Master of Science, Miami University, 2010, Family and Child Studies

Immigrant families prone to poverty may have a difficult time acculturating to American society. Children and parents often vary in levels of acculturation which contributes to parent-child conflict. Children who are a part of these families have a higher chance of being involved with the child welfare system (Johnson, 2007). Thus, it is imperative to evaluate this dynamic and work towards stabilizing future outcomes in these parent-child relationships. The current study explores the stresses and strains related to acculturation and how mothers and daughters cope through semi-structured interviews with seven women of Caribbean descent living in a borough of New York City. Findings indicate that living in a predominantly immigrant community has slowed the process of Acculturation for both the mother and daughter thus preserving their Caribbean culture.

Master of Arts, Miami University, 2023, Speech Pathology and Audiology

Anguilla is a small Eastern Caribbean Island where a dialect called Anguillian English (AnE) has been spoken since the 17th century. Today, speakers of AnE use unique morphosyntactic features that differ from Standard English (SE). The purpose of this study was to analyze the language samples of ten AnE speakers using a synchronic, token-based approach to calculate the dialect rate of each speaker, elucidate the salient morphosyntactic features of AnE, investigate across- and within-speaker variation, and assign each participant a place along the creole continuum. The results indicated that in AnE, copula and auxiliary linking verbs “to be” may be variably realized. The habitual aspect may be expressed through use of “does” or “does be.” Plurality may be indicated through suffixation of plural -s or with “dem/them” as a post-nominal plural marker. “Dem/them” may also be used as a third person plural subject pronoun. Variation in these features was observed across the ten language samples. The total number of dialect features demonstrated by participants ranged from zero to 53 overall. Based on dialect rate, three participants appeared to speak an acrolect, three participants appeared to speak a mesolect, and four participants appeared to speak a basilect of Anguillian English.

MA, Kent State University, 2022, College of the Arts / School of Music, Hugh A. Glauser

Previous research on vaporwave has had a narrow focus on the most successful artists from the early period of vaporwave thus characterizing the genre's aesthetic features as globalized music with nostalgia towards North American popular media from the 1980s to the early 2000s. In this thesis, I study the perspective of Caribbean Hispanic vaporwave producers by analyzing the music scene through subjective spatiality as a new form of space on the internet. Drawing from online interviews with four producers from Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and Cuba, I will discuss the cultural materials that are used in Caribbean vaporwave music from producers like Bloomstrad, S.a.x, 悲惨な forever, and Cubalibre.exe. I argue that Caribbean Hispanic vaporwave producers are great examples to understand how cultural context is reflected in vaporwave according to their geographical experiences. The preliminary findings of this research challenge defining vaporwave as drawing from nostalgia based on aesthetic features from North American popular culture. With these data, the outcomes are used to argue that Caribbean vaporwave is an example of how the internet is an amplification of reality and a social lived space.

MFA, Kent State University, 2021, College of the Arts / School of Art

This paper has been drafted as a written report following the installation of my thesis exhibit, the Romantic Caribbean. Both this paper and thesis exhibit focus on the topics of tourism and trade. The research conducted through the paper and the exhibit is strongly influenced by my cultural background as a Caribbean native who grew up watching the influences of tourism and trade on my home island, Grand Cayman. With the research, I am exploring the origin of commonplace representations of a Caribbean tourist destination. These representations include the use of black or mixed-race people as performers and entertainers, and the representation of promiscuous behaviour (often provoked by males) within tropical beach resorts. I will also explore the use of found objects as a way to illustrate the circulation of international trade, and I will see if found objects from various locations can be assembled together to create keepsake items that can represent a fantasized Caribbean tourist destination. This paper will outline and analyze various components from the installation of my thesis exhibit and share the specifics of the conceptual framework of the artworks and images made for the project. The artworks are assemblage sculptures, wall-based graphics, an audio track and digital media in the form of prints and video projection. The conclusion reached in this paper shares how my thesis exhibit can be seen as an attempt to revise the problematic representations of a Caribbean tourist destination. This attempt is necessary for the continued development of Caribbean cultural identity through the ownership and hybridization of western influences from the tourist industry and international trade.

Master of Fine Arts, The Ohio State University, 2022, English

This is a creative thesis which is the first two-thirds of a novel in draft. It is bound to undergo much reshaping before I try to put it out into the world. It chronicles the lives of two queer youth from the fictional Island of Red Teeth as they move across the boundaries of nation, gender, and death itself.

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, 2019, History

ABSTRACT The following dissertation examines the People's Republic of China's (PRC) foreign relations with the Caribbean during the Mao-Era (1949-1976). This dissertation relies on Chinese primary source collections, periodicals from China and the Caribbean, archival sources in the Caribbean and United States, and interviews to trace the evolution of China's relations with the region. In 1959, China gained its first ally in the region following the successful revolution of Fidel Castro. China played an important role in the early years of Castro's regime, competing with the USSR for pre-eminence in the communist world. However, Beijing's response to the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 led Cuba to break ties with the PRC and set the tone for China's limited appeal to the region throughout the 1960s to fringe political radicals. In the late 1960s, China's objectives changed, and the Third World became a necessary buffer to offset worsening relations with Moscow and vacillations about rapprochement toward United States. The Anglophone Caribbean became an important space for China to show it was a different type of super-power; an atomic power that understood the pangs of colonialism viscerally. This dissertation is the first examination of China's relations with the Anglophone Caribbean during the Cold War. In 1972, Guyana and Jamaica became China's first two allies in the Anglophone Caribbean. Caribbean leaders like Forbes Burnham (Guyana) and Michael Manley (Jamaica) wrestled with what a relationship with China meant; a potential third way between the USSR and US, and an affirmation of non-alignment in foreign affairs, showing China's conflicting reputation across the Third World. China used cultural diplomacy to soften its image and create trans-national bonds. However, rhetorical help would only go so far, and the small Caribbean nations still faced sputtering economic development in the decade following independence. China became an unlikely engine for Guyana's P (open full item for complete abstract)

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2017, Antioch New England: Environmental Studies

This research explores intentional food practices and journeys of consciousness in a network of people in The Bahamas. Intentional food practices are defined as interactions with food chosen for particular purposes, while journeys of consciousness are cumulative successions of events that people associate with healing, restoration, and decolonization personally and collectively. This research examines (1) experiences and moments that influenced people's intentional food practices; (2) food practices that people enact daily; and (3) how people's intentional food practices connect to broader spiritual, philosophical, and ideological perspectives guiding their lives. The theoretical framework emerges from a specific lineage of theories and philosophies of hybridity, diaspora, creolization, poetics, critique, and aesthetics from the Caribbean. The research explores how intentional food practices reflect expressions of emerging foodways and identities in the Caribbean and joins them with the history of consciousness and intentional food practices in African and Caribbean diasporas. Ethnographic research methods, poetic analysis, and constant comparative analysis provided a foundation for an exploratory approach grounded in the realities of everyday lives. A purposeful snowball sample of twenty-seven (27) in-depth semi-structured interviews provided a primary method of data collection, supported by personal journals, field notes, and document review. No food security research has been published that explores intentional food practices in The Bahamas generally or on the island of New Providence specifically. Key findings suggest a broad variation in people's intentional practices. The intentions underlying these practices reflect desires for individual and collective healing, restoration, and decolonization in their daily lives. By exploring their food practices, interviewees express how they find restoration and healing through visceral experiences with their bodies.

Master of Science in Botany, Miami University, 2016, Biological Sciences

A floristic study of plant communities was conducted on the islands of Eleuthera, Little San Salvador, and Cat Island. The objectives of this analysis were to explore the species composition and distribution of dry forest communities among the three study sites, and to propose new classification types to facilitate plant conservation in The Bahamas, as outlined by the International Classification of Ecological Communities for Caribbean vegetation types. Unconstrained ordination, cluster analysis and indicator species analysis indicated two dominant forest types across the three study sites: the Coccothrinax argentata-Reynosia septentironalis and Coccoloba diversifolia-Bursera simaruba Alliances. Nested within these forest types were 8 species associations: Coccothrinax argentata-Reynosia septentrionalis-Pithecellobium keyense association; Zanthoxylum flavum-Jacquinia keyensis-Casasia clusiifolia association; Acacia choriophylla-Pithcellobium keyense-Guapira discolor association; Coccoloba diversifolia-Sideroxylon americanum-Pseudophoenix sargentii association; Maytenus buxifolia-Sideroxylon salicifolium association; Exothea paniculata-Tabebuia bahamensis-Metopium toxiferum association; Guaiacum sanctum association; Eugenia foetida-Exostema caribeaum-Bourreria succulenta association.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2016, History

This dissertation seeks to move pirates and their economic relationships from the social and legal margins of the Atlantic world to the center of it and integrate them into the broader history of early modern colonization and commerce. In doing so, I examine piracy and illicit activities such as smuggling and shipwrecking through a new lens. They act as a form of economic engagement that could not only be used by empires and colonies as tools of competitive international trade, but also as activities that served to fuel the developing Caribbean-Atlantic economy, in many ways allowing the plantation economy of several Caribbean-Atlantic islands to flourish. Ultimately, in places like Jamaica and Barbados, the success of the plantation economy would eventually displace the opportunistic market of piracy and related activities. Plantations rarely eradicated these economies of opportunity, though, as these islands still served as important commercial hubs: ports loaded, unloaded, and repaired ships, taverns attracted a variety of visitors, and shipwrecking became a regulated form of employment. In places like Tortuga and the Bahamas where agricultural production was not as successful, illicit activities managed to maintain a foothold much longer. Historians have begun to challenge plantation economy model that has served as the dominant paradigm in Caribbean-Atlantic history. A growing awareness that Caribbean-Atlantic socioeconomic history needs to be reproblematized with an emphasis on diversity and economic diversification has shed new light on slavery in the region. My work contributes to the new historiography on Caribbean-Atlantic diversification by illustrating how piracy itself not only encompassed a diverse range of socioeconomic activities, but widely contributed to the Caribbean-Atlantic economy in understudied ways—including the slave trade of the region.

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2014, Psychology

Prior studies indicate that religion is very important in the lives of Caribbean Black immigrants. This study (N= 146) explored the role of religion in the process of coping and adjustment among Caribbean Blacks as they adjust to life in the United States. More specifically, this study explored the relationship among stress (including acculturative stress), religious coping, and psychological outcomes among Caribbean immigrants. The result showed that religion and spirituality remain important for Caribbean Blacks living in the United States as they were while living in the Caribbean. Religious coping (both positive and negative methods) global stress, and acculturative stress were significant predictors of psychological outcomes. Religious coping moderated the relationship between stress and depression: as expected, negative religious coping exacerbated the effects of acculturative stress on depression. However, a surprisingly similar effect was found for positive religious coping. Implications for mental health service providers as well as limitations of the study are discussed.

EdD, University of Cincinnati, 2003, Education : Curriculum and Instruction

The study is an investigation of the impact of cultural particularity on geography education in the Caribbean secondary school. The study seeks to highlight the way in which contemporary societies rationalizes and adapts to patterns of cultural survival and continuity and in this process will distill insights into tenets of human values and behaviors that societies cherish and seek to maintain. A basic assumption is that human values and behaviors have cultural expressions that have presented a basis for differentiating human societies in a manner that is peculiar to respective cultures. It considered that these differentiations are to be accounted for in arguments that envision a global civilization and polity. The study found that the act of rationalization and adaptation of human societies that allows them to continue differentiated indicates that human peculiar cultures are enduring and more resilient than the global culture construct would imply. The study also found that human peculiar cultures are rather more inclined to absorb and reconfigure the intent of the latter within the ambit of cultural redefinition. This is to suggest that the factors of the cultural particularity are not devoid of an internal dynamic or even of causative powers. They are also factors that are objectified in any kind of discourse of which geography education represents only one form. Thus cultural ecology consisting of a concern for its small but invaluable and vulnerable ecosystems has emerged as a dominant theme in Caribbean education and polity. It is a theme that has forged an alternative rationality in sustainable regional economic development and represents a regional response to the disturbance induced by neo-liberal globalization.

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2012, History (Arts and Sciences)

In 1982, Ronald Reagan unveiled the Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI). CBI was an aid, trade, and investment program intended to foster economic growth in the Caribbean Basin, thereby alleviating the socio-economic misery that led Basin people to embrace Communism. Although Reagan claimed the program was an urgent priority, it took Congress two sessions to pass CBI, and it had mixed economic results. This study uncovers the origins of CBI, the reasons Congress hesitated to act, and CBI's impact. CBI was the Reagan administration's response to Communist expansion in the Basin, and conservative think tanks and Reagan's political philosophy shaped the initiative. In Congress, CBI became entangled in debates over the administration's controversial Central American policies and fears that the initiative would hurt the U.S. economy during a severe economic recession. Although CBI had mixed economic results, it increased U.S. economic and political dominance in the region.

Master of Fine Arts (MFA), Ohio University, 2004, Film (Fine Arts)

By first discussing the past and present state of “Caribbean” filmmaking, the paper will draw on various theories including those of national cinema, cultural identity and representation, to make the case for Caribbean cinema as a cinema of its own. The paper will discuss this emerging cinema in terms of development of Caribbean styles and aesthetics, and the role of adaptation of West Indian literary classics and documentary filmmaking in establishing such a cinema. Some of the main scholars and writers whose work will be referenced include Stuart Hall's writings on cultural identity in the black diasporas; Mybe Cham's work on Caribbean and African cinema, Benjamin Anderson's theory of nations as imagined communities; the Cinema Novo and Cuban film movements; and interviews with Caribbean filmmakers at the 2nd Annual Festival of African and Caribbean Film.

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2005, Graduate School

Doctor of Philosophy, Miami University, 2024, Educational Leadership

Faculty professional learning on integrating educational technology in instruction is a critical part of the professional growth of Caribbean medical school faculty. Integrating educational technology in instruction to facilitate learning may be effective when faculty engage in intentional and reflective professional learning activities. Despite the significance of faculty professional learning in this area, a lacuna appears in the research done in the Caribbean region hence the study I conducted to understand how medical faculty make sense of their experiences. I conducted a phenomenological study with seven participants at one Caribbean medical school. I used purposive sampling to recruit the seven faculty members based on their active participation in professional learning activities geared toward integrating educational technology in their teaching in the past four years at their school. I conducted semi-structured interviews via Microsoft Teams to gather data on this common phenomenon. I then used Moustakas's (1994) modified Van Kaam Phenomenological Data Analysis Method to analyze the data and obtain the horizons of the experience. Using the horizons of the experience (Moustakas, 1994), I produced a textural portrait of the experience of each participant. Following imaginative variation that reveals the structures contributing to the quality of the experience, I constructed a structural portrait of each participant's experience. Gazing at the textural and structural portraits, I constructed a composite structural portrait of the participants' experience from which nine universal themes emerged. The themes were: diversity of professional learning activities; the centrality of pedagogy; curiosity and motivation; the significance of educational degree programs; the illusion of learner digital nativity; supportive leadership; technological unpreparedness for the pandemic; enticement by technological substitution; and pedagogical wisdom in technology selection. The (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2023, History

This dissertation assesses U.S. grand strategy in the Caribbean Basin during the early Cold War Period, 1945-1958. It focuses on the use of military assistance and military advisory missions in particular which were present throughout the region and a principal tool of US strategy to maintain influence with local militaries. The analysis takes place on two levels: an initial overview of U.S. security strategy and the issues Washington faced formulating and implementing it in a low priority theater and through examination of two country case studies: Venezuela and Cuba. These countries were strategically important to Washington, and hosts to two sizeable U.S. military missions. In addition, both experienced substantial political instability throughout the period while the U.S. was trying to integrate them into a Hemispheric security program. By 1958, two opposite outcomes had occurred with a radical anti-U.S. regime coming to power in Cuba, and a democracy ousting a military dictatorship in Venezuela. The case studies illustrate the limitations of miliary assistance and advisory support in countries where the political situation remains fraught with uncertainty and violence.

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2023, Antioch New England: Marriage and Family Therapy

This qualitative study aims to explore the unique experiences and challenges faced by Latino Caribbean cisgender gay men within their cultural and social contexts. Using focus group and thematic analysis, the researcher examines the narratives and perspectives of a diverse sample of Latino Caribbean cisgender gay men (n = 6) to gain insights into their sexual identity process, cultural influences, family dynamics, and support systems utilizing Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) as the methodological framework. The researcher's findings highlight the themes of Awareness of Sexual Identity, Visibility Management, Spanish Caribbean Families' Influences, Being True to Oneself, and Positive Experiences & Role Models as key factors influencing the participants' experiences. These findings underscore the importance of understanding the intersections between sexual and cultural identities for Latino Caribbean cisgender gay men. The participants navigate the complex process of self-acceptance and disclosure while balancing cultural expectations and societal norms. The role of family and community support emerges as both a source of strength and potential challenge in their journeys of self-exploration and acceptance. The findings shed light on the need to research the sexual identity process for Caribbean LGBTQ+ individuals, couples, and families within a social justice framework. These findings highlight the importance of creating inclusive spaces, promoting visibility, and providing culturally sensitive support services to address the unique needs of this population. And contribute to the existing literature on sexual identity development, cultural diversity, and family dynamics, and provide insights that can inform interventions, policies, and practices aimed at promoting the well-being and empowerment of Latino Caribbean LGBTQ+ individuals.

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2022, Higher Education Administration

Although research has been conducted to understand the specificities and nuances of how student affairs operates within various institution types (e.g., community colleges, liberal arts colleges, research institutions) to support student success, the role that student affairs professionals have supporting student success in U.S. unincorporated territories remains a gap in the higher education and student affairs literature. The purpose of this study was to begin to address this gap by understanding how these professionals described their experience of supporting student success. I conducted in-depth interviews with six student affairs professionals at public higher education institutions, one working in Puerto Rico and five working in the U.S. Virgin Islands. I used bricolage to create a multi-theoretical and multi-methodological study design grounded in a decolonizing qualitative research approach and transcendental phenomenology. By conducting this study, I sought to study places and experiences that exist on society's margins and challenge dominant conceptualizations of “U.S.” student affairs work. I found that by showing care to students and helping them define success for themselves, these student affairs professionals experienced the work of supporting student success as a labor of love. Accepting that their support would not always be enough to help students succeed and dealing with region-specific challenges such as environmental threats and economic challenges, these student affairs professionals still expressed feeling professionally fulfilled by supporting college students. Findings also suggested that the racial significance of HBCUs and HSIs within the U.S. continental states does not translate to the territories. Further research could explore the ethnic and racial implications of being a minority-serving institution when the location that the institution is located is not situated within a majority White, Non-Hispanic region. I also included im (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2022, English (Arts and Sciences)

“‘An Odd Monster': Essays on 20th Century Literature” focuses on intersections of history, place, gender, race, and imperialism in twentieth-century modernist literature. Within these discussions I assert that western conceptualizations of history or the past work to erase the non-white bodies and cultures pivotal to imperial success, to subsume women into patriarchal subordination, and to present a historical progression antithetical to the experience of those relegated to subalternity. In discussions of Jean Rhys, Tayeb Salih, William Faulkner, and Virginia Woolf, I argue that defiance to authoritarian containment—whether from within or without—often takes unlikely forms with seemingly feeble results. In analyses of characters who write back, talk back, rebel, do nothing, and/or commit small acts of violence, I contend throughout that insubordination to systemic oppressions for the purposes of prioritizing individual agency over moral triumph do not have to be “successful,” to be revolutionary. Utilizing foundational voices such as Sara Ahmed, Edward Said, Homi Bhabha, Michel Foucault, among others, I argue that these acts are transcendent despite little to no substantial change emerging because the characters and writers themselves make and claim their own autonomy and belonging. This work participates in and urges for a continuation of the work of “New Modernist Studies,” which seeks a more expansive understanding of modernism through collapsing the rigid (often exclusionary) spatial and temporal boundaries.

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2021, Spanish

Una de las caracteristicas mas notables del espanol puertorriqueno es la produccion de la consonante vibrante multiple /r/. Una de las producciones no estandares de esta consonante es la variante fricativa uvular sorda [χ], y esta es altamente estigmatizada en el habla puertorriquena, a pesar de ser considerada como uno de los sonidos mas puertorriquenos. Esta investigacion busco observar cuan posteriorizada se encuentra la vibrante multiple /r/, cuan frecuente son las producciones posteriores/uvulares en los municipios de Florida y Mayaguez, y si existe alguna relacion entre la produccion de las variantes posteriores/uvulares y el nivel de educacion de los participantes. Para esta investigacion se reclutaron participantes de los municipios de Florida y Mayaguez, Puerto Rico para observar el uso de la vibrante multiple y sus variantes posteriores/uvulares. Los participantes fueron entrevistados y se les presentaron actividades como una conversacion semidirigida, la identificacion de imagenes y la lectura de dos parrafos. Los resultados mostraron que la variante fricativa uvular sorda [χ] esta presente en el habla de participantes de ambos municipios, en diferentes grupos etarios, ambos sexos, y el nivel de educacion universitario. A traves de los resultados de esta investigacion se demuestra que no existe ninguna relacion entre las variantes posteriores/uvulares y el nivel de educacion universitario de los participantes del estudio. De esta manera, se puede comenzar a disminuir el estigma que se les otorga a las variantes posteriores/uvulares, al igual que al resto de las variantes no estandares en general en el espanol puertorriqueno.