In America, the legacy of contradiction between Christian ideals and the reality of institutional slavery, and anti-black racism creates spiritual-racial identity dissonance for African-American Christians. For black Christian men facing the current global health crisis of assault on black personhood, understanding the complexities of spiritual-racial identity is crucial to the holistic health and well-being of African-American Christians. I investigate the embodied, historic friction between American-Christianity and Black identity. How do black men of faith embody, navigate, develop, maintain, and face challenges to their spiritual-racial identity? To answer this question I conducted life histories and focus groups with the black Christian men who participated in the Ghana 360 Challenge (G360). G360 exists to educate, empower and equip college-aged, African-American men spiritually, culturally, and professionally through a 5-week leadership experience in Ghana. Given that the African-American church has been the supplier of many civil rights activists, the study of the lived experience of African-American Christians is integral in continuing to intentionally center and empower black communities and other historical and systematically marginalized communities, especially now when the value of black lives are being contested at every level of the American criminal justice system. Findings include spiritual-racial transformation, transcending orgins, and emphasizing indigenous analysis methods. This research offers tools of hope, resistance, and faith in the midst of spiritual and racial upheaval. By strengthening my own embodied ontological foundation as researcher and creating co-created work that uplifts the voices of my participants as a spiritual, intellectual, and political community, I reinterpret widely circulating stories of black men as prophets as opposed to criminals. Ultimately, this research will contribute to local, and global liberation by exploring the axiology of brokenness as a resistance framework that helps reframe liberational politics as occurring in new sites, or old sites that have been ignored or misrepresented.

I will be doing research alongside Dr. Ronnie Dunn, for the 50th Year Commemoration of the Stokes brothers. Carl Stokes was the first African American mayor of a major US city, and Brother Louis Stokes, was the first African-American congressman in the state of Ohio. The commemoration will focus on the contributions the Stokes brothers made within Greater Cleveland via a public policy perspective. This research will mainly focus on the category of Public Safety Sector, specifically on policing because local/national racial tensions then, mirror those of today. Since these racial tensions have not decreased, this means new policies and changes need to be implemented, thus I question why they have not been implemented. I will look at Mayor Stokes funding proposal titled: “Cleveland: NOW!” and other administrative documents from the early 1960’s. I will be analyzing the impact he had on public safety policies while in office, and use it as a model to study the current climate of public safety. I expect to find that public safety policies and police administration are still being ran how they were fifty years ago in spite of the evolving and ever-changing society. Collectively, this information will be used to help conduct a report with recommendations that policy makers can utilize for enhancing public safety.

This study analyzes the correlation of speeches by members of Congress who were supported by the Tea Party political movement with changes in mainstream conservative political discourse. The rhetoric of these politicians after the Tea Party’s ascendance in the 2010 congressional elections was compared to the rhetoric used by John McCain, the Republican nominee in 2008, and Donald Trump, the Republican nominee in 2016 and current President, to understand the correlation with other changes in conservative discourse. This discourse shift was studied using speech analysis to code for instances of negative discourse and establish a comparison between these election years while also noting rhetorical shifts evident among mainstream conservative politicians. The sources were five speeches delivered by John McCain during his 2008 campaign along with five speeches delivered by Donald Trump during his 2016 campaign with these five speeches being the campaign announcement speech, a speech on immigration, a speech on foreign policy, a speech to the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee Conference, and the speech after claiming the Republican nomination, along with two speeches by Sarah Palin between 2008 and 2010 and five speeches from Tea Partiers (Michele Bachmann, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and Rand Paul) to test for a correlation between the Tea Party's ascendance in 2010 and increasing normalization of harmful discourse. Rhetorical strategies coded as harmful discourse were fear-inducing language, political myths, dog-whistle rhetoric, conspiratorial accusations, and personal insults.

“William Faulkner’s Portrayal of Women” provides an in-depth literature analysis of the role women play in two of Faulkner’s major novels, The Sound and the Fury (1929) and The Wild Palms (1939). Following the characterization of Candace “Caddy” Compson and Charlotte Rittenmeyer, my paper confirms the meaning of being a woman in a patriarchal society. Connecting literary and social movements, such as modernism, the development and actions of the characters are explained in terms of the traditional versus modern woman. The paper also calls into question Faulkner’s motives behind not fully giving his women literary independence. We see this in Caddy who is never given a voice, but is instead shown to the reader through the eyes of dominant male characters and through Charlotte’s incapability to be a mother. The implication of this type of portrayal of women suggest that though Faulkner attempts to embrace the modernist view of women, he cannot fully let go of a tradition that dictates that women are defined by men.

Indigenismo, a central ideology in Mexico’s post-revolutionary nation-building projects, both celebrated and sought to assimilate Mexico’s substantial indigenous population. The ideology was shaped by several disciplines, including biology and anthropology, and was adopted by the Mexican government to promote cultural nationalism in the 1920's and 1930's. There was a common agreement that education reform would be key to spread multiculturalism which, in theory, would create a more holistic and established “Mexican” identity. While the architects of indigenismo were predominantly privileged mestizo men, the subjects of their efforts were primarily women, who bore the burden of reproduction and family education. Nonetheless, the scholarship on indigenismo in Mexico has yet to explore gender roles and eugenics. My project adopts a gendered lens to explore if and how these cross-culture teachings reshaped the societal expectations of womanhood among indigenous women. Using archival research, teaching pamphlets and publications by these policy makers along with secondary scholarship, I hypothesize that reformers used education to control the indigenous female body.

John Locke's 17th century Classical Liberal work, the Two Treatises of Government sets out to create a theory of just government, grounded in property rights and individual liberty. Locke's writings greatly influenced the founding fathers of the U.S. Constitutional system. Chapter V of the Second Treatise of Government argues for the justifications for land theft of the Indigenous tribes of North America, in order for European settlers to establish colonial rule. The fundamental Indigenous concept that inhibited the spread of Liberal society was "ownership" of land in common. In this way, Liberal ideology sets out to justify individual property ownership, while undermining the Indigenous way of life. The focus of this study is the epistemological struggle between Liberal individualism and Indigenous community, which continues in America to the present. The intent of this study is to conduct a literary analysis of critical Indigenous and Classical Liberal scholarship in order to analyze how Classical Liberalism's epistemology of individualism subverts the Indigenous epistemology of community. Additionally, the study seeks to uncover the current practical implications of this subversion on the Indigenous peoples of North America. Specifically, how does this subversion impact current land and water struggles between the U.S. Government, their corporate allies and the Indigenous peoples? The findings of this study aim to expand the Indigenous critique of Liberal individualism. 

This study asks what are the lived experiences of two refugee women who have resettled in Portland, OR regarding their acculturation, adaptation, and resilience. The purpose of this investigation is to examine the successes and challenges of their resettlement process, the power of their resilience, and their cultural experience. The ethnography provides a glimpse into what assistance refugee women receive in regards to cultural adjustment in the United States, their experiences with Portland refugee resettlement, and provide reflection on how both the state agencies and community programs could better benefit and support women refugees in Portland, Oregon. This study explores the needs of women refugees during resettlement. Preliminary findings reveal anticipatory anxiety, a devaluing of refugee women’s prior experiences, and high stress. Oftentimes the needs and life histories of women are overlooked and generalizations made about experiences do not always reflect the experiences of female refugees. Through the individual's explorations of their histories and personal paradigms, the ethnographic interview will allow the refugee women to be a primary resource and provide a greater understanding of the Portland, Oregon resettlement. In conclusion, the final part of this research briefly discusses the four Portland-based community organizations and government agencies designed to assist in resettlement and evaluate the competencies critical to interacting and providing effective resettlement.

To many “he” or “she” is just a word, but for the transgender individual these words pose an emotionally charged socialization. An instance of misgendering, being a very common experience for transgender individuals, has an association with violence and ultimately a denial of self. While the trans community has recognized the significance of accurate language in including trans persons in social groups, the relationship between language and an individual’s identity has yet to be fully explored. This research seeks to define the role of pronouns as a connection to the trans individual’s personal identity. Specifically, how someone’s use of accurate pronouns may recognize who an individual is and the adverse impact of inaccurate language. My approach is contextual, contingent on the knowledge one has about the person they are speaking about, in hopes of reconciling the issue of privacy and potential harm of misgendering a person. Under an ethical framework, I assert that we have a positive duty to use the pronouns that a trans person prefers. However, one can only say someone’s pronouns if they are aware of the pronouns that person uses. So in order to maintain a protection of both one’s personal identity and privacy, I propose that one ought to use “they” in reference to another person until they are aware of that person’s pronouns with certainty.

A popular video seen on the world-wide web has introduced the notion that Spanish and Arabic are practically the same language, and assumptions that if one can speak Spanish they can also speak Arabic. The evidence offered for such a claim is wholly based on nine words that are similar in contemporary Arabic and Spanish, and the fact that there was a Moorish occupation in Spain from 711-1492 AD. The Moorish kingdom's influence is certainly still seen throughout Southern Spain, and there are remnants of borrowed words in the language. However, the two languages are significantly diverse syntactically, morphologically, phonologically, and semantically outside of a small percentage of word borrowings. This research provides a partial a quantitative and qualitative contrastive and comparative analysis of Arabic influences in the 5,000 most frequently used words in Spanish. Additionally, this project provides a listing of usage frequencies of those words and others derived from Arabic that are still used today. Derivational histories and cultural influences are also provided.