Latina Identities, Critical Literacies, and Academic Achievement in Community College

This qualitative case study research looks at the intersections of identity, literacy, and achievement for Latina community college students in the East Bay Area of California. The women that I center in this dissertation show how Latinas are multiply positioned within their communities, families, and schools, and how they negotiate damaging and reductive language and literacy ideologies in order to achieve their academic dreams. Following critical sociocultural theories on literacy, Critical Race Theory, and Latina Feminism, I emphasize a strengths-based, affirmation approach that positions the women as theorizers of their own lived experiences and highlights their resiliency. The data in this study show the intersections between ideology and agency, and the complex, and often contradictory attitudes, practices, and strategies the women use to achieve. They must negotiate the enduring impacts of racialized language and literacy ideologies and their histories of participation in the educational pipeline in California. This marginalization challenges their academic identities, and creates feelings of incompetency, not “belonging,” and, most importantly for those of us studying literacy in higher education, confusion about their language and literacy capacities. In addition, the data show that they have not had and continue to not have skilled help related to the intersections of language and literacy acquisition from instructors. Yet, while they experienced tensions in their gendered, ethnic, and academic identities, all saw their identities as Latina women as a strength or an asset, which I argue is a resistant strategy to the sexism in their communities and racist/sexist stereotypes in the educational system. But the women do not see these culturally resilient resources as academic strategies or connected to academics sufficiently to help build their confidence, nor does the system offer them ways to see their assets as academic in nature. For those in Composition and Rhetoric, this data means more work is needed to understand the language and literacy histories, practices, and attitudes of Latinas and effective pedagogies to tap their strengths and affirm their identities and cultures as the acquire academic literacy

Crossing the threshold of empire: from ship to shore in colonial Madras, 1750-1895: Crossing the threshold of empire

This thesis examines the process of moving between ship and shore at the English East India Company port of Madras (Chennai) between 1750 and 1895. It argues that while the history of technology in the British empire has largely focused on the deployment of Western innovations, the daily administration of empire was instead dependent on indigenous technologies and practitioners. Madras’s dangerous littoral environment meant that trade was facilitated by masula boats and catamarans, built, manned, and owned by skilled local boatmen. Prior to the mid-nineteenth century, British dependency on masulas and catamarans allowed the boat people to control the littoral technologically. This thesis argues that the boatmen dictated the speed and volume of trade, and British administrators struggled to introduce regulatory solutions to issues of boat and labour shortages and theft. Merchant dissatisfaction with the boat-based system of movement in the mid-nineteenth century led in part to the eventual construction of port infrastructure. The decision to build in the littoral was the result of both local and imperial impetuses, but a prioritization of metropolitan theoretical expertise over local nautical expertise by Parliament and imperial administrators resulted in the adoption of designs that were ill-adapted to local conditions and repeatedly damaged by daily and monsoonal conditions. Not only does this thesis find that imperial administrators were dependent on indigenous technology for the daily administration of empire, but its littoral approach to Madras also demonstrates that the relative success of different technologies is based on adaptation to the local physical, commercial, and political context. Acknowledging British reliance on local technologies and skilled knowledge holders for essential day-to-day activities leads to a reevaluation of the nature of empire itself. Rather than based solely on dominance and innovative European technologies, empire required adaptability in its administrators and was maintained by local practitioners and locally developed technologies

High School English Language Learners of Latin American Descent Living in Rural Midwestern Communities

A phenomenological study was conducted to examine the experiences of adolescent English Language Learners (ELL) of Latin American descent living in rural Midwestern communities. Participants experienced psychological and social responses related to the major life change of immigrating to a new country and adapting to an alien culture. Challenges experienced by adolescent immigrants involved a chronological and simultaneous process of adaptation, as evidenced by the following stages: (1) apprehension about coming to a new country and fitting in with friends when they started school; (2) adjustment to the new culture and alien environment; (3) cultural bereavement and ambiguous loss. Learning English served as a means of communicating and a key factor in helping the participants adapt to a new culture. Recommendations to address the issues regarding academic and social challenges faced by immigrant students of Latino origin with limited English proficiency included providing a support person such as a home liaison or advocate for the student to increase communication between the school and family, initiating a mentor-tutor program in the school and community, and providing professional development for teachers working with ELL and immigrant students. Recommendations include further research on factors contributing to the academic success of students adjusting to major life changes may help address concerns relating to low academic achievement and high dropout rates among Latino students

After;life

After;life is an exploration of the time and space between life and death. The installation, created from dozens of woodcut prints, creates this imaginary place, and encompasses viewers through sight, smell, sound, and touch. All elements of this installation are heavily influenced by Southern Louisiana culture and wildlife, and are meant to be familiar enough to provoke personal memory and experience. A set of rituals in the form of three poems, corresponding to three different spirit guides: The Black Dog, The Alligator, and The Opossum, lead the reader through the space from life, through liminal, into death

National De-Escalation Training Center: Tools for law enforcement to reduce unnecessary use of force

Reducing uses of force is one of the most significant challenges to policymakers and practitioners Of the various methods being proposed, de escalation training represents the option most likely to do so This article reviews the literature concerning uses of force and describes the National De Escalation Training Center ( a decentralized research and training organization recently funded by the Department of Justice, Office of Community Oriented Policing Services With the popular support for de escalation growing in the public consensus, the NDTC answers the call for that training to be evidence based, with the national infrastructure to distribute and evaluate i

De-escalation training: An evidence-based practice to reduce force and increase legitimacy

Police officers must approach volatile situations that may escalate on a frequent basis. As first responders, they often do not have the luxury of ignoring conflict in public and must work to resolve the situation. However, officers’ presence may inadvertently escalate situations, leading to coercive responses, injury, or worse. The National De-Escalation Training Center (NDTC) has received $4.75 million dollars to provide de-escalation training that incorporates rapid personality assessment, mental health issue recognition, and situational awareness built on a procedural justice foundation. Using data from the first year of trainings conducted across the U.S., we have found that NDTC training dramatically improves officers’ ability to recognize levels of escalation, tailor their response to the individuals’ personality types, and respond effectively. Consequently, trainees are better equipped to avoid turning volatile situations into tragedies and exacerbating the existing cynicism towards law enforcement