I pursue a study of the semantic couplet in xochitl, in cuicatl (the flower, the song) grounded in the examination of Nahuatl written sources in order to explore its cultural and historical trajectory as it was produced and reproduced from the pre-colonial to the colonial period. I begin my analysis by examining Nahuatl songs of pre-colonial origin to demonstrate how in xochitl, in cuicatl was an epistemological practice embedded in a Nahuatl ontology conceived of philosophical, religious, and social practices that were interwoven in the cultural habitus of Nahua warriors. I argue that the semantic couplet and the Nahuatl ontology associated with warriors are reflected and play a central role in songs from the Xochicuicatl (Flowery Songs) genre. Then, I explore colonial practices for religious conversion in order to discuss the colonial habitus or pre-dispositions influencing the indigenous scholar Antonio Valeriano to utilize the Nahuatl epistemology of in xochitl, in cuicatl and the Nahuatl ontology associated with warriors as an interpretive frame of reference in the Nican Mopohua, the apparition story of the Virgin of Guadalupe. With this organization, I identify pre-colonial Nahuatl practices in their original context and then I reveal why and how they became accommodated in a colonial and Christian context. Therefore, I utilize in xochitl, in cuicatl as a vehicle for exploring a major cultural-social transformation among the Nahua people of central Mexico. / text

This dissertation examines the Americanization of immigrants as a defining theme in American musical theater. It does so through studies of productions from across the past century about Irish Americans, Chinese Americans, and Latino/a Americans, and in each case, at least one of the creators is a member of the ethnic American group depicted. I contend that these artists found the musical to be a constructive tool for voicing their experiences of the struggle of Americanization and broadening notions of American identity. The resulting narrative expands upon the substantial "golden age"-centered literature on Jewish assimilation and the American musical. Decentralizing the "golden age," I show how the genre has helped write into cultural citizenship a broad range of immigrant groups during fraught periods in which their national belonging was contested. I draw upon a wide range of disciplines - especially immigration history, ethnic studies, and American studies as well as musicology - and diverse methods, including archival research, oral history, textual and musical analysis, reception history, and historically based hermeneutics. / Music