▼ When the HPV vaccine, Gardasil, first entered the U.S. market in 2006, its groundbreaking promise to prevent cervical cancer and its status as a costly, gender-specific drug captured the nation's attention. Two years later, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) began to require the HPV vaccine from immigrant women and girls as part of the naturalization process. In stark contrast to the journalistic stir that Gardasil provoked, the new immigration requirement went unnoticed until the National Coalition for Immigrant Women's Rights (NCIW) called it to attention. I examine the discursive practices and sociohistorical contexts that enabled the problematic requirement, as well as the policy advocacy strategies that eventually sparked its revocation. Ultimately, my project is a testament to the power of a grassroots reproductive justice movement to call attention to institutionalized discrimination and effect social change. Advisors/Committee Members: Volk, Steven.

▼ Through the lenses of technology and gender I offer a new perspective on the employment and utilization of corrido tropes throughout history and in modern culture. Technology has expanded the transnational gaze, not only increasing the sheer number of listeners but also incorporating a visual element to the (narco)corridos. The enlarged and geographically diversified community of listeners coupled with visual elements only strengthens the tropes evident since the earliest corridos. Gender is markedly absent in the literature that discusses corridos, but its presence in the tradition has a strong influence on the Mexican mask. The ways in which gender is constructed vis-á-vis the archetypes of women in corridos has real world implications for the daily-lived experiences of Mexican women. The advent of YouTube has changed the way corridos can be viewed. Through photographs taken from the real world or reenactments of the corridos by members of the listening community, the mask becomes nearly indistinguishable from the truth. In this way, it becomes clear that not only are masks being verbally employed, but also the community of listeners is actively engaging and reifying the tropes designated to the mask. The images of the Mexican man and Mexican woman become more than just imaginations, they are given faces. Advisors/Committee Members: Mitchell, Pablo.