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O “T

J” L’

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CEM

ajor

: Pol

itica

l Sci

ence

Men

tor:

Dr.

Mic

hael

Roc

caPo

ster

Pre

sent

atio

n: H

ealth

care

Acc

ess

for L

atin

x Im

mig

rant

s an

d Th

eir F

amili

es

in th

e A

lbuq

uerq

ue A

rea

New

Mex

ico

has

the

larg

est p

erce

ntag

e of

Lat

inx

indi

vidu

als

(48%

in 2

014)

of a

ny s

tate

in th

e U

S. A

ccor

ding

to

the

Am

eric

an im

mig

ratio

n Co

unci

l, fir

st-g

ener

atio

n im

mig

rant

s co

mpr

ise

9.4%

of t

he p

opul

atio

n of

New

Mex

ico,

w

ith 7

0% o

f the

m c

omin

g fr

om M

exic

o al

one.

The

cur

rent

pol

itica

l clim

ate

in th

e U

S is

hos

tile

tow

ard

thes

e fir

st-

gene

ratio

n La

tinx

imm

igra

nts.

Both

imm

igra

tion

and

heal

thca

re a

re e

xtre

mel

y co

ntro

vers

ial i

ssue

s th

at h

ave

each

see

n a

sign

ifica

nt n

umbe

r of p

olic

y ch

ange

s in

rece

nt y

ears

. The

y in

terc

onne

ct in

New

Mex

ico

ofte

n,

beca

use

ther

e is

a c

once

ptio

n pe

ople

imm

igra

te fr

om M

exic

o an

d La

tin A

mer

ica

as a

who

le to

the

US

seek

ing

heal

thca

re. T

he id

ea th

at im

mig

rant

s cr

eate

a b

urde

n on

pro

gres

sive

hea

lthca

re p

olic

y, h

owev

er th

ese

notio

ns

are

unfo

unde

d an

d la

rgel

y ba

sed

in ra

cism

. Lat

inx

indi

vidu

als

face

a n

umbe

r of h

ealth

care

dis

parit

ies

com

pare

d to

non

-His

pani

c w

hite

s; h

ighe

r rat

es o

f ast

hma,

tube

rcul

osis

, obe

sity

, dia

bete

s, in

fant

mor

talit

y, a

nd m

ore

plag

ue

in th

eir c

omm

uniti

es. T

hese

hea

lthca

re d

ispa

ritie

s ar

e of

ten

the

resu

lt of

soc

ial d

eter

min

ants

like

acc

ess

issu

es

and

finan

cial

bar

riers

. In

this

stu

dy, I

aim

to id

entif

y w

hat h

ealth

care

reso

urce

s ar

e av

aila

ble

to fi

rst-

gene

ratio

n La

tinx

imm

igra

nts

and

thei

r fam

ilies

; fur

ther

mor

e, w

heth

er th

ese

reso

urce

s ad

equa

tely

add

ress

the

need

s of

this

popu

latio

n an

d ar

e ut

ilize

d to

a re

ason

able

ext

ent.

ISA

IAH

RO

MO

Maj

or: L

atin

Am

eric

an S

tudi

esM

ento

r: D

r. Ire

ne V

asqu

ezO

ral P

rese

ntat

ion:

Red

es S

in F

ront

eras

: Tra

cing

the

Tran

snat

iona

l Net

wor

ks o

f So

n Ja

roch

o on

the

U.S

.-Mex

ico

Bord

erla

nds

My

proj

ect s

eeks

to u

nder

stan

d th

e gr

owin

g pr

esen

ce o

f Son

Jaro

cho

mus

ic in

the

U.S

.-Mex

ico

Bord

erla

nds.

Son

Jaro

cho

is a

sty

le o

f mus

ic th

at o

rigin

ated

in th

e st

ate

of V

erac

ruz,

on

the

gulf

coas

t of M

exic

o; it

has

its

orig

ins

in A

fric

an, I

ndig

enou

s, an

d Sp

anis

h m

usic

al p

ract

ices

. I e

xplo

re h

ow th

e tr

aditi

on o

f Son

Jaro

cho

has

been

sha

ped

by th

e m

usic

al n

etw

orks

thro

ugh

whi

ch it

flow

s, co

nnec

ting

an in

crea

sing

ly w

ider

tran

snat

iona

l co

mm

unity

of m

usic

ians

and

mus

ic e

nthu

sias

ts. U

sing

a c

ombi

natio

n of

net

wor

k an

alys

is, e

thno

grap

hy, o

ral

hist

ory,

and

par

ticip

ant o

bser

vatio

n, I

trac

e So

n Ja

roch

o's

cont

empo

rary

resu

rgen

ce in

citi

es s

uch

as

Alb

uque

rque

, Tiju

ana,

Tuc

son,

San

Fel

ipe,

El P

aso,

and

San

Die

go th

roug

h in

divi

dual

mus

icia

ns a

nd a

ctor

s, so

cial

med

ia/g

loba

lized

tech

nolo

gies

, and

loca

l com

mun

ity fa

ndan

go c

eleb

ratio

ns. I

ana

lyze

the

stru

ctur

e an

d m

aint

enan

ce o

f the

Son

Jaro

cho

netw

ork

and

how

it c

onne

cts

to o

ther

fact

ors

such

as

mig

ratio

n an

d gr

ass-

root

s so

cial

just

ice

mov

emen

ts. M

y st

udy

cont

ribut

es to

the

know

ledg

e of

cul

tura

l pro

duct

ion

of S

on Ja

roch

o in

the

U.S

. I d

raw

on

the

theo

retic

al in

fluen

ces

and

appr

oach

es o

f Mex

ican

and

Chi

cana

-o e

thno

mus

icol

ogis

ts

and

scho

lars

, inc

ludi

ng S

teve

Loz

a, A

lexa

ndro

Her

nánd

ez, R

anda

ll Ko

hl, A

nton

io G

arcí

a de

Leo

n, R

afae

l Fig

uero

a,

and

Mar

tha

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zale

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UNM MMUF FELLOWS RESEARCH PROJECTS

All eight UNM MMUF fellows presented at the regional conference at UCLA on November 3.

Photographic history in US has a capitalistic, colonial, and racist past. In the 19th century most successful image-makers were funded by the government to create propaganda for its imperial projects. The photographers had the intention to further cement the delusion of Manifest Destiny and encouraged the extermination of indigenous humans. I use critical race, performance, and queer theory to analyze the photographs and performances of Laura Aguilar and Nona Faustine. Both artists are racialized and do not achieve euro-centric standards of beauty and femininity. For Aguilar, whose Centers (1996) performance in the New Mexico desert confronts the late 19th century photographic spectacles of landscape and exploration therein: vast, and with no depiction of the life thatwas exterminated in these spaces. In White Shoes (2015), set in Brooklyn, Faustine confronts the landscape built on slavery. About the works, she states “These are the meditative reflections of a history Americans have not come to terms with, challenging the duality of what is both visible and invisible.” Through the analysis of these images I question how the aesthetics of Aguilar and Faustine function to disrupt neo-liberal and colonial conventions of landscape and body; and whether the use of colonial aesthetics can ever disrupt colonial ideas and systems.

LIZBETH MISCLESMajor: Art HistoryMentors: Dr. Kency Cornejo

Talking Circle: Are all aesthetics violence? An analysis of Laura Aguilar and Nona Faustine’s use of their bodies and landscapes of erasure

A vowel is a unique sound that is created by the constant flow of air through the vocal tract, the ‘quality’ of this sound is manipulated by the active articulators, including the tongue, the jaw, and the lips. The process of vowel reduction is motivated by both social and phonological factors such as the stress assignment of a word, vowel duration, speech tempo, or speech style. In this project, these motivating factors will be explored, and the physical process of vowel reduction will be illustrated as it takes place in the Kukama-Kukamiria language. KK is a highly endangered Amazonian Language that is spoken in Peru. Out of around 1,000 individuals who speak KK, most of them are older than 55 years and are also bilingual in Spanish. Consequently KK is ideal for challenging and strengthening cross-linguistic theories, including vowel reduction as a social and phonological process. Quantitative data will be gathered from interview recordings via Praat, an acoustic analysis software, and word final vowels with those in the post-tonic position so as to illustrate the phonological processes taking place. Qualitative analysis of the results may be conducted to determine what social factors are most relevant to motivating vowel reduction in the respective speech situations.

UNM MMUF FELLOWS RESEARCH PROJECTS

Latino people will soon be the largest base of eligible voters in US. Despite this rapid demographic shift, Latino populations have comparatively low voting turnout. Substantial collected polling has been collected to explain the driving factors of Latino Voter turnout, including low socio-economic status, lack of access to resources, experiences of discrimination, and difficulties obtaining meaningful education. These components, while useful, cannot fully explain the voter turnout gap between Latinos and other populations. Nor can they fully elucidate a picture of the institutional allowed participation. Importantly, these components fail to explore the effects of historical events and generational trauma on the ways that Latino populations engage with government institutions apropos voting engagement. Although psychoanalysis is frequently omitted from the realm of political theory, I believe they are interconnected in meaningful and impactful ways. Many philosophers, including Jacques Lacan, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, and Herbert Marcuse provide compelling theories that apply to the Latino Voting population in various ways. Using these broader philosophical contributions in connection to analytical data presented surrounding Latino voting participation, a non-traditional query of participation can be done which I believe yield non-traditional and more accurate ways to discuss Latino populations in America’s democratic system.

UNM MMUF FELLOWS RESEARCH PROJECTS

ISIS LOPEZMajor: Political ScienceMentor: Dr. Tim KrebsTalking Circle: A Philosophical Analysis of Latino Political Participation in the United States

DAMIEN LOPEZMajor: LinguisticsMentors: Dr. Chris Koops

Talking Circle: Vowel Reduction in Kukama-Kukamiria

Epistemic oppression is the exclusion from communities that produce and justify knowledge that damages a group of people. Often this exclusion is deeply embedded in the practices and ways of justification that characterize a particular community of knowers. How might one engage with their own way of producing and justifying knowledge in order to better, ameliorate epistemic injustice? In US academic philosophy and theory, analogies to language or linguistic acts are often used to help conceptualize the mediation between more than one epistemology. While these conceptual schemes seem very useful or even natural, what kinds of knowledge might they also foreclose? This paper attempts to track some of the positions that theorize knowledge production and justification, and track how the concepts of linguistic exchange and translation figure in these theories. I suggest that an engagement with the way in which failures partially or do not showup must be engaged in order to produce a better theory of such failures at the institutional level.

SAMUEL SMITHMajor: PhilosophyMentor: Dr. Ann MurphyTalking Circle: Epistemic Injustice and the Academic Institution: Languages

SHELBY ZUBIAMajor: LinguisticsMentor: Dr. Dawn NordquistOral Presentation: “What If?”: How Counterfactual Thinking Can Be Used to Campaign for Language Revitalization

Approximately 34 languages become dormant each year. Just in New Mexico alone, there are 12 languages that are classified as endangered, and are at risk of becoming extinct, a state where there are no known speakers. While many studies have been conducted about how heavily these heritage language communities have been trying to increase their speakers, most of them conclude that it is a very difficult task. My study investigates how communities on the outside interpret this state of language endangerment that is happening not too far from where they live and how we get the outside community interested in this topic. I am relying on studies that use counterfactual thinking to persuade individuals to change their behavior or adopt a new perspective. I will specifically look into the effect of “counterfactual thinking” on encouraging neighboring community members’ participation in language revitalization efforts. By composing 2 campaign letters, one including counterfactual thinking and one without, I will investigate whether this psychological method can get individuals involved in an issue that does not have immediate implication for the self. This study is important for public policy makers and non-profits who are interested increasing support for their cause.

Since 1996, the United States government has passed policies that conjure up the need for a physical barrier along the United States-Mexico border. The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, the Real ID Act of 2005 and the Secure Fence Act of 2006 significantly expanded the presence of physical barriers along the border, and they allowed individuals within the government to ignore environmental legislation that would impede the construction of such barriers. These laws adversely impacted wildlife, and the ecosystems on which they depend. One study showed that after implementation of the Secure Fence Act, habitat range was decreased by as much 75% for certain species, and this decrease was associated with a higher risk of extinction. Primary text analysis of four nature writers; William Kittredge, John Clare, Thomas Merton, and David Abram enable critical evaluations on how such laws come to fruition by showing how laws are based on a collective mythology and self-interest that is ultimately harmful, even though it is rooted in the language of freedom. Their writings make it transparent that to form laws which are not destructive to the environment, society must reassess its collective mythologies while taking a perspective that incorporates alternative modes of intelligence.

THOMAS “TRE” GRAVESMajor: Political ScienceMentor: Dr. Jami Nelson-NunezOral Presentation: Green Political Thought and its Implications for United States Border Policies