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Pachuquismo e identidad nacional imaginada en los Estados Unidos y México en la década de 1940
Get PDFPachuquismo was a counterculture born in the barrios of East L.A. in the 1940s. Mexican-American youth created their own social group defined by specific clothing (zoot suits), music fusions (mambo and swing), and linguistic dialects (caló). However, on both sides of the U.S. and Mexican border, pachucos had a poor reputation. In the U.S., mainstream media portrayed pachucos as juvenile delinquents and domestic threats. In Mexico, pachucos were mimicked and heavily criticized for their Americanization. In this essay, I identify how U.S. and Mexican mainstream media reacted to pachucos, and what those portrayals can tell us about the imagined national identities in both countries. I use Benedict Anderson’s concept of “imagined communities” to address the fluidity and subjective nature of defining “American,” “Mexican,” national or subnational identities. I center my analysis around three main research questions: (1) How did U.S. mainstream media portray pachucos, and what can that tell us about the imagined “American” national identity in the 1940s? (2) How did the Mexican film industry portray pachucos, and what can that tell us about the imagined “Mexican” national identity in the 1940s? (3) How do pachucos portray themselves through their music, and what does this tell us about their self-imagined national identity? To answer these questions, I look at three media sources from the 1940s to analyze the ways pachucos were criminalized, rejected, and celebrated: a Disney cartoon, a Mexican comedy movie, and a music album compiled by pachuco musicians from Los Angeles. Taken together, these sources demonstrate that the U.S. and Mexico were creating imagined national identities that were in direct opposition to each other, and excluded pachucos for their fusion and hybridity. I argue that contrary to the messages in mainstream media, pachucos were not purely rebels without a cause. Pachucos had agency: they asserted their belonging and cleared space for future generations of Mexican-Americans
Using Cesium-137 to Determine Sedimentation Patterns in Two Proglacial Lakes - Lago Argentino, Argentina, and Lake Josephine, Montana, USA
Get PDFGlaciers are a key driver of bedrock erosion and sediment transport in alpine settings, and subsequent sediment deposition in proglacial lakes records glacial retreat, subglacial erosion rates, and other evidence of environmental change, like wildfires. Sedimentation in these proglacial lakes can reflect a variety of processes and characteristics such as glacier and lake size, proximity to the glacier, depositional patterns, other sources of sediment in the basin, and summer melt rates. Accurate dating of lake sediments in glacial systems can be challenging, particularly on sub-millennial timescales due to limited terrestrial organic matter in these environments. Atmospheric fallout of cesium-137 from aboveground nuclear weapon detonation has been used as a tracer for modern sediment age and deposition rates in northern hemisphere terrestrial landscapes; fewer studies have been done in the southern hemisphere, especially farther south than 50° S, and results are likely complicated by lower atmospheric concentrations recorded there. Peak cesium-137 activity in the cores is an approximate equivalent for peak atmospheric radionuclide fallout from 1962-1965 (Garcia Agudo et al., 1998). Here I analyze a downvalley transect of cores from two alpine lakes, the 100 km long ice-contact Lago Argentino in Argentina and from 2 km long Lake Josephine in Glacier National Park, Montana, the third in a series of paternoster lakes, to assess downvalley variability in sedimentation rates in two endmember glacial lake types.
Gamma-ray spectroscopy was used to measure cesium-137 decays at 2 mm to 1 cm intervals, which was converted to specific activity based on dried sample weight. In Lago Argentino, analyzed cores showed average post-1963 sedimentation rates from 23 mm/yr 20 km from the ice front, to 2.3 mm/yr 80 km downvalley in the main basin (after Van Wyk de Vries et al., 2022). Preliminary results suggest high and episodic sedimentation in ice proximal settings may complicate cesium-137 interpretation. At Lake Josephine, sedimentation rates varied from 0.4-0.8 mm/yr on the upvalley side from cesium-137 and lead-210 dating (Diener, 2015) to 0.4-0.5 mm/yr on the downvalley end using radiocarbon ages (Wydeven, 2009). While it is unlikely sediment production and delivery rates are consistent during this period of climatic variability, these rates are similar to average sedimentation rates found for this lake during the Younger Dryas and early Holocene based on bracketing volcanic ash ages. As expected, cesium-137 concentrations were higher in the North American glacial lake, but southern hemisphere levels were high enough to detect using standard techniques, and coupled with other tools such as varve counting (Van Wyk de Vries et al., 2022) provide a useful dating tool in glacial lakes
Examining the Role of Place Attachment in Climate Justice Engagement and Jewish Relationships to the Environment
Get PDFIt is critical that environmental justice and marginalized identities are the focus of climate-related discussions and research. Solutions must support the long-term wellbeing of people, especially and importantly those who are most vulnerable to the consequences of climate change. Psychological research suggests that place attachment–the meaningful bonds that occur between people and their environment (Scannell & Gifford, 2010)–is a key factor in motivating environmental behavior, but little research has examined its connection to environmental justice oriented behavior. This two-part exploration first evaluated the role of place attachment on engagement with both a typical climate change centered message and a climate justice message (Study 1), and found that there was no effect of message condition on engagement with climate issues. Study 2 used a grounded theory approach to explore identity-specific place attachment bonds, and investigated Jewish relationships to place to develop an understanding of Judaism-based environmental justice engagement. Study 2 generated a set of recommendations for future Jewish community action as the effects of climate change become more observable
Zastrugi: Poems
No full textABSTRACT
This honors project is a collection of poems that explores my memory, trauma, and understanding of my complex relationship with my schizophrenic mother, my own struggles with mental illness, and the systems for mental health treatment in the United States that affect our relationship. In this project, I examine the social origins of my fear of my mother through a backdrop of secondary sources (Andrew Scull, Esmé Weijun Wang, and Lisa Appignanesi) on the history of psychology and psychiatric treatment and attitudes toward “madness” in the 19th and 20th centuries to today, through a style of poetry informed and influenced by Sharon Olds, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Leila Chatti, Cameron Awkward-Rich, Jenny Boychuk, Donika Kelly, Devon Walker-Figueroa, and Diane Seuss. Through poetry, I reflect upon the impact of my mother’s illness, absence, and institutionalization, my fear and altered sense of self, identity in the wake of trauma, and memory as it has been created and altered by trauma and ableist social constructions of severe mental illness
Shaping Sustainability in Classroom Curricula in Singapore: Educators and Students as Collaborative Change Agents
Get PDFClimate change is a global crisis, and in Singapore, a low-lying city-state, its geography makes it susceptible to extreme weather events and zoonotic diseases. Singapore\u27s alignment with global commitments like the United Nations Agenda for Sustainable Development is elevated by its presence as a leader in urban sustainability. Using a mixed-methods approach, this paper explores sustainability as a classroom concept and educators\u27 role in translating curriculum standards into learning that informs, educates, and empowers students to become agents of change. Sharing these perspectives will help develop collaborative learning programs that center educators and students, improving understanding of this important field
SARS-CoV-2 Quantum Sensor Using NV Centers in Nanodiamonds
No full textThe application of quantum mechanics in quantum sensing has grown exponentially in the past decade. Nitrogen Vacancy (NV) centers in nanodiamonds have emerged as a leading quantum sensing platform due to their room temperature coherence and functionality in engineering applications. In this work, with the Quantum Engineering Group at MIT, we propose the use of NV centers for biosensing to detect the presence of SARS-CoV-2 virus. A green laser excites the NV spins and when they decay to their ground state they emit red fluorescence, providing a mechanism for optical characterization. We can attach magnetic ions (gadolinium complexes) to the nanodiamonds that can bind to SARS-CoV-2 viral RNA. The binding then causes these complexes to detach from the nanodiamond due to the stronger magnetic spins produced. The detachment is revealed by longer fluorescence longitudinal relaxation times which we are able to measure. This work describes the first stage of this development project: we begin by characterizing the relaxation times of pure nanodiamonds before attaching gadolinium complexes and viral RNA on the nanodiamond surfaces. In order to comprehend this process from abstract quantum mechanics to applied physics, we also formulate a basis for how quantum sensing works, and why NV centers work as biosensors. This will help to provide a concrete case for the viability of NV centers in quantum sensing and in the proposed application
Gods, Society, and Gender: How Athena and Penelope Aid Odysseus\u27 Homecoming
Get PDFWhile Odysseus is praised for fulfilling his homecoming duties, the individuals who helped him get there are often minimized Specifically, the positive impact of women on Odysseus homecoming is overlooked and is a source of confusion. As the role of women in the Odyssey is debated, Odysseus is depicted as hero bearing wit, intelligence, and nerve. After responding directly to a few prevalent interpretations of Penelope, I argue that Penelope is a character who is faithful and loyal to Odysseus and his estate while emphasizing Athena as the divine character who aligns the conditions for Odysseus return. This paper\u27s response to prevalent interpretations of Penelope allow the argument to be placed into the greater context of scholarship on Penelope’s character. Through analyzing the text in its original Greek, I demonstrate that Odysseus’s homecoming is dependent on Penelope and Athena just as much as it depends on his own character
Homer: The Very Idea. By JAMES J. PORTER. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2021. Pp. vii + 277. Cloth, $27.50. ISBN-13: 978-0-226-67589-3.
Get PDFA Forest Building Process on Graph Families
No full textFor a simple, connected graph, we consider the forest building process in which all edges are randomly ordered, and an edge is kept in the reconstruction if and only if it is incident to at least one vertex which is not incident to any preceding edges. The resulting spanning forest is characterized by a number of trees or components, and we prescribe a general formula for the number of permutations producing any number k components on a path Pn. We similarly present formulas for the number of permutations producing exactly 1 component on graph families including brooms, spiders, and lassos
Mixing Measures for Trees of Fixed Diameter
Get PDFA mixing measure is the expected length of a random walk in a graph given a set of starting and stopping conditions. We determine the tree structures of order n with diameter d that minimize and maximize for a few mixing measures. We show that the maximizing tree is usually a broom graph or a double broom graph and that the minimizing tree is usually a seesaw graph or a double seesaw graph