caregivers and the elderly. Variables were measured utilizing t-tests and simple and stepwise multiple regression procedures The results indicated that the higher the level of caregiving the greater the subjective burden. Subjective burden was also intensified by emotional and/or personality problems of the elderly relative. Social support was a significant buffering factor on caregiving burden. Perceived social support revealed an even stronger positive effect on caregiving burden than the actual tangible support. Some traditional values also predicted a lesser subjective burden and more satisfaction with the caregiver role. Lower levels of behavioral acculturation (speaking more Spanish, expending more time among Hispanics, and preserving more Cuban-Hispanic family traditions) also revealed a lower subjective caregiving burden. Some demographic variables acted as positive mediators in the family caregiving process Additionally, this study conveyed qualitative information about the field experiences relevant to the theories and the empirical findings of the study / acase@tulane.edu

Although French remains the language of ethnic symbolism for many of Louisiana's Acadians, English is the language of day-to-day business. This study is (1) an investigation into whether the English dialect of south Louisiana has taken on significance as an ethnic marker among people who self-identify as Cajuns; and (2) a test in using a combination of methodologies--including oral histories, close phonetic analysis, and quantitative analysis--in a language-centered microethnography constructed to illuminate larger cultural questions This dissertation summarizes this combination of approaches as well as discussions of theory and methodology, Cajun ethnicity, the history of the area, and an analysis of the regional/ethnic English. The first approach was participant observation and data collecting during a year and a half of fieldwork in Terrebonne Parish, and formed the basis of a linguistic analysis of flat speech, the regional dialect The second approach involved analyzing language case studies of people representative of the community based on recorded oral histories. Excerpts from each oral history are included, allowing members of the community to present their lives and views of ethnic identity in their own words. 'Normal' speech was compared to instances of speech about ethnic issues to look for register shifts tied to ethnic identification. In a final approach, a quanititative matched guise study measured group attitudes toward Cajun ethnicity among area seventh-grade students In summary, the results show that for certain people register shifts can be linked to expressions of ethnic identification in certain speech genres. In other cases, consultants either showed no register shifts, whatever the subject matter, or the shifts showed little consistency. Humor, however, is clearly linked with flat speech and, in some cases, with ethnic identity. Student judges rated flat speakers as lower in economic characteristics, but did not note any difference in solidarity characteristics between accented and standard English speakers. A language-centered approach, using a combination of methodologies, is effective for addressing subtle cultural questions when extensive ethnography is already in place, and reveals a greater richness of data than any one methodology used alone / acase@tulane.edu

'Heathenish Combination': The Natives of the North American Southeast During the Era of the Yamasee War examines the significance of the Yamasee Indian war against South Carolina in 1715 from a native American perspective. Chapter one presents a portrait of the Southeast as it appeared just prior to the war. It discusses the various Indian nations engaged in trade with South Carolina, including information on their location and the state of their relations with English traders. Chapter two deals with the origins of the war. The author suggests that market relations with South Carolina destabilized native society in a number of ways, which forced southeastern Indians to take up arms in an effort to control the terms of their involvement in the Atlantic economy. Chapter three provides a narrative account of the war, while chapter four assesses the war's consequences for native political organization. The author argues that the war facilitated the formation of the Creek Confederacy and the Catawba Nation. The issue of Indian slavery is addressed in chapter five. A comprehensive statistical study, utilizing probate records in the South Carolina Department of Archives and History, describes the demographic structures which shaped the experience of slavery for native Americans between 1690 and 1740 / acase@tulane.edu

American Indians express national identity and sovereignty often in a context of misrecognition and domination. The dominant culture frequently mythologizes, or depoliticizes, Native Americans to maintain its hegemony. The mythologization of the Nez Perce Indians has been overwhelmingly laudatory from Lewis and Clark onward, yet it frequently distorts Nez Perce/white history, denies the Nez Perces coevalness, and effaces dual U.S./Nez Perce identity and sovereignty After providing an overview of Nez Perce history and culture, Chapter One discusses the role Thomas Jefferson, the Journals of Lewis and Clark, and press coverage of the 'Nez Perce War of 1877' had in establishing the Nez Perces as exemplary American Indians. Chapter Two analyzes a book-length poem about the Nez Perces by Robert Penn Warren. Warren critiques U.S. empire-building and late 20th century American malaise, seeing in the Nez Perces an ideal nation. But Warren's idealization of the Nez Perces effaces living Nez Perces and participates in the imperialist project he critiques Chapter Three examines Nez Perce orature to discern national and political identity. Mythic literature creates a tribal identity grounded in a specific place that emphasizes relations in the natural world, explaining the Nez Perces' contemporary vigilance to prevent the devastation of salmon. The work of Nez Perce poet Phil George demonstrates a dynamic political identity against experiences of colonization and cultural misrecognition. George's poetry undercuts the idealization of the Nez Perces by Robert Penn Warren and other Euroamerican commentators Chapter Four examines 'Chief Joseph Days,' a festival where nonIndians and Nez Perces assert differing versions of local history and identity in a contested geographic area. Indian performances assert legitimacy of origin and legal/spiritual ownership of this place, providing an alternative to versions of the area's pioneer past asserted through the performances of whites The Epilogue argues that assertions of sovereignty ultimately move Indians from the realm of the mythical to the real; that it is imperative that we recognize and accept 'difference'; and that we should view the unique relationship of Indians to the United States as a challenge to live with our neighbors, both locally and globally, with tolerance and justice / acase@tulane.edu

Expanding industrialization compels the Maya to acquire Spanish as the language of national or international currency. Bilingual parents may choose to teach their offspring only Spanish and thus trigger an intergenerational language shift. This study traces in detail several economic and language transitions taking place in four Kaqchikel towns of central Guatemala: Santa Catarina Barahona, San Antonio Aguas Calientes, San Andres Cevallos and Santiago Zamora. Past language and ethnic policies affecting the Maya are explored in Colonial documents while data from over four hundred household surveys include fluency levels and use patterns in both Spanish and Kaqchikel. Comparisons of fluency levels by demographic characteristics reveal the rate and contour of language shift; comparisons with indicators of traditional versus modern economic involvement reveal broader cultural trends. Concepts from social network theory are used to explain relative degrees of shift in the communities. Practical applications of findings and directions for further research are suggested / acase@tulane.edu

My dissertation, 'Marrying in and out of Whiteness: Twentieth-Century Intermarriage Narratives,' examines shifting American perceptions of race, ethnicity, and whiteness through the formula of the intermarriage story. In each chapter, I do a comparative study of black/white interracial marriage and WASP/white ethnic intermarriage stories. Through this intertextual analysis, I reveal how at different points throughout the twentieth century, white and nonwhite ethnics launched a collaborative deconstruction of white dominant culture ideals, while at other historical moments these groups have turned against each other in their efforts to better the conditions of their respective cultural communities. I argue that the narratives shift from stories of marrying into whiteness during the early twentieth century---when whiteness was equated with citizenship, privilege, ideal beauty, and personal safety---to stories of marrying out of whiteness after World War II---when whiteness becomes associated with repression, emptiness, imperialism, materialism, and the absence of community. In addition, I analyze why the mid-century era (from the onset of World War II to the Civil Rights Movement) is integral in reversing the formula of American intermarriage texts to stones which idealize 'otherness' and deconstruct 'whiteness.' I discuss a range of texts, including works by authors Israel Zangwill, James Weldon Johnson, Anzia Yezierska, Flannery O'Connor, Nella Larsen, George Schuyler, Helen Barolini, Bernard Malamud, Margaret Mitchell, Alice Walker, and Philip Roth / acase@tulane.edu

This dissertation uses a combination of modern and postmodern interpretative approaches to identify, describe, and analyze the narratives presented within ERACE, an organization which uses the emergent method of dialogue to promote interracial communication. The analysis of the narratives revealed information about the participants' understanding of both the organization and of racism. Based on concepts of narrative thinking and organizational representation, a 'meta-story' was postulated. This 'meta-story' serves as a model for showing relationships between the individual narratives, and for demonstrating the fluidity and constant evolvement of the organization. In doing so, the model moves the interpretation of the findings from a static, functionalist approach to partially achieving what Jeffcut (1993) calls a 'polyphonic, open-ended, creative dialogue,' as an interpretation and representation of the organization. Weick's (1995) concept of sensemaking, Bateson's (1972) Four Orders of Learning, and the theory of social constructivism are presented as ways of understanding the process of this research as well as the experience of dialogue within the organization. Some implications for social work education and future research point to continued emphasis on narrative, the addition of the concept of dialogue as a mechanism of social learning in organizations, and further exploration of the growing phenomena of interracial dialogue organizations / acase@tulane.edu

This study explored the theoretical assumptions postulated by Gilligan (1982) that; (a) there exists two different moral decision-making orientations, the ethic-of-justice and the ethic-of-care, (b) that these orientations are gender related and c) that the face-to-face interview is sensitive to the context of the ethic-of-care as well as the ethic-of-justice. Thirty (15 males and 15 females) African-American college seniors participated in the study. The Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) and Gilligan's interview were utilized to explore the possible relationship between sex role and moral decision-making The findings affirm (a) that there exists two distinct moral decision-making orientations; negate (b) that these orientations are gender related and affirm (c) that the face-to-face interview is sensitive to the context of the ethic-of-care as well as the ethic-of-justice. The overwhelming preference for the ethic-of-care orientation for 25 subjects with only 5 subjects preferring the ethic-of-justice was supported by the unanimous classification of androgyny for all subjects on the BSRI. An unexpected finding suggests that moral decision-making orientation may be more related to the context of moral conflict being concerned with intimate or non-intimate relationships than gender or sex role for this population / acase@tulane.edu

This dissertation examines the articulation of macro and micro processes in relation to the pan-Maya movement in Guatemala. I argue that the form of the pan-Maya movement is not determined solely by its internal structures, as theories of nativism and revitalization would suggest, nor solely by global processes, as a world system approach would predict. Rather, the pan-Maya movement is shaped through the articulation of national, local, and global systems The pan-Maya movement operates at a national level in Guatemala, and the actions of the Guatemalan state, particularly its security forces, restrict the range of pan-Mayanist activism. Nonetheless, pan-Maya activists have taken advantage of changes in the post-Cold War global political economy to colonize a space for themselves in the competitive Guatemalan political arena. Pan-Maya leaders promote an ideology of cultural and ethnic pride, hoping to unite the diverse Maya groups into an effective political constituency. The cultural goals of pan-Mayanists fall outside of the confrontation between the Guatemalan Left and Right, and thus are largely seen by political and military leaders as innocuous The urban-based, educated leaders of the pan-Maya movement have been seen by many analysts as far removed from the realities of daily life in Maya communities. In comparing local cultural forms in Patzun and Tecpan to the national ideology of pan-Mayanism, however, I find many points of convergence. I explain these findings by postulating the existence of certain essential paradigms of Maya culture, shared by urban pan-Mayanists and rural Maya agriculturalists alike. These persistent paradigms provide the foundation for cultural innovation at the local as well as the national level, and result in the pan-Maya ideology being consistent with local cultural strategies The fact that culture can provide the basis for mobilization at various levels of aggregation is particularly relevant to the field of development. The pan-Maya movement shows that cultural issues can act to vertically integrate segments of a population, thus allowing development strategies formulated at a national level to harness cultural energy through grassroots participation / acase@tulane.edu

Hostility, terrorism, and capital crime still corrupt man's quality of life. In trying to analyze, or even reconcile, the aggressive or hostile behavior of one person to another, or of one group to another, investigators and authors have cast their findings and arguments into the sphere of objectivity--only to find that subjectivity itself infuses nebulous terminology, a reliance on 'judgment,' and validation only in outcome and not in process. The quest here is to show that hatred is a legitimate emotion for study, that it has historical and philosophical grounds for that legitimacy, and that its study is important to the furtherance of the quality of life. Behavior itself can be measured and analyzed objectively; the motivation behind that behavior, however, whether of terrorism, child abuse, or the setting of policy for international relations, rests in the subjective sphere and thus necessitates newer approaches to analysis / acase@tulane.edu