Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2022, Spanish and Portuguese

This dissertation looks at nostalgic songs written in Mexico during the first half of the 20th century, with the purpose of reflecting on the origin of these nostalgic expressions, describing the characteristics and transformations that the nostalgic repertoire undergoes over time, as well as understanding the role that nostalgia had in the generation of the sense of belonging to different communities, including the imagined community. Through an interdisciplinary analysis, I observe and describe the poetic, musical and nostalgic characteristics of the corpus, in relation to the development of the migratory, cultural, and socio-political context of Mexico during the first half of the 20th century. I argue that it is possible to observe three major phases of the nostalgic musical repertoire written during the first half of the 20th century, which I have named: modern nostalgia, nostalgia ranchera, and national nostalgia. The repertoire of modern nostalgia is testimony and memory of internal migration and the emotions caused by this migratory displacement. The songs of this phase were characterized by their musical and literary heterogeneity and by expressing longing for abandoned lands due to rural-urban migration caused by the project of national modernization. The repertoire of nostalgic songs was used in comedia ranchera films, for which it was closely linked to the nationalist ideology of mestizaje and is usually considered as canciones rancheras. I argue that in the adaptation of nostalgic songs to the comedia ranchera, the longing, previously felt for the yearned-native lands, was transferred to the cinematographic locus of Mexicanness "el rancho". In addition, these songs were characterized by the tendency to homogenize their musical elements. The nostalgic expression took a turn in the 1940s when new cinematographic and ideological influences compelled composers to create nostalgic songs, whose object of emotion was the nation. In my dissertation I demonstr (open full item for complete abstract)

PHD, Kent State University, 2015, College of the Arts / School of Music, Hugh A. Glauser

Part I of the dissertation is comprised of two pieces written for orchestra. The first piece, El Porfiriato, takes its inspiration from the infamous Mexican president Porfirio Diaz. This work is built around a single motive that takes a variety of forms throughout the piece. It begins with a three-note motive comprised of an ascending minor second followed by a descending minor third. In the middle section, a five-note motive that expands chromatically is developed as an extension of the original motive. The original motive, which can be found embedded in the five-note motive, becomes the melodic structure of a waltz (reminiscent of the European salon music influence during the Porfiriato). When the waltz ends, the five-note motive is isolated and an imitative counterpoint section ensues. The entire piece is approximately ten minutes in duration and is scored for full orchestra. The second piece, Los Ninos Heroes, takes its title from the six Mexican military cadets that died defending Mexico City's Chapultepec Castle from U.S. forces in the September 13, 1847 Battle of Chapultepec during the Mexican-American War. It is said that one of the cadets wrapped himself with the Mexican flag and jumped from the roof of the castle to keep it from falling into enemy hands. The piece begins with erratic meters and rhythms as fragments of the primary four-note motive begins to materialize. This tetrachord, taken from the octatonic scale, often interacts with a secondary motive based on a descending arpeggio-like figure. The middle section of the piece uses both of these motives in more lyrical and less percussive manner, but after a slow and gradual build up, the material from the initial section reappears at a slower tempo, eventually returning to tempo primo and ending with a climactic statement of the fully realized motive. The composition is approximately nine minutes long and is also scored for full orchestra. Part two of this dissertation examines two orches (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, University of Akron, 2014, History

Traditional military and political histories have tended to dominate historical scholarship on the U.S.-Mexican War. Despite a few notable recent publications, the input of social and cultural historians has been extremely limited. Several scholars over the last three decades—notably Robert Johannsen, Paul Foos, and Amy Greenberg—have drawn attention to the prevalence of non-sanctioned violence outside of organized combat during the war. These incidents ranged from petty theft and vandalism to rape, murder, and occasional mass killings. Scholars have offered some speculation on the social and cultural forces driving these acts, but they remain a peripheral and largely unexplored element of the war's history. Politicians, veterans, and the American press fiercely debated the truth and significance of non-sanctioned violence and directly contested its popular memory. This thesis presents an in-depth case study of perhaps the best-documented incident of non-sanctioned violence during the war: the killing of a group of unarmed Mexican civilians by American volunteers near the Mexican city of Saltillo in 1847. Using theory on collective memory, the study traces the rapid proliferation of multiple versions of the massacre, analyzing the ways in which various authors represented and understood it. It also connects the killings to broader historical trends in the United States—most notably collective social violence, Indian warfare, and the myth of the frontier—to show this incident as the extension of older cultures of violence.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2006, Spanish and Portuguese

Since the time of the Mexican Revolution of 1910, images associated with this nation-defining event have been re-imagined, re-coded and re/de-constructed in an array of media. Within the past two decades these images have been reinvented once again in reaction to changes associated with neoliberalism that brought about the demise of the hegemonic revolutionary ideology as espoused by the long-ruling Party of the Institionalized Revolution (PRI). My dissertation argues that the ascendance of neoliberalism, with the opening of Mexican economic and political systems, has resulted in changes in the socio-cultural work performed by the Revolution-Nation-Gender triad. This trinity, solidified in the post-Revolutionary national imaginary, weaves the three notions together such that as hegemonic discourses of Revolutionary nationalism enter in crisis, discourses of gender are also destabilized. The dissertation consists of three main sub-arguments. First, I argue that the discourse(s) surrounding Revolutionary heroes has been integral to the (re)definition of the Mexican nation and that analyzing recodings of this discourse through the example of Emiliano Zapata reveals a destabilization of hegemonic nationalism. These changes have allowed alternatives to surface both in Mexico and across the border as part of a recoded transnational Revolutionary nationalism. As cracks opened in the Revolutionary edifice allowing alternatives to emerge, they have also opened space for alternative gender discourses. I next argue that a close analysis of representations of masculine gender roles as manifested in a variety of cultural texts, specifically through Revolutionary icons Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata, reveal a crisis of the macho archetype in the contemporary Mexican nation. Changes in male gender ideologies do not occur in isolation. Finally, I argue that the polysemous figure of the soldadera has been used both to support the status quo and to embody destabilized female gender (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, University of Akron, 2008, History

The following is an analysis of Mexican migrant masculine identities in Mexican Chicago from 1916-1930.

Psy. D., Antioch University, 2022, Antioch Santa Barbara: Clinical Psychology

Latin American countries tended to access mental health treatment at lower rates than their non-immigrant counterparts. There appeared to be limited to no studies that focused on male Mexican immigrants. Most studies focused on mental health treatment engagement and barriers that fell under the proxy variable of the Latino culture. This could aid in researchers failing to understand specific Mexican-cultural aspects in their research. Therefore, this qualitative descriptive study aimed to describe the experiences of male Mexican immigrants who had immigrated to the United States and explore barriers to treatment engagement they encountered to experiencing depression. Being guided by cultural identity theory, this study collected data from six participants via semi-structured interviews, where male Mexican immigrants described their perceptions and experiences on treatment engagement and any identified barriers when experiencing depression. Four themes emerged from the dataset that included: (a) Mexican culture shapes experiences of depression, (b) depression is experienced as restrictive to daily life, (c) culture is a significant barrier to treatment engagement, and (d) family and faith assist in overcoming treatment barriers toward engagement. The results of this study highlight the importance of clinicians to examine cultural aspects of depression in their Mexican patients. Clinicians need to understand the role that family and faith play in depression and how culture can shape treatment engagement and the success of managing symptoms. This can assist them in building appropriate treatment plans that align with their culture versus that of mainstream society. Additionally, language alone is not the only alignment many treatment providers can offer. Aligning practices with the culture strengthens treatment plans by concentrating on the client's combined lifestyle, culture, and experiences. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA, https://aura/antioch (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2020, Spanish and Portuguese

Unlike what many historians and critics believe, the so-called “crisis” of Mexican cinema in the late 1950s did not mark the death of the film industry, but rather the emergence of a youth star system. This project takes up three well-known young multi-platform Mexican stars: Angelica Maria, Meche Carreno, and Lucer(it)o, all of whom rose to fame in their adolescence during the second half of the 20th century. These youth stars function as bellwethers of three particular moments of Mexican cultural and capitalist modernization. As an entity recognized and articulated by both the political, cultural, and socio-economic spheres, “youth” offer a vantage point to see the divergent, (in)direct relationships between the triad of the State, cultural industries, and modernity. As “feeling star bodies” (Gopinath), these young women play a role in the formation of subjects in Mexico, often mediating the emotional, affective, and sensorial experiences of modernity and modernization. The institution of stardom was used in 20th century Mexico to offer idealized models of behavior and normative emotions (via Reddy's “emotional regime”). Youth stars also operate on a symbolically formative terrain, a space that can both bolster and question hegemonic norms. I consider the central qualities of their star images as well as the contradictions related to gender, sexuality, and ethnicity that these stars expose. Each chapter employs the concept of the “starscape,” which calls for compiling “intermedial” constellations of the star's cultural production of all forms (audio/visual, print, and performance) as well as paratextual materials. The “starscape” centers the star amongst the larger horizon of production and the configuration of cultural industries within the given socio-political and historical era. My study has larger implications for adding cultural specificity and a new methodology to Star Studies, a subfield of Film and Media studies. Likewise, it pushes Mexican film and cultu (open full item for complete abstract)

Psy. D., Antioch University, 2018, Antioch Santa Barbara: Clinical Psychology

Childhood cancers remain the number one cause of death by disease in children across the world (National Cancer Institute, 2018). Childhood cancers affect children and families of all ages, cultures, and socioeconomic demographics. Although literature exists on various styles of therapeutic and emotional support for families affected by childhood cancer, the data are extremely sparse and a comprehensive meta-analysis of culturally relevant psychosocial support efforts specific to Mexican-American and Latino children and families does not exist. This paper will provide thoroughly researched psychosocial interventions and best practices specific to families affected by childhood cancer. The paper will build on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), a transdiagnostic and third wave branch of behavioral intervention. The writer proposes a treatment approach that incorporates culturally sensitive themes for use with Latino and Mexican-American families impacted by childhood cancer. An emphasis will be placed on concepts related to familismo, personalismo, respeto, simpatia, and the belief in fatalism as a means of dealing with the cancer experience. The intervention will focus on religion, spirituality, and family narratives, as well as curative and traditional foods found to provide a sense of healing and nurturing to most individuals and families within the Latino and Mexican-American cultures. These constructs and values will be interwoven into each of the six weekly sessions of the culturally conscious ACT modality. This will be done to emphasize the unique needs and constructs of the Latino and Mexican-American cultures in hopes of creating efficacious psychosocial treatment. This Dissertation is available in Open Access at AURA: Antioch University Repository and Archive, http://aura.antioch.edu and OhioLink ETD Center, http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd

BA, Oberlin College, 2018, History

This thesis reconstructs the lives of two elite Hispanic New Mexican men who grappled with upheavals on the North American continent during the nineteenth century. Union army officers and influential patrones Nicolas Pino (1820-1896) and Jose Francisco Chavez (1833-1904) serve as the center of this paper's narrative chronological historical analysis. Intensive primary source work in the New Mexico State Archives reveals their footprints in the military, political, and legal spheres before, during, and after the war. The biographies of Chavez and Pino serve as a microcosm of the changes and continuities in Nuevo Mexicano social, cultural, and military practices during these turbulent years, revealing historical moments as they were lived by individuals. Their responses to American Indian conflicts, shifting borders, fluid borderlands identities, two international wars, and the penetration of Anglo-Americans into the territory reveal how two members of the elite Hispanic New Mexican community worked to maintain their elite status in the face of massive change.

BA, Oberlin College, 2018, Sociology

This study begins by locating the development of Social Justice High School (SOJO) in Chicago and examining the educational experiences of young Mexican and Mexican American men. Through scholarship by education policy and reform scholars that talk about issues of neoliberal practices and school policies in the Chicago Public School (CPS) network, an analysis of the implementation efforts of policies that focus on standardized testing and discipline at SOJO are examined. This research analyzes the student experience and development of these young men using the conceptual framework of socialization and social control. The top-down implementation of standardized testing and discipline fails to enhance the overall learning of the participants. Their experiences are unique but reinforce similar results that other education scholars have found about the educational experiences of young men of color. Thus, this study contributes to the existing scholarship on urban public high schools and their influence on young men of color, specifically through the lens of achievement, resistance, and policy.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2015, Spanish and Portuguese

There exists a corpus comprised of speculative fiction texts written and published from the early 1990s until the 2008 that express an urgency regarding the way vision and visuality function in Mexico. Among other notable elements, these texts feature a male cyborg who repairs his lost eye by gaining an ocular prosthesis that becomes a signal of his warrior masculinity, a female cyborg whose lost eye becomes an emblem of her lack, ocular reporters whose vision is coopted by mass media corporations, cyborg rejects owned by corporations whose lives becomes a reality-show segment, and a cancer-riddled president whose multiple operations are made into media spectacles. Aside from a recurrent interest in the interface between human and machine, these fictions also appear particularly concerned with television as a device that contains enough gravitational force that sucks the viewer into it in the privacy of his own home, and a public sphere-turned-virtualized reality that visual manipulates the Mexican masses. The motif that recurs in these narratives expresses a kind of deep suspicion of vision, a profound deception in new media visual technologies and the forces that make them possible. Often, the protagonist loses his or her eye, frequently having it replaced with some kind of technology that ostensibly enhances the loss of visual perception. But in all of these cases, the enhancement ultimately carries with it an unanticipated form of subjectification to or control by some larger force. These forces trace back to either power embodied in the form of political figures or transnational corporations. These dystopian, allegorical literary expressions are responding to larger, complex changes occurring in the social, political, economic and technological realms within Mexico under neoliberal economic policies instituted by the state, all of which can be read in the construction of these imagined subjects. These narratives express a profound distrust in the contemporary s (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2014, Music

With new migration patterns extending border spaces into the interior of the United States, undocumented migrants living in the U.S. interior are forced to navigate the hazards and insecurities of illegal residence within the contexts of their daily lives. In the midst of these hazards, many migrants use listening to music in specific public spaces as a way of creating positions of security. Music and genre-normative modes of listening form a fundamental part of the social architecture of public space, and regional Mexican music forms part of the social architecture of Mexican grocery stores as a culturally “safe” environment for migrants.

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2013, History

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the transformation of U.S.-Mexican relations throughout the nineteenth century and its impact on the border during the administrations of James K. Polk and Rutherford B. Hayes. This transformation is exemplified by the movement away from hostile interactions during Polk's presidency to the cooperative nature that arose between Hayes and, then President of Mexico, Porfirio Diaz. In addition, another aim was to place the importance of the public sphere in framing the policy making of the United States and Mexican governments. The thesis focused upon the research surrounding Polk, Hayes, and their interactions with Mexico during their terms as president. The secondary materials were supplemented with corresponding primary source material from the presidents as well as their close advisors such as newspaper articles, correspondences, and speeches from both the United States and Mexico. The conclusion of the work demonstrates that the transformation in the border, first, the United States to become the dominant power on the continent, ending its rivalry with Mexico. Second, the ability of Porfirio Diaz to bring some stability to the Mexican political structure that permitted him to work in conjunction with the United States to control the border in exchange for recognition. Third, the increase in economic ties of the United States and Mexico that made war an unprofitable and dangerous outcome for both countries. Last, the difference in the president's personalities, Polk being ambitious, while Hayes following a cautious policy, as well as the fading of American expansionism and the concept of "manifest destiny."

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2005, Economics

Previous studies found a health advantage of Mexican Americans over non-Hispanic whites after controlling for socioeconomic factors and other elements. This health advantage has been considered as a paradox because Mexican Americans live in more disadvantaged environments and present lower levels of income and human capital than non-Hispanic whites. In order to analyze this paradox I estimate a health production function using physical and mental morbidity as health outcomes to study how human capital, socioeconomic status, health risk behaviors, relative deprivation and social relations affect the health of Mexican Americans and non-Hispanic whites. My results indicate that after controlling for individual health related behaviors, socioeconomic status, relative deprivation (regardless of the relevant reference group) and social relations; there is no difference in physical morbidity between Mexican Americans and non-Hispanic whites. However, I find an advantage on mental health outcomes for Mexican Americans over non-Hispanic whites after controlling for all these factors. After controlling for endogeneity of health endowments, none of the three health related behaviors (smoking, obesity and performing physical activities) affected mental morbidity. However obesity had a huge negative impact on physical morbidity. I found no evidence of a direct impact of education on physical and mental morbidity. However, I found strong evidence of education affecting health related behaviors. I also found evidence suggesting a protective effect of marriage on mental morbidity. The effects of log per capita income on health disappear when introducing relative deprivation. I also found that relative deprivation has a negative direct impact on mental morbidity for Mexican Americans and non-Hispanic whites. My results also show that relative deprivation affects directly the physical morbidity of Mexican Americans but it does not affect the health related behaviors of this populatio (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2006, Spanish (Arts and Sciences)

En este trabajo se estudia la obra Mal de amores de Angeles Mastretta como representante de la postmodernidad en la literatura hispanoamericana, mas concretamente en la mexicana. En el analisis se toman en cuenta elementos como la historiografia y su enfoque en cuanto a la recreacion en la historia no oficial, que da la palabra a ciertas minorias, como son las mujeres, los militantes de izquierda y los pobres. Partiendo de ese prisma se contextualiza la obra dentro de una narrativa escrita por mujeres sobre el tema de la Revolucion Mexicana y se hace una comparacion de la situacion politica del pasado con la del presente. Tambien se analiza como se presenta el concepto postmoderno de la descentralizacion en la novela en cuanto al feminismo, al tiempo, al espacio y a la concepcion de los personajes. El estudio acaba haciendo un analisis de la deconstruccion del sistema patriarcal y politico en la novela.

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2009, Cross-Cultural, International Education

The purpose of this study is to analyze the influence of three cultural components on Mexican-American/Mexican identity. After an exhaustive review of literature relating to sociology, health, religion, and sexuality, three main themes emerged in terms of shaping the values and belief systems of Mexican-Americans/Mexicans. These themes are familism, parental ethnotheories, and religion. This study then explores how these themes may influence sexual education programs that target Mexican-American/Mexican adolescents. The central hypothesis is that sexual education programs that serve a Mexican-American adolescent population must address issues of familism, parental ethnotheories, and religion in order to be culturally relevant and effective. The current study employs a qualitative research methodology that is informed by a social constructionist conceptual framework and a grounded theory analysis of the accumulated data.

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2007, Graduate School

Master of Science, The Ohio State University, 1962, Graduate School

DNP, Kent State University, 2023, College of Nursing

In rural Gonzales County Texas, the Mexican American population faces challenges with a lack of access to health care. The prevalence of chronic illness within the Mexican American population indicates the need for adequate health care access (Hispanic Health, 2015). Barriers such as cultural, financial, and social disparities intensify the disadvantage to the community's relationship with their current health care teams. Telehealth provides an opportunity to address these challenges the community's overall health status. A literature review indicates the complexity of the health status of Mexican Americans, and the immense need for structural reform of the healthcare system in supporting their needs. Currently, the most common diagnoses within the community are hypertension and diabetes (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2021a). With both chronic illnesses, guidelines support patients having routine visits regularly to ensure adequate control of the symptoms of their diseases. Effectively implementing a telehealth application within an internal medicine clinic may allow the patients to maintain a rapport with their health care team and continue to be compliant with their care, with the goal of improving overall health outcomes. The conclusion of the project identified major concerns that the majority of the patients' treatment plan included pharmacologic intervention, most of the patients followed up only once in a given year, as well as the majority of the patients did not have adequate control of their disease. In addition, the survey results showed that the barriers to accessing care within the population are related to how patients are treated while in the clinic.

Master of Science (MS), Bowling Green State University, 1954, Communication Studies