Thesis advisor: James Hamm / In this thesis I discuss the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) and its unique success as an ethnic interest group. I explain how the group came to be. I then address a number of reasons that scholars give as to why the CANF still exerts so much influence today. These reasons include but are not limited to: government favoritism during the cold war, the group's influence as a voting bloc, and campaign donations to prominent politicians. I discuss each of these theories and conclude that they all contain a grain of truth, yet none of them is significant enough to fully explain the situation. I conclude by finding the situation to be over-determined. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2008. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: College Honors Program. / Discipline: International Studies Honors Program.

Thesis advisor: Susan Michalczyk / Isaac Newton's third Law of Motion states that "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." When things collide, there is an immutable effect on both the initiator and the reactor. In the same way, people are in constant motion, "colliding" with one another and irrevocably changing in the process. It was only when I had to live on my own at Boston College that I realized how much the people in my life had such a powerful influence in my life. They are the ones who guided me to evolve into the person I am today. Swayed by my scientific background, I had always believed that I was mostly predestined by my genetic makeup: who I will ultimately become was written in my DNA from conception. However, living in a suite with seven other women and developing close relationships with people who were so unique made me question everything: my beliefs, my approach, my reactions, my opinions. The first chapter is a personal experience I had with my mother in dealing with the cultural and language barriers we had to face. A great deal of our misunderstandings arose because I was the first generation in my family to be born in America and to pursue a higher education at college. Many children come to a point when they rebel against everything their parents tell them to do because they do not understand why their parents do and say the things they do. It is only after the child and the parents can come to a mutual comprehension of each other that steps can be made toward building a stronger relationship, a relationship that goes beyond the simple acts of obedience — or rebellion — and of giving commands. My parents had immigrated to America in their early twenties in pursuit of better opportunities for their future. It was not until I was older and when my relationship with my mother had deepened that I could begin to comprehend her side of the story, her journey, her past which had influenced her decisions that she had made for her children. In order to recount this experience creatively, pieces of conversations that I had with my mother are woven throughout my scenes and my mother's scenes, which, in their stark contrast, causes a palpable tension. Being able to recount the memories in retrospect gives the ability to compare each experience and to reach an understanding. The second chapter is an exploration of the ripple effect amongst strangers and how individuals are all connected in one way or another. Our influences are felt by those around us, even though we may not be directly connected with them. Opening with a dramatic scene, the reader is taken sequentially backwards in time, tracing the steps that the seemingly unconnected characters had taken, ultimately understanding the woman's motivation. Each individual's secrets and conditions all culminate into that moment where one person tries to take her own life. It is rarely one isolated moment that triggers action. Like a snowball that rolls down a hill, increasing its speed and its size over time, various facets of one's life and of other's lives collect together to produce a bigger consequence of which one is aware. The concluding chapter of this series explores the fictional world of a family dealing with the repercussions of their past actions. Each individual's decisions had ramifications for the rest of the family, which they struggle to deal with years later. Characters face guilt, anger, bitterness, and responsibility, as they are constantly reminded of the day when their lives came crashing down. Instead of telling these characters' story by starting from the past and proceeding to the present in chronological order, I decided to include pieces of information and scenes from their memories for the reader to piece together. In the end, the reader is left with having to make a decision: with whom will he or she ultimately sympathize? Will he or she even make that choice? This comprehensive and tedious project provided many obstacles and tensions throughout the year, but it was a journey and a journey worth taking. Before this year, I was never afforded the opportunity to pursue a goal I had set for myself after watching "A Walk to Remember" in high school: to write a novel. It has been rewarding to see the end product of constant revisions, of constant criticisms, and of constant growth. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2007. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: English. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

Thesis advisor: Ricco Siasoco / Hodge-Podge: A Collection of Literary Claptrap and Fictive Nonsensery is a collection of eight short stories. The stories are unrelated in terms of subject matter or style, but all fall within the broad confines of the author's world, conveniently. Titles: "The Kill"; "Hot Breath"; "Sorcery"; "A Failure of Understanding"; "Currency"; "Deserter's Execution"; "The Box"; "Commencement". / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2007. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: English. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

Thesis advisor: Donald Fishman / This thesis examines the role of culture in international business communication through case studies of several multinational corporations. The first case looks at Coca-Cola's product recall crisis in Belgium in 1999, which exhibited an uncharacteristic deviation from the company's well-known brand marketing brilliance. The second case deals with problems that Disney encountered as it tried to establish its first theme park in Europe in the 1990s and found itself facing a culture as proud and protective as Disney itself. At the heart of these cases were outdated international strategies and an attitude of arrogance that assumed that an American business approach could easily be transferred to a different country and culture. The thesis concludes with an analysis of Google as a case study for the future followed by suggestions for successful international strategies and final thoughts on globalization's effect on culture and corporations. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2007. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Communication. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

Thesis advisor: Sarah Beckjord / This thesis examines the motivations for English language acquisition among Latino immigrants currently residing in the United States. By interviewing 34 adult students enrolled in ESOL classes in the Boston area, the author attempts to determine whether their desire for language acquisition is motivated by integrative or instrumental factors. These results are analyzed in light of the current debate on the assimilation of Latino immigrants, ultimately concluding that this segment of the population is indeed desirous of integration into the mainstream U.S. society. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2008. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Romance Languages and Literature. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

Thesis advisor: Robert Capalbo / The Presidential Scholars Program is a full tuition scholarship program offer to the 15 most outstanding applicants to Boston College each year. It involves three summer programs: a summer of service, an international summer experience, and a career development internship. The Program is funded by the Wall Street Council's Tribut Dinner to Boston College. During the first decade and a half of its existence, the Program has successfully fulfilled its mission to increase the intellectual standing of the University. / Thesis (BS) — Boston College, 2007. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

Thesis advisor: Susan A. Michalczyk / Malaria is a curable, preventable disease which has been around for millennia. Unfortunately, in this time of unprecedented growth and resources, the world has yet to prevent malaria from continuing its vicious cycle, taking the life of a child every thirty seconds. This project is an interdisciplinary creative writing exploration of the underlying biological, sociological, and theological reasons for this failure to eradicate an avoidable illness. Aside from the biological difficulties involved in creating vaccines for the complex strains of the malaria parasite, the deeper cause of malaria's persistence within the bloodstream of humanity is the narcissism to which all people are prone, especially when self-interest is upheld as the highest virtue of Western capitalistic society. Literature, sociology, and theology, among other fields, each point to the answer of humility and love as solutions to the global problem caused by the fact that, ultimately, there is something far worse than malaria plaguing everyone from within. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2007. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

Thesis advisor: Thomas Kaplan-Maxfield / We remember childhood injustices for the rest of our lives. They are thorn-like memories, piercing and immediate, affecting us long after we have matured and moved on with our lives. The wounds of childhood have been written about by some of literature's greatest writers, including most notably James Joyce, in his masterpiece A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. In this creative work I try to investigate, through the voices of children, the role of wounds in the growing character of a child. Wounds both literal and metaphorical dominate the narrative, which is told from a variety of perspectives as one group of friends from one neighborhood advance through elementary school. My goal in this work is to portray the painfully observant nature of children — to show how much they absorb in the early years of their lives, the scope of which adults might not realize. I also try to capture the humor and tragedy of children's voices, and to create a whole world as seen through the eyes of children. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2007. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: English. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

Thesis advisor: Deborah Levenson / The emergence of the concept of Fair Trade has inspired a new form of supply-determination by socially conscious consumers. Since it began official certification, Fair Trade has served as a tool to curb the exploitation of labor. It has also promoted direct connections between vendors and producers, organized participatory democracy, continuity in trade relations, respect for the environment, movement toward equal status of gender, and living wages for workers. Small family farmers now produce over 51 percent of coffee in the world, and 90 percent of the world's cocoa. With a History Honors Thesis, I seek to examine the use of worker-owned recuperated factories of Argentina for the production of Fair Trade footwear and apparel. Such factories require more complicated chains of supply (primary materials, numerous factories for production, contractors, transportation, warehouses, and retail) than primary materials such as coffee. Started in the 1980s, the recuperated factories in Argentina may provide the complex links to a sweatshop-free market, which have been lacking. The experiment has exploded to about 180 businesses since an economic crisis in 2001 forced owners to flee and workers to gain expropriation, half through legislation and half through occupation, according to journalist Andrés Ruggeri. My project seeks to investigate whether chains of production and distribution of complex Fair Trade certified or sweatshop-free products, using recuperated factories in Argentina, could serve as an economic alternative for manufactured Fair Trade products. By pursuing in-depth research on this project and understanding porteño culture and labor struggles, I have built a strong foundation for a thesis. My independent study project for the School for International Training during my Fall 2005 semester abroad in the Southern Cone (Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Brazil) became my passion and provides preliminary background information. Basing the project on interviews I had conducted with workers from ceramics, textile, and shoe recuperated factories all over, I found evidence of new supply chains with words from key leaders like Raul Godoy, Vasco Abelli, and Luis Caro (Control Obrero, El Movimiento Nacional de Empresas Recuperadas, and El Movimiento Nacional de Fábricas Recuperadas por los Trabajadores). I also became personally involved in the network of founders of current trade groups based in Argentina, with whom I will consult for my work on the History Honors Thesis. Building directly on research interests, and especially the interviews that I conducted in my semester in Argentina, I will address the complexities of the philosophical foundations, key figures, and actions that have comprised the vast history of labor in Argentina from its pre-capitalist mutuales artisan communities up to the contemporary situation with close academic mentorship from Professor Levenson. With plentiful sources of information, I will document each prospective or current deal to produce for Fair Trade distributors, develop an understanding of which products are feasible for ethical supply chains, analyze the success of such collaborations with new distributors, and compare and contrast them with business for former or other clients. Portions of the movement vary in ideology and vision, but all seek to maintain relations with former distributors. The primary concern is surviving and gaining expropriation, but the movement is witnessing a series of new strong inter-relations and projects for Fair Trade. There is a hopeful outlook for the recuperated factories, and integration into a Fair Trade market is a feasible goal for the next era (2006-2011) of the movement. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2007. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: History. / Discipline: History Honors Program.