This study examines the gender dynamics of the migration and settlement of Indian indentured workers in Trinidad and Guyana between 1845 and 1917, laying particular emphasis on the ways in which migration of Indian women workers impacted and changed the dynamics of the settlement process of Indians in Trinidad and Guyana. I argue in this thesis that the presence of sufficient numbers of females throughout this particular history of indentured migration and settlement had important and far-reaching implications for the nature of rural social and economic formations that evolved in post emancipation societies of Trinidad and Guyana. This thesis, is not then, the story only of women's migration, or their roles in the new social and economic formations in Trinidad and Guyana in the period 1845 to 1917, but also discusses the relational aspects of women's and men's experiences and the politics of gender that influenced the indentureship experiment. I examine the ways in which the presence of a critical mass of women indentured and ex-indentured workers influenced not only the working of the sugarcane economy but also the ways in which the socio-cultural and sexual relationships evolved within the emergent rural community of Indians. The history of migration and indentureship is traced from the recruitment process in India where gender and patriarchy impacted the ways in which females were enlisted for contractual work overseas, to the eventual settlement of Indian women and men workers in their newly adopted homes in Trinidad and Guyana. I have based this thesis on British official sources like annual emigration and immigration reports, official correspondences, parliamentary and other inquiry committee reports, censuses, and non-official sources like contemporary newspapers, journals, travel and planter memoirs, missionary memoirs, an autobiography by Anna Mahase, Sr. born during my period of study, and oral interviews with ex-indentured men and women in Trinidad. Some of the hidden areas of knowledge about indentured men's and women's lives, particularly around questions of social, sexual, and ritual expressions, as also the ways in which the economic and social activities of women and men in peasant households were allocated, have been constructed through the reading of non-official sources like memoirs, newspapers, autobiographies, and three different sources of oral interviews of men and women.

This dissertation examines two central debates concerning Latino/a families: the superintegration versus disintegration debate focusing on the direction of differences in extended family integration between Latinos/as and Whites, and the culture versus structure debate seeking to determine whether it is cultural or structural factors that are responsible for these differences. Using the second wave of the NSFH (1992-94), this dissertation explores the ethnic differences in extended family integration as well as investigates cultural and structural factors that may produce these differences. Examining three components of family integration---proximity to kin, contact with kin, and kin support---the dissertation first compares Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, and other Latinos/as, and finds that Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans are similar in their family integration, while other Latinos/as are different from them. This finding emphasizes the need for comparing Latino/a groups to each other. Based on the results of this comparison, the dissertation combines Mexican Americans and Puerto Ricans into a single Latino/a category, and finds that Latinos/as are significantly more likely to live with and near kin, as well as to frequently see their kin in person, than Whites. Thus, the findings on proximity and contact support the argument that Latino/a families are more integrated than White families. Examining kin support, however, this dissertation finds that Latinos/as and Whites are similar in terms of instrumental help and emotional support but different in financial assistance and child care help: Latinos/as are less likely that Whites to give or receive financial assistance, and Latinas are more likely than White women to give or receive child care help. Thus, the findings on kin support refute both the disintegration and the superintegration arguments, and support the arguments of multiracial feminist theorists, who criticize dichotomous approaches to Latino/a families. In terms of the culture versus structure debate, this study finds that the differences between Latino/a and White family integration can be attributed primarily to the ethnic differences in socioeconomic standing. Cultural factors and nuclear-family composition only play a small role in explaining the ethnic differences. Thus, this dissertation primarily offers confirmation to structural approaches.

In this study we examine the development of the female poetic voice in the Puerto Rican context. Taking from the theoretical frameworks of Cultural Studies, Feminist Studies and New Historicism we re-read the political, cultural and literary history of Puerto Rico and its relation to the construction of the representations of Woman in texts written by women as well as those by men. In the first chapter we analyze the weight of gender and history in the elaboration of general discourse. We point out how all texts speak from a particular gendered perspective and respond to a historically determined moment which requires critical analysis that takes into consideration these contextual phenomena. From here we begin to re-examine the development of the female poetic creation from the end of the nineteenth century to the 1930s. We study the change of sovereignty and the political, social and cultural impact that this had on the literature of Puerto Rico. Mainly, we look into the gestation of a political-literary discourse created by Puerto Rican intellectuals, who were at the same time, responsible for the political and cultural events of the island. The second chapter explores the creation of a new political project for Puerto Rico which begins in 1940s and culminates with the Commonwealth. In addition, we review the political projects of the Commonwealth which required the active participation of literature since it was through literature that a cultural nationalism would be built, a nationalism that would compensate for the lack of an independent political state. Concluding this second chapter, we re-examine the decades of the sixties and seventies, viewing them as a period of change and of social and political struggle. We study the gradual separation of the literary and political spaces, which allowed a more transgressive discourse as well as a more authentic female voice. The third chapter is a critical analysis of the female poetic voice through the twentieth century. Among the selected poets are: Clara Lair, Haydee Ramirez de Arellano, Marigloria Palma, Angelamaria Davila, Olga Nolla, Manuel Ramos Otero and Mayra Santos Febres.

This project explores the military and political mobilization of rural and urban working sectors of Puerto Rican society as the Island transitioned from Spanish to U.S. imperial rule. In particular, my research is interested in examining how this shift occurs via patterns of inclusion-exclusion within the military and the various forms of citizenship that are subsequently transformed into socio-economic and political enfranchisement. Analyzing the armed forces as a culture-homogenizing agent helps to explain the formation and evolution of Puerto Rican national identities from 1868 to 1952, and how these evolving identities affected the political choices of the Island. This phenomenon, I argue, led to the creation of the Estado Libre Asociado in 1952. The role played by the tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans in the metropolitan military in the final creation of a populist project taking place under colonial rule in the Island was threefold. Firstly, these soldiers served as political leverage during WWII to speed up the decolonization process. Secondly, they incarnated the commonwealth ideology by fighting and dying in the Korean War. Finally, the Puerto Rican soldiers filled the ranks of the army of technicians and technocrats attempting to fulfill the promises of a modern industrial Puerto Rico after the returned from the wars. ^ In contrast to Puerto Rican popular national mythology and mainstream academic discourse that has marginalized the agency of subaltern groups; I argue that the Puerto Rican soldier was neither cannon fodder for the metropolis nor the pawn of the Creole political elites. Regaining their masculinity, upward mobility, and political enfranchisement were among some of the incentives enticing the Puerto Rican peasant into military service. The enfranchisement of subaltern sectors via military service ultimately created a very liberal, popular, and broad definition of Puerto Rico’s national identity. When the Puerto Rican peasant/soldier became the embodiment of the Commonwealth formula, the political leaders involved in its design were in fact responding to these soldiers’ complex identities, which among other things compelled them to defend the “American Nation” to show their Puertorriqueñidad . ^

This study begins with two premises. The first is that American Studies needs to move beyond the borders of the United States to examine the ideological, cultural and economic effects our country has had on others. The United States has historically been deeply involved in Anguilla's economy, revolution and ideology. The second is that history is a commodity that is selectively deployed in the creation of personal and national cultural values in Anguilla. I use Sherry Ortner's concept of serious games and James Scott's theory of the arts of resistance to analyze how Anguilla's contemporary culture is a product of its history, environment, and a particular industry. Colonial institutional failure created a vacuum in which Anguillians were permitted, even encouraged, to conceptualize themselves as independent. The harsh environment prevented the formation of a plantocracy based on sugar production. The means and modes of the production of salt, Anguilla's only staple, resulted in a social structure that contrasts with those of the sugar islands in the Antilles. Today, independence remains Anguilla's serious game and sole art of resistance on a personal, cultural and national level.;The definition of self and nation as independent is based upon a radical excision of history that is articulated in an invention of tradition. Plato's idea of mythos and logos serve as methodological tools for unpacking how history has been strategically utilized and suppressed to support cultural concepts. The hypothesis of this dissertation is that, if history repeats, Anguilla is trapped in the box of dominant discourse. Anguillians' history does repeat; their version of history fails to benefit them because it elides their basic dependency.;The conclusion is that, in positioning independence as the contrariety of colonialism, Anguilla has created a false dichotomy that is symptomatic of an underlying social malaise. On a personal level, independence is the antithesis of community and nationalism. On a political level, independence works against regionalism. Dependence, the hidden narrative of the Anguillian public discourse of independence, undermines the mythos. Only by deconstructing the contrarieties of independence and colonialism into subcontrarieties, can Anguilla address its cultural dissonances and position itself in a global world.

Through the combined usage of primary source documents and secondary source research, this thesis seeks to discern how the individual national identities of Argentina and Mexico came to fruition. This thesis will demonstrate that the early national period of each region was directly influenced by the colonial context out of which Argentina and Mexico arose. Additionally, this thesis is focused on the ways that a national identity is developed within the public sphere, and how the public sphere might be defined beyond printed newspaper accounts.

William Walker's expedition should be a fertile source of examples of such incipient dependency. This is because that expedition was grounded in the political desires of Manifest Destiny and the pragmatic economics of a cross-isthmus connection between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans during the crucial years just before the U.S. Civil war. Walker's actions caused a war in Central America, brought the United States and England to the brink of war, effected a significant economic relationship, and influenced diplomatic relations between Nicaragua and the U.S. for years afterward. Because of these various actions and reactions, this episode in inter-American relations provides instances of many of the basic elements of the putative dependency relationships alluded to above. There were governments seeking economic advantage, businessmen seeking profitable investments, trade treaties negotiated, and military force used. It was a brief and intense period when economic interests were ultimately controlled by policy decisions.

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I will analyze the posthumous one-hundredth birthday celebration of former Mexican president and national hero, Benito Juárez, in 1906 Oaxaca City, Mexico. The Juárez celebration took place during the lengthy presidency of fellow Oaxaca native and former political rival Pofirio Díaz (1876-1911). Even though the two men experienced an antagonistic relationship, Díaz embraced the celebration and emphasized his connection to Juárez and, by extension, liberalism, the dominant political ideology. By all accounts, people enthusiastically took part in this official commemoration. But the festivities hid three years of contentious preparations whereby people questioned the political legacy of both men and even liberalism itself. Numerous historians of Mexico have argued that Díaz, a veritable dictator, used national celebrations and civic ceremonies throughout his presidency to foster nationalism among the populace. As such, this celebration provides an important entryway into the debates among historians over hegemony and state formation in Mexico.