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This research examines constructs and discourses of racial and ethnic differences within York County, Pennsylvania. Located in south central Pennsylvania along the Maryland border, the York region has long held a reputation as a hotbed for white supremacy and racial prejudice. The Ku Klux Klan has been active in York County since the 1920s, and in recent years the Klan has resurfaced in the local area amidst an increase in the Latino population. The growth of the Latino population within York County has shifted the nature of racial and ethnic relations, as historically relations between whites and blacks comprised the primary axis of tension and conflict in the local area. Although the Latino population of York County consists of Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Dominicans, Cubans, and Central and South Americans, popular external local and media-driven discourses often conflate Latinos with Mexican-ness and racialize Latinos in highly negative terms as illegal aliens, criminals, and welfare recipients who threaten American national identity. These external discourses of latinidad contrast sharply with the manner in which local Latino and Latina residents construct their own ethnic identities. During Barack Obama's 2008 Presidential campaign, the black-white racial dichotomy reemerged in local racialized discourses. As such, the research also examines constructs and discourses of whiteness and blackness within the York area. York County features several anti-racist human relations activists and organizations. This research contains ethnographic interviews and analysis of local anti-racist activists and their activities designed to foster greater tolerance and to combat racial and ethnic prejudice within the local area. Anti-racist activists have had different life experiences that have raised their awareness to racism and have led them to become active in their cause. Public anti-racist activities take a variety of forms and consist of various programming strategies, which appears to impact their effectiveness in generating the size of turnout and level of interest among the general public. / Anthropology

This dissertation contains a qualitative case study of how Hillary Clinton, the Democratic candidate, and her staff, created communication systems to contact Latinos during the 2016 presidential campaign and how these systems operated in Northeast Philadelphia. Three research questions guided these observations: How was political communication produced, disseminated, and decoded through interpersonal, mass, and digital communication by the Democratic candidate, her Latino communication staff, and Northeast Philadelphia Latino residents during the 2016 presidential campaign? What were the functions, norms, and values that structured the political communication systems among the Democratic candidate, her Latino communication staff, and Northeast Philadelphia Latino residents? What were the power relations that informed the interactions between the Democratic candidate, her Latino communication staff, and Northeast Philadelphia Latino residents in the political communication system? For this dissertation, I devised the Political Communication Systems Model, a toolkit to observe and theorize on political communication. Under the grounded theory umbrella, two methods were used to collect data. First, Clinton’s mediated campaign communication was monitored. Second, I worked as a volunteer in a field operations office that Clinton opened in Philadelphia and performed a participant observation. Clinton built a political communication machine to produce a campaign that used a hybrid media system. She hired a large staff to design and execute an "air war" (i.e., radio and TV ads and journalistic coverage), a digital campaign (i.e., distribution of information through websites, blogs, social media, newsletters and text messages), and a "ground game" (i.e., canvassing, phone banking, and online messaging). The Latino campaign was designed to promote liberal values such as globalism, cosmopolitanism, multiculturalism, and diversity, values that shaped her economic and political proposals. The ground game had three main objectives in Northeast Philadelphia: register new voters, create strategies to persuade undecided voters to support Hillary Clinton, and organize the "Get Out the Vote" (GOTV), which consists of convincing people to get out their houses, go to the polling station, and vote. A substantial part of the dissertation focuses on describing and analyzing the ground game in Northeast Philadelphia and offers two significant findings. First, political communication systems need material infrastructures operate. Clinton built a material infrastructure to communicate with residents. This infrastructure was made, primarily, of human bodies that were able to move around the territory and use other communicative technologies smartphones, tablets, and computers. Second, human bodies were also used as symbolic devices. Clinton recruited staffers and volunteers whose bodies embodied values such as diversity, multiculturalism, cosmopolitanism, and globalism. The biographies and trajectories of these individuals projected these values, because they were persons from different parts of Latin America, with diverse cultural and educational backgrounds, and with different experiences of being a U.S. citizen or resident. Finally, the dissertation offers two main contributions. On the one hand, the dissertation expands the Political Communication Systems Model and suggests that the human body is the primary material unit in political communication infrastructures. On the other, this work illustrates how qualitative research can be employed for researching political communication in general, and presidential campaigns in particular. / Media & Communication

Denna studie har som syfte att analysera representation av colombianer i populärkulturen, med särskilt fokus på Netflix TV-serie Griselda (2024). Målet är att analysera hur identitet förmedlas och sociala hierarkier avbildas med hjälp av visuella element och stereotyper i serien. Genom att granska kamerarörelser, mise-en-scéne, aktörer, kroppsspråk, kostymdesign och färgschema, strävar studien efter att öka förståelsen för hur semiotiska element  potentiellt kan forma åskådarens uppfattningar och åsikter om den colombianska befolkningen. Netflix TV-serie Griselda fick stor uppmärksamhet, vilket gjorde den snabbt populär bland tittare. Serien är ett samarbete mellan amerikanska och colombianska skapare och baseras på den verkliga historien av den colombianska drogbaronessan Griselda Blanco.  Denna serie återspeglar hur streamingtjänsten Netflix försöker att anpassa sitt innehåll till diverse språk och kulturella preferenser hos publiken. Även om serien har fått en betydande framgång i västvärlden, har den fått en mer reserverad mottagning från den colombianska publiken, vilket skapade intresse för att undersöka hur regissören och producenter förmedlar nationella identiteter och sociala hierarkier på ett visuellt sätt i serien. Det teoretiska ramverket som utgör grunden för denna studie inkluderar socialsemiotik, stereotypteori, representationsteori och postkolonial teori. Dessa välgrundade teorier har spelat en väsentlig roll för fördjupningen av kulturella tolkningar och underliggande innebörder som präglar Griselda. Metodvalet för studien innefattar en visuell multimodal analys där fyra utvalda sekvenser från serien har granskats och analyserats. Studien fokuserar primärt på de visuella element som visas i serien samt andra icke visuella komponenter som är avgörande för att berätta seriens narrativ. Resultatet av studien ger en inblick i hur colombianer framställs i populärkulturen, med hjälp av de semiotiska elementen. Dessa element spelar en stor roll att förstärka stereotyper och sociala hierarkier. Stereotyper om colombianer användes för att skapa identiteter, där de gestaltas som ociviliserade, drogförsäljare, exotiska och opålitliga. De amerikanska karaktärerna skildras som en del av eliten och behandlar de colombianska karaktärerna som antingen tillbehör eller lägre stående i hierarkin. Studien påpekar vikten att skilja mellan fiktion och verklighet i serier som påstås vara verklighetsbaserade och riskerna med att glorifiera våld och makt genom berättelser som dessa.

A strong therapeutic alliance is consistently related to successful outcomes in couple therapy. However, most of the research done on therapeutic alliance has been done among non-Latino White individuals and couples, failing to account for other ethnic minorities like Latinos. Latinos tend to share certain commonalities as opposed to non-Latino clients that may alter the relationship between alliance quality and relationship quality. This exploratory study was designed to understand whether Latino clients have higher initial levels of alliance and a stronger alliance-outcome relationship in couple therapy when compared to non-Latino White couples. The sample consisted of 567 couples seeking therapy to improve their relationship (99 Latino and 468 non-Latino White couples). A multigroup moderation model was used to test whether Latino ethnicity moderates the association between alliance quality at session four and relationship quality at the final session. Similar findings of the association previously established between alliance quality and relationship quality were found. Results indicated that there was no statistically significant difference between Latinos and non-Latino Whites on initial levels of alliance quality nor on the relationship between alliance quality and relationship quality.

La Buena Cosecha is a feature-length documentary that explores the remarkable contributions of Latino business owners in Orlando and the United States. The film delves into the journeys of two families of entrepreneurs from Colombia and Puerto Rico, as they navigate the competitive U.S. food market. Faced with numerous obstacles, they must persevere to fulfill their dreams, honor their Latino heritage, secure a legacy for their children, and make lasting contributions to the U.S. economy. La Buena Cosecha not only celebrates their positive impact but also challenges stereotypes about the Latino community, underscoring their incredible potential to shape the nation for the better. Directed by Melanie Cedeño-Lopez, La Buena Cosecha, has been produced as part of the requirements for earning a Master of Fine Arts in Feature Film Production from the University of Central Florida.

Associations between greater perceived racial discrimination and both higher levels of depressive symptomology and higher blood pressure have been established in the literature. Research has found that depression is often comorbid with diabetes and individuals with type 2 diabetes are at an increased risk for depression as the prevalence of depression is 2 to 3 times higher in people with diabetes when compared to the general population. Additionally, individuals with type 2 diabetes are also at an increased risk for high blood pressure. Although these associations are present in the literature, no studies have been found that examine all of these variables in conjunction. The current study used data from the 2014 Health and Retirement Study to examine the associations among perceived racial/ethnic discrimination, depression symptoms, and blood pressure for older Latinx adults (ages 50+) with type 2 diabetes (n = 303) and without type 2 diabetes (n = 521), while controlling for sex, age, partner status, and education. Findings indicated diabetes status was positively associated with both depression symptoms (t(790) = 5.32, p < .001) and systolic blood pressure (t(703) = 2.74, p = .006). Racial/ethnic discrimination was positively associated with depression (r(206) = .14, p = .045); however, it was not associated with blood pressure. No statistically significant interactions were found. Discussion focuses on possible explanations for the research findings, future directions, and clinical implications.