Oral history’s purposes have metamorphosed from a record of lifeways and
stories of the elite to a means of healing for minority communities oppressed by trauma.
This dissertation focuses on the power of oral history to catalyze the restorative justice
process of moral repair for victims—in this case the Mexican Americans of Texas—who
were traumatized by the Jim Crow laws and practices prior to 1965. I researched the
racial, socio-cultural history of Texas from its colonial days up to the Jim Crow historical
era of 1876-1965 and utilized archival, legal, and historical sources for my study.
Additionally, I explore theories and frameworks of trauma, structural violence, and
restorative justice, and analyze twenty-eight oral histories from the Voces Oral History
Collection (University of Texas, Austin). Lastly, I apply oral history methodology to
collect seventeen oral histories for my own project, Project Aztlan.
My findings reveal a community suffering from structural violence—a theory that
argues unjust laws harm individuals as much as physical violence. The oral histories unearth several issues: first, both groups of narrators were victims of structural violence
as a result of traumatic racism. I anticipated finding traumatic racism, but not on such a
broad scale. The results reveal it occurred in all four corners of Texas. Second, these Jim
Crow laws and practices targeted members individually and collectively through racially
restrictive housing covenants, segregation of schools/public facilities, job discrimination,
and disfranchisement or poll taxes. Thirdly, the oral histories demonstrate and legitimize
the fact that the Mexican American community deserves atonement, apology and
reparation from historically guilty institutions. The State of Texas battered them with
mass lynchings, disfranchisement, racially restrictive housing covenants, school
segregation, and discrimination, oppressing them for over 100 years.
My dissertation concludes that the oral history process helps victims attain moral
repair because, similar to moral repair, it also allows them the space to voice their stories
of injustice. In turn, the oral historian validates their claims and reconciliation occurs
when narrators received vindication through this reparatory process. This
acknowledgment fuses broken moral bonds by equalizing members of society. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2018. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fau.edu/oai:fau.digital.flvc.org:fau_40820 |
| Contributors | Dominguez-Karimi, Rebecca (author), Norman, Sandra (Thesis advisor), Florida Atlantic University (Degree grantor), Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Department of Languages, Linguistics and Comparative Literature |
| Publisher | Florida Atlantic University |
| Source Sets | Florida Atlantic University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation, Text |
| Format | 311 p., application/pdf |
| Rights | Copyright © is held by the author, with permission granted to Florida Atlantic University to digitize, archive and distribute this item for non-profit research and educational purposes. Any reuse of this item in excess of fair use or other copyright exemptions requires permission of the copyright holder., http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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