abstract: In the study of politeness in Spanish there are some speech acts that have received more attention, such as requests, apologies, invitations and negotiations. In the case of the of congratulation, there is only one published work by García about congratulation by Peruvian Spanish-speakers. This thesis is a first approximation to the study of realization of the speech act of congratulation in Colombian Spanish. The Brown and Levinson model is used for the study of preferences in the strategies of politeness, and the Scollon and Scollon model for the notion of deferential and solidarity politeness. The Blum Kulka et al. model is used for the classification of the categories of principal head acts and supportive moves in the speech acts of congratulation. The following results were found in answer to the basic hypothesis of the research: The Colombians in this sample have positive politeness when giving congratulations and manifest it with such solidarity strategies as pride and approval, expressions of gratitude and support, and they also give the congratulation in an explicit manner. To a lesser degree they request information and make direct criticism. The data analysis shows a 95% certainty in the differences found between men and women. Nevertheless, the differences between younger and older people or between young women and young men are not statistically significant and only show tendencies. In order to corroborate the finding of this research, it is necessary to have a larger sample in terms of the educational level of the participants. Also, the sample should be broader in terms of gender and age, so as to verify if the difference between younger and older people continues being a tendency or if there is a statistically significant difference. To generalize the term Colombian, other regions of the country should be included, especially the contrast between the Andean, Coastal, and Plains regions which are culturally different within the country. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Spanish 2011

abstract: La frontera entre México y Estados Unidos es un territorio que se ha conceptualizado y construido por el centralismo mexicano y por el discurso chicano dominante: el de Borderlands. Estos dos focos equidistantes establecen sus perspectivas a partir del contacto que la región fronteriza tiene con los Estados Unidos en términos de intercambios económicos y culturales. La tradición de definir la zona fronteriza se inicia a partir de 1848 con el Tratado de Guadalupe Hidalgo. Más tarde, dicha región estaría en indiferencia por su distancia geográfica con el centro mexicano, excepto durante la Revolución mexicana. Sin embargo, la región fronteriza empieza a recibir gran atención hacia finales del Siglo XX, cuando nuevas formas de intercambio económico entre México y Estados Unidos se empiezan a desarrollar. La frontera, entonces experimenta un crecimiento económico que se refleja, a su vez, en el resurgimiento y crecimiento de la cultura fronteriza. El antropólogo cultural, Nestor García Canclini intentó definir la cultura fronteriza al analizar el uso del idioma inglés en Tijuana. En sus estudios, tanto Tijuana: la casa de toda la gente (1989) como Culturas híbridas: Cómo entrar y salir de la modernidad (1992), García Canclini sostiene que la frontera es un espacio de hibridación cultural. Por otro lado, las teorías dominantes dentro del campo chicano definen la frontera en términos metafísicos. Para Gloria Anzaldúa, el espacio fronterizo es el Borderlands: un área geográfica en donde los paradigmas de la psicología del individuo están en constante conflicto. Considerando estos antecedentes como punto de partida, esta investigación se enfoca en el estudio de la cultura fronteriza como múltiples universos de signos que entran en contacto unos con otros. Tal como lo establece Iury Lotman en su estudio teórico La semiosfera (1996), una semiosfera es un espacio delimitado por una frontera que, a su vez, tiene la función de traducir información de otras semiosferas. De manera que dicho concepto se muestra adecuado para analizar El gran preténder (1992) de Luis Humberto Crosthwaite y Berlín 77 (y otros relatos) (2003) de Carlos Adolfo Gutiérrez Vidal. En última instancia, al establecer los espacios fronterizos como universos culturales (semiosferas) se devela el nivel de contacto entre éstas, especialmente entre las semiosferas mexicana/americana y la fronteriza. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Spanish 2011

abstract: While the suicide rate in Mexico is relatively low when compared to countries throughout the world, it is increasing at an alarming pace. Unfortunately, the amount of suicide research focused on Mexican populations is relatively scarce. Using a sample of high school students living in Guanajuato, Mexico, this study explored the relationship between recent suicidal ideation and three factors that previous research in other countries has connected to suicide: Migration aspirations, religiosity, and sexual behavior. Using multiple and logistic regression, the results indicated the following: 1) Recent suicidal ideation predicted increased migration aspirations, 2) higher levels of external religiosity predicted lower odds of recent suicidal ideation, and 3) stronger parent-child relationships predicted lower odds of recent suicidal ideation. The findings are discussed in light of the Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory, Bogenschneider's risk/protection model, and Stark's religious commitment theory. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Social Work 2011

abstract: Over the past decades, Colombian society has endured the impact of a longstanding political conflict among different actors and outrageous expressions of violence, especially among left wing guerrillas, right wing paramilitary groups and the state government. Drawing on socio-legal studies in transitional justice and human rights, this research attempts to analyze the recent experience of transitional justice in Colombia. The main purpose of this research is to understand how political, institutional and social actors, especially the government, the courts, the human rights and transitional justice NGOs, and victims associations, frame the mechanisms of transitional justice and use legal instruments to transform the conflict and reach what they consider "justice." It also attempts to understand the relations between politics and law in the context of a hegemonic discourse of security and give account of the expressions of resistance of human rights networks. In doing so, this research advances theory on literature about law and society and transitional justice by means of applying and expanding the theoretical framework of socio-legal research via the process of transitional justice in Colombia. The dissertation presents information gathered in the field in Colombia between July 2009 and July 2010 through a qualitative research design based on document analysis and in-depth interviews with members of different international and domestic human rights organizations, victims' organizations and national institutions. The research explains how these organizations combined political and legal actions in order to contest a project of security, and more specifically a project of impunity that came from negotiations with the paramilitary groups. The research also explains how the human rights networks not only mobilized internationally to gain political support from the international community, but also how these organizations contributed to transform the political debate about victims' rights. The research also explains how the human rights organizations and victims' groups articulated the global discourse on human rights and the local and domestic meanings constructed by the emerging movements of victims. Finally, the research analyses the relevance of legal practices consisting on strategic use of law in order to protect the victims of human rights violations. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Justice Studies 2011

abstract: Traumas are moments which disrupt a way of being, often involving death or injury and a period of recovery for its survivors. They can be personal, experienced by an individual, or collective, experienced by a group of individuals, such as a family. Others, like the bombing of Hiroshima, impact much larger communities, such as an entire town, an entire nation, or even the world. These national traumas often include large-scale death or injury and impact the lives of thousands. In addition to their immediate physical and material affects (mortalities, economic impact, creating a need for aid), these events shatter not only an individual's sense of well- being, but also larger notions of national identity, stability and security. In many cases, they also reveal the limits of prevailing concepts of national cohesiveness, citizenship and belonging while often simultaneously upholding or reconstructing newly problematic concepts of national cohesion. Traumas are documented and grappled with through various media, including literature, poetry, art, photography, and journalism. This dissertation, "Performing Nation, Performing Trauma: Theatre and Performance after September 11th, Hurricane Katrina and the Peruvian Dirty War" examines how theatre and performance are utilized to respond to, document, memorialize and represent national traumas resulting from such historical crises as the Peruvian Dirty Wars, Hurricane Katrina, and September 11th, as well as how they resist dominant narratives that construct national traumas as such. These traumas are relived and expressed through performance perhaps precisely because the members of a nation (consciously or subconsciously) recognize that nation is also performed. This dissertation focuses on both the content of and the reception of these performances and the particular implications that performances about national traumas hold for theatre critics/scholars, performance practitioners and audience members (those immediately connected and not so obviously connected to the event). / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Theatre 2011

abstract: This dissertation is a comparative study of three contemporary women filmmakers: Puerto Rican Frances Negrón-Muntaner, Chicana director Lourdes Portillo, and Brazilian director Helena Solberg. Informed by transnational theory, politics of location, feminism on the border, and approaches to documentary filmmaking, the study examines three filmic texts: Brincando el charco: Portrait of a Puerto Rican (1994), The Devil Never Sleeps/El diablo nunca duerme (1994), and Carmen Miranda: Bananas Is My Business (1994). Each film is narrated by a female voice who juxtaposes her personal and transnational identity with history to tell her migration story before and after returning to her country of origin. An objective of the study is to demonstrate how the film directors vis-á-vis their female protagonists, configure a United States Latina transnational imaginary to position their female protagonists and themselves as female directors and as active social agents. Further, the dissertation explores how the filmmakers construct, utilizing the cinematographic apparatus, specific forms of resistance to confront certain oppressive forms. The theoretical framework proposes that transnational documentary filmmaking offers specific contestatory representations and makes possible the opening of parallel spaces in order to allow for a transformation from multiple perspectives. Through the utilization of specific techniques such as archival footage, the three directors focus on historical biographies. Further, they make use of experimental filmmaking and, in particular, the transnational documentary to deconstruct hegemonic discourses. Lastly, transnational cinema is valued as a field for cultural renegotiating and as a result, the documentary filmmakers in this study are able to reconfigure a transnational imaginary and propose an alternative discourse about history, sexuality, family structures, and gender relations. In sum, my dissertation contributes to Chicana/o and U.S. Latina/o, American Literature, and other Ethnic Literatures by focusing on migration, acculturation, and multicultural dialogue. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Spanish 2011

Nationalism prevails both inside and outside of what is known to be the geographic boundaries of the nation, as seen by immigrants in the United States, for instance, who recreate sociocultural environments that remind them of home. This study focuses on one such case: Cuban nationalism. How is it that nationalism is found among Cubans born and raised in the island and those born and raised outside? What is at the core of this nationalism that connects persons of different national upbringings? It has something to do with a love for the people, but such a hypothesis needed further explanation. Thus, I collected surveys from 46 Cuban Americans and 48 Cubans in the island who answered basic national history and cultural questions, and engaged in thought experiments. Each respondent was assigned a nationalist score (1 to 4) based on their responses, and the mean score values of both samples were calculated. The responses confirmed that Cuban nationalism is indeed an admiration not only for the people, but more for their sociocultural way of being. Moreover, nationalism is thought to be influenced by domestic factors, but it is equally impacted by international ones. Cuba’s involvement in Angola from 1975 to 1989, where more than 500,000 Cubans served, demonstrates this. As it impacted so many Cubans, it is important to ask: to what extent did this foreign affair affect national identities? To address this question, I interviewed 27 internationalists and examined how this event informed national identities among those involved. Overall, the following study provides an in-depth account of Cuban nationalism as a case study to better understand nationalism as a concept.

abstract: Contemporary criminological literature seldom studies important ethnic subgroup differences in crime and delinquency among Hispanic/Latino youth. Therefore, their risk for crime and delinquency is poorly understood in light of the enormous ethnic and generational mixture experiences within of experiences within the Hispanic/Latino population in the United States. Using social control theory and cultural evaluations of familism, this thesis examines dissimilarities in the risk for crime and delinquency, in addition to its relations with family unity, parental engagement, youth independence, and family structure among second generation Mexicans (n = 876) and second generation Cubans (n = 525) using data from the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study (CILS) 1991-2006 (Portes and Rumbaut). The results concluded that second generation Cubans who obtained government assistance were more likely to engage in crime than second generation Mexicans. Consistent with social control theory, a major finding in this thesis is that presence of a family member who is involved in criminal activity increased crime within the sample of second generation Mexicans and second generation Cubans. Furthermore, in households less than five, second generation Cubans who have a delinquent family member were more likely than second generation Mexicans who have a delinquent family member to report criminal involvement, while in households greater than five, second generation Mexicans who have a delinquent family member were more likely than second generation Cubans who have a delinquent family member to report criminal involvement. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Criminology and Criminal Justice 2012

Ecuador was ‘refounded’ at the turn of the 21st century, with the articulation of progressive and inclusive ideals in a new Constitution. Social movements and leftist intellectuals in Ecuador have expressed that president Rafael Correa has failed to uphold the 2008 Constitution’s goals and values. President Correa and his Alianza PAIS government have utilized the rhetoric of the revolutionary ideals articulated in the Constitution, but in practice, they have continued to implement the status quo Western development model, and a large part of their development strategy involves ‘neo-extractive’ activities. Hydroelectric energy production is contributing to the ‘neo-extractive’ development model in Ecuador, and its implementation has often violated Constitutional rights. This thesis is an analysis of natural resource extraction in Ecuador and its social repercussions, with a focus on hydroelectric energy production. It is shown that the hydroelectric industry in Ecuador is not as “clean,” sustainable, or non-extractive as it is purported to be, through a case study of the San José del Tambo hydroelectric project and the exploration of an international support for hydroelectric extractivism, the United Nations Clean Development Mechanism, and its misleading framing of extractive projects as “sustainable development.” Social movements in Ecuador are acting to reverse the perversion of their originally revolutionary ideals, and to implement a post-extractive model informed by those revolutionary ideals.

El objetivo de esta investigación es buscar y analizar las causas que han mantenido la discriminación racial dentro de Cuba después de 1959. En mi investigación pretendo examinar cómo la Revolución Cubana no eliminó la continuidad histórica de discriminación racial heredada del pasado. En mi análisis quiero verificar cómo el estereotipo y la imagen política del afrocubano que ha sido formada tras los cambios sociales ocurridos después del 1959, no es más que el resultado de una falacia política montada en nombre de la igualdad. Muchas de las políticas adoptadas por el estado se hicieron en pos de eliminar la mayoría de los vestigios y rasgos de la discriminación, pero la principal estrategia radicó en manipular la memoria histórica de los afrocubanos haciendo alusión al periodo esclavista para crear un compromiso partidista. En realidad, se camufló el verdadero objetivo de estas políticas. Si bien se borraron las leyes discriminatorias del sistema jurídico, no ocurrió de la misma manera del pensamiento de los individuos ya que muchas políticas adoptadas a través de los años, contribuyeron a su persistencia. Otro aspecto importante es hacer referencia a la emigración de la población blanca y el impacto económico de este proceso en la constitución racial de la población de la isla. La diferencia de los niveles de vida entre blancos y afrocubanos después de casi sesenta años arroja índices de desigualdad y ratifica que la discriminación se ha identificado bajo las nuevas demandas políticas. Paralelamente, la lucha por la igualdad racial en la revolución se convirtió en agenda alternativa al sistema segregacionista que caracterizaba a los Estados Unidos a finales en la década de los cincuenta, pero aunque esta competencia le trajo cambios positivos a los afrocubanos, al tomar un nuevo tipo de identidad, hizo diferencias. La nueva sociedad cubana ofrecía oportunidades a cambio de lealtad. En la actualidad, los cubanos de cualquier raza son caracterizados por su fidelidad para el gobierno, el color de la raza cubana es por afiliación política y no por la pigmentación de la piel. En mi tesis quiero demostrar que el mito existente detrás del igualitarismo no es más que una primitiva propaganda que perdura desde la época de la era de la Guerra Fría. Citando a autores como Fernando Ortiz, Manuel Moreno Fraginals, Carlos Mesa-Lago, Mark Sawyer, entre otros, analizaré los diferentes espacios sociales de los afrocubanos para demostrar que ellos siguen siendo el sector más quebrantado de la sociedad. El lector encontrará libros muy fundamentales en cuanto a la raza cubana, pero también encontrará citas de periódicos, páginas de la internet, y otros medios, que ayudan a incorporar un pensamiento inmediato y actual que se mueve en los medios de comunicación que demuestre que el racismo solo se puede combatir dentro de una sociedad civil en discusión y no por decretos, haciéndolo un asunto social, no cultural ni político.