<p> This qualitative case study explores student, parent, and teacher perceptions of school racial climate and its impact on students&rsquo; academic and personal lives at a charter middle school in South Los Angeles. The study also explores teacher handling of the impact of racial tensions at this school with a majority Latin@ student enrollment and a predominantly Black teaching staff. School climate refers to the perceived quality of interpersonal interactions among teachers, students, staff, and parents. A positive school climate is associated with increased academic achievement and decreased disciplinary problems. Conversely, schools wrought with interethnic conflict or a <i>poor</i> racial climate divert focus and resources away from student learning and toward chronic disciplinary problems and teacher attrition. This case study demonstrates how Black administrators handled displacement by a large immigrant Latin@ population by instituting a system of Black privilege to protect political and economic space. The massive immigration of Latin@s offered a critical opportunity for coalition building with Blacks. However, a competition-based framework emerged, rendering this case study a microcosm of missed opportunity in South Los Angeles and beyond.</p>

<p> Guided by the critical network analytic framework and liminal legality, this qualitative study explored the experiences of undocumented Latina/o youth in their first year in college to gain insight into their experiences during a critical transition in their educational and life trajectories. This work centered the experiences of youth within a policy context of contradictions that provides increased opportunities, but continues to impose restrictions and control on the life and educational aspirations of the undocumented community. This scholarship aimed to understand how students&rsquo; transition to college is impacted by current immigration and educational policies, particularly the California Dream Act and the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. This research describes the racist nativist microaggressions youth experienced throughout their educational trajectories, the multiple ways policy impacted the transition to college, and the navigational strategies youth employed to matriculate to higher education.</p>

<p> El prop&oacute;sito del estudio se enfoc&oacute; en conocer c&oacute;mo funcionan los programas de retenci&oacute;n. Utiliz&oacute; un dise&ntilde;o instrumental de caso (Stake, 1995) y se delimit&oacute; en su alcance a explorar y describir la experiencia de un programa de retenci&oacute;n, en el contexto de una instituci&oacute;n universitaria privada en Puerto Rico (PR). Enfatiz&oacute; en los procesos y experiencias del programa, interesados en mejorar el entendimiento del fen&oacute;meno de la retenci&oacute;n estudiantil en el entorno de la universidad privada en PR. </p><p> Las preguntas fueron dirigidas a explorar y describir: los procesos y experiencias del programa que facilitan la integraci&oacute;n de los estudiantes; condiciones que generan una ecolog&iacute;a que facilite el &eacute;xito de &eacute;stos; mecanismos anticipatorios y de adaptaci&oacute;n que se observan en ellos, y c&oacute;mo son incentivados para responder a eventos que les afectan; y, aquellas interacciones en el campus y con el programa que involucran a &eacute;stos en su vida acad&eacute;mica. La informaci&oacute;n se recopil&oacute; mediante grupos focales, y el an&aacute;lisis e interpretaci&oacute;n, mediante triangulaci&oacute;n de datos y secuenciaci&oacute;n anal&iacute;tica (Stake, 1995), discutiendo y armonizando contrastes sobre la percepci&oacute;n entre los participantes sobre el &eacute;xito y contribuciones del programa. </p><p> Los hallazgos revelan: a) consensos sobre la contribuci&oacute;n del programa para facilitar la integraci&oacute;n de los estudiantes, mediante el apoyo para el manejo de la transici&oacute;n, el trato individualizado, la disponibilidad y accesibilidad de los servicios, ambientes de oportunidades, y el compromiso y liderazgo institucional; b) experiencias con influencias positivas en la retenci&oacute;n, posibilitadas mediante interacci&oacute;n entre pares, contacto con profesores, involucramiento en actividades extracurriculares, grupos de apoyo e interacciones con el personal del programa; c) fuertes conexiones de los estudiantes con el personal, con profesores y compa&ntilde;eros de grupo para responder a situaciones personales y de riesgo; y, d) testimonios que demuestran las fortalezas del programa para involucrar a los estudiantes acad&eacute;micamente, para mejorar el desempe&ntilde;o acad&eacute;mico y retenci&oacute;n. Finalmente, se plantean contrastes entre los participantes del programa, acerca de asuntos que les resultan comunes, pero que mantienen apreciaciones discrepantes entre s&iacute;, las cuales deben tener consideraci&oacute;n futura en el dise&ntilde;o e implantaci&oacute;n de los programas similares en otras universidades privadas en PR.</p>

<p> The Judeo-Spanish <i>romancero</i> is a sung folk genre, and an oral tradition dating back to twelfth-century Spain derived from medieval Spanish epics and the Spanish ballad. Although the majority of the continental Judeo-Spanish romanceros were lost after the Spanish Inquisition, they are still found throughout the Diaspora. French poet Isaac Levy documented this in <i>Chants jud&eacute;o-espagnols,</i> a 1959 anthology in which Levy compiled original fifteenth-century Judeo-Spanish romancero melodies in the Mediterranean regions. Argentine composer Jorge Liderman was inspired by Judeo-Spanish music after visiting Spain and composed <i>Aires de Sefarad,</i> using selections from Levy's anthology. In this study, the Judeo-Spanish romancero within the scope of Liderman&rsquo;s Argentine musical compositional output are explored. In addition, the musical parameters of both the Judeo-Spanish and the Argentine romancero are investigated. A consideration of the interchange of musical characteristics of both the Argentine and the Judeo-Spanish romancero in <i>Aires de Sefarad</i> is presented in this research, as well as how this contributed to the emergence of a multicultural romancero.</p>

Brazil's persistent economic volatility highlights the need for Latin American countries to transition from exporting commodities to producing innovative goods and services. Higher- income Brazilian regions like the Southeast have been more successful at this shift than the Northeast, which remains toward the bottom of the World Bank's upper-middle-income range. The goal of my research is to examine how northeastern Brazil can become a more innovative regional economy. One route is to increase high-potential entrepreneurship in cities like Fortaleza, the node linking Brazil to global Internet traffic and the capital of a state that built a 3,000 km fiber optic network to spur innovation. I studied the cases of four high-potential startups to understand the factors that affect their growth and internationalization in the Northeast. To collect my data, I interviewed the founders of each venture as well as consultants and officials who support new firms. In addition to expected barriers like bureaucracy and low foreign language proficiency, I found that the region's oligarchic society impeded the growth of its startups and Brazil's long history of protectionism hindered their internationalization.

<p> The purpose of this qualitative research study was to explore the overall lived experiences of DACAmented Latina/o students enrolled within the California Community College system. Adding to the limited research on the undocumented student population, specifically those who are Deferred Action recipients, findings highlight the experiences of students who have persisted in higher education by drawing on their cultural wealth to pursue their dreams and aspirations regardless of their status. From the voices of 10 students three themes emerged, (a) coming of age as undocumented, (b) navigating higher education, and (c) the impact of DACA. These three themes will demonstrate how this population makes sense of their status and navigates higher education within a time of constant change and uncertainty in our country at both the federal and state level. This study adds to the research on DACAmented Latina/o community college students, offers recommendations for practice and state and federal policy are also discussed.</p>

<p> Though alphabetic script had become a prevailing communicative form for keeping records and recounting histories in New Spain by the turn of the seventeenth century, pre-Columbian and early colonial artistic and scribal traditions, including pictorial, oral, and performative discourses still held great currency for indigenous communities during the later colonial period. The pages of a corpus of indigenous documents created during the late-seventeenth and early-eighteenth centuries known as the Techialoyan manuscripts abound with vibrantly painted watercolor depictions, alphabetic inscriptions, and vivid invocations of community elders&rsquo; speeches and embodied experiences. Designed in response to challenging viceregal policies that threatened land and autonomy, the Techialoyans sought to protect and preserve indigenous ways of life by fashioning community members as the noble descendants of illustrious rulers from the pre-Columbian past. The documents register significant events in the histories of communities, often creating a sense of continuity between the colonial present and that of antiquity. What is more, they provide the limits of the territory within a depicted landscape using a reflexive, ambulatory model. Representations of place evoke ritual practices of walking the boundaries from the perspective of the ground, enabling readers to acquire different forms of knowledge as they move through the pages of the book and the envisioned landscape to which it points. The different communicative forms evident in the Techialoyans, including pictorial, alphabetic, oral, and performative modes contribute to understandings of indigenous literacies of the later colonial period by demonstrating the diverse resources and methods upon which indigenous leaders drew to preserve community histories and territories. </p><p> The Techialoyans present an innovative artistic and scribal tradition that drew upon pre-Columbian, early colonial, and European conventions, as well as the contemporary late-colonial pictorial climate. The artists consciously juxtaposed traditional indigenous materials and conventions with those of the contemporary colonial moment to simultaneously create a sense of both old and new. Not only did the documents recount indigenous communities&rsquo; histories and affirm their noble heritages, they also proclaimed possession of an artistic and scribal tradition that was on par with that of their revered ancestors, thereby strengthening corporate identity and demonstrating their legitimacy and autonomy within the colonial regime.</p><p>

<p> National parks and protected areas are an integral component of the Mexican government&rsquo;s long-term natural resource conservation strategy. They comprise over 90 million hectares throughout the country. However, the establishment and upkeep of these protected areas often incites conflict both between and among local actors. From poachers taking protected resources to indigenous peoples exercising their rights, protected areas have become a source of political, economic, and moral contention across the globe. In addition, their effectiveness in either ecological or sustainable development terms has been ambiguous at best. </p><p> Tulum, Mexico exemplifies this dilemma. The site of pre-Columbian Mayan architecture, Tulum is now facing explosive economic growth driven largely by an international tourism industry. This fragile ecological site and vulnerable cultural community have the potential to be seriously impacted by mass tourism. Accompanying the myriad social, political and ecologic implications of tourism are real challenges for park managers, who are placed in the delicate position of attending to federal objectives while mitigating on the ground realities. </p><p> This report chronicles nearly two months of ethnographic field work conducted with The National Commission for Natural Protected Areas, a federal government agency responsible for the management and administration of protected areas in Mexico. Preliminary results suggest that effective management strategies of protected areas are constrained due to &ldquo;top down&rdquo; and hierarchical management philosophies and approaches that do not adequately incorporate the multiple challenges faced by local communities, especially in light of the burgeoning tourism pressures. This report recommends the implementation of a participatory applied ecological management framework that adequately includes perspective from local actors. Hopefully, Tulum can come to represent a locality in which internationally-based tourism development can coexist with an increasing capacity for the adaptive management of natural protected areas.</p><p>

No description available.

This dissertation explores the Royal Chicano Air Force (RCAF), a Chicano/a arts collective that produced numerous murals in Sacramento, CA, for over forty years. Grounded in Mexican and US aesthetic traditions, their murals reflect cultural hybridity and re-imagine US history through a Chicano/a perspective. Many of their works were and are located in Sacramento's Chicano/a barrios, while others occupy interethnic, public space in the vicinity of the State Capitol. By encoding hidden Chicano/a iconographies within each mural, the RCAF offers what scholar Alicia Gaspar de Alba calls "alter-Native" narratives of American history because they posit "Other" views of local history, which trouble larger frameworks of US history.;The exposition begins by exploring the RCAF's origin's-story---or, how the group emerged in the 1960s and '70s Civil Rights Movement, and also in relation to events of the early twentieth century. Both the Mexican Revolution of 1910 and the 1942 Bracero Program in the US impacted Mexican Americans in meaningful ways that resonate in the memories and biographies of the RCAF. After locating the group's historical antecedents, Chapter Two examines the rise of public art in the wake of the 1960s and '70s civil rights era, which reflected ethno-political activism as well as ethnic self-actualization.;Chapter Three explores issues of gender in the RCAF, since most of the artists that comprise the group are male. Chapter Four provides a historical overview of their murals, all of which convey messages and themes of historical inclusion and intervention. Chapter Five proposes a theoretical framework on the notion of 'remapping' and how it's been used in American Studies, Literary Studies and related intellectual fields.;Finally, Chapter Six enacts a remapping by rethinking Sacramento's history according to the murals and historic spaces of the RCAF. as a conclusion, this chapter also charts the RCAF and Chicano/a art's movement into institutional space, both literally---through museum and library collections---and figuratively---in perceptions and paradigms of US art history.