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Fifth Annual CISA Student Symposium

(Go to the main Student Symposium page)

Saturday April 27, 2002 Mount Holyoke College Welcome: Robert Schwartzwald, UMass Amherst Professor of French and Italian Director, Crossroads in the Study of the Americas Session I: Identities in Diaspora Moderator: Ginetta Candelario, Smith College Professor of Sociology Nora Grais-Clements, Smith College "Geography of Identity: From Philadelphia Negro to 'Inglese' and Beyond" - I am researching and documenting the lives, histories and experiences of descendants of peoples who migrated from Philadelphia to the Samana peninsula (in what was then Haiti) in 1824 as African-American freed slaves. In 1844, when the Dominican Republic declared its independence on the eastern two-thirds of the island of Hispaniola, Smana became dominican territory. Since the initial migration in 1824, the group, known as los Ingleses has maintained a culturally cohesive community on the peninsula, continued use of the English language (within a Spanish-speaking nation) and customs remnant of their US historical ties. In recent years, members of the community have played a role in the larger Dominican migration to the United States, settling primarily in the Washington DC region. Focusing specifically on the factors which led to the initial migration from the US to Haiti, I will present on the period from 1750 to 1850, using the political and historical perspective to understand what led to the migration, what were the ideologies and opinions regarding emigration at the time, and who were the key players in the movement. Throughout my analysis I pay close attention to the history and politics of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, as well as the United States. My main interest lies in the development and maintenance of racial and national identities across transnational borders. Hae-Won Hwang, Smith College "Blacks and Koreans and the Los Angeles Riots of 1992" - My project looks at the dichotomy of Blacks and Koreans in Los Angeles. Specifically, I examine the historic, economic, political and social forces behind the Los Angeles riots of 1992, including the factors that led to the Korean migration to Los Angeles, the differential access to power experienced by Koreans and Blacks in Los Angeles, and the effect of the media's simplistic representation of the riot as a Korean-Black conflict. Alex Cuellar, Hampshire College "Screen Doors" - My main concentration at Hampshire has been to trace an American identity through literature, beginning with traditionally canonical, US work, then branching out to include work outside of the traditional, which led me to ask why it is outside at all. From the beginning, my objective was to write a work of fiction addressing issues of identity such as nationalism, minorities, race and class in a setting that is, I feel, unique in this country and to this country. I knew I wanted to set the story in Miami. My novella follows three generations of men who have simultaneously emigrated from El Salvador. I will read a portion of my work at the symposium, discuss how Miami is, and isn't, the most American city in the United States and what has helped to shape it, and how those things influenced my writing along with my academic work at Hampshire. Session II: Divided Selves Moderator: Dale Peterson, Amherst College Professor of Russian and English Ann S. Lee, Mount Holyoke College "'A Korean-American Dream" The story of my family's immigration from South Korea to South America to the United States has always intrigued me. With some research and in-depth interviews, I have been able to discover the whole story at last -- the story of a multi-generation immigrant family's experience. I was so surprised when I discovered the number one reason my family left South Korea was to get a better education. In my narrow-mindedness, I has assumed that the held the same American respect for education as I did, believing that an education would expand their minds and give them intellectual freedom. But when I found out that they thought education would lead to a better job, I suddenly understood what all the obsession with SAT, math and English tutors were about. It wasn't' that they wanted me to be best. . . they wanted me to be better. Jasmine Ty, Mount Holyoke College "The Brown Brothers" - Growing up in Manila was similar yet different from my life growing up in the US; because of the history of the Philippines under US colonial rule, there has in effect developed a "colonial mentality." This paper seeks to show the hybridity Lisa Lowe talks about in Immigrant Acts by analyzing Filipino texts and the way they are influenced by US colonization and concepts. I will analyze how the US occupation of the Philippines shaped concept Filipinos have of America and the notions they bring with them as they enter the US. Session III: "Structures of Power and Resistance" Moderator: Robert Schwartzwald, UMass Amherst Professor of French and Italian; Director of CISA Mark A. Massaro, UMass Amherst "The Free Trade of the Americas: Does One Size Fit All?" - Proposed at the 1994 Summit of the Americas, the grandiose free trade zone of the Americas is scheduled for kickoff by 2005. Targeted to gradually loosen and eliminate barriers to trade, this neo-liberal economic model hopes to increase intra-regional trade. My paper analyses with a fine scope the potential for success and failure of this giant free trade zone. Protectionist and neo-liberal models will be compared and contrasted as we examine why the inward-looking Import Substitution Industrialization model failed in Latin America. I will argue that the FTAA trade zone seems to imply that each country can benefit immediately from the reduction of tariffs and quotas throughout the region. It is crucial, however, to examine the readiness of each individual country within the proposed trade bloc and to see which model would work best based on political, economic, cultural and the ethical-moral-social standards of its citizens. I propose that the three macroeconomic targets must be met for each country in the trade zone in order for the FTAA to be implemented: higher GDP, higher employment rates and greater stabilization of prices. Joshua Garrett-Davis, Amherst College "Red Meat, White Meat, and the Other White Meat: Economic Development and Cultural Conflict on the Yankton Sioux Indian Reservation, 1975" - My thesis is an historical-journalistic account of two short occupations of the Yankton Sioux Industries pork processing plant in Wagner, South Dakota in the spring of 1975 by American Indian Movement members of the Yankton Sioux Tribe. The plant opened on the poor, rural reservation about one year earlier as an economic development project heavily funded by the federal government. By the time of the occupation, only six of the 45 employees were Indian. My thesis explores the reasons for the plant's failure as economic development, as well as the rise of Indian activism on the reservation. Particularly, the conflict between reservation culture and the mechanization of the disassembly line doomed the plant from its conception. The managers of the pork plant were, also incongruously, Conservative Jews from Texas. My thesis examines the encounter between these managers and the Indians as well as local whites on the reservation (which is a "checkerboard" of Indian and white land following the Dawes Allotment Act of 1887), most of whom were Czech and other central European immigrants around the turn of the twentieth century. One surprising outgrowth of this interaction was the use of anti-Semitic rhetoric by some of the Yankton people, who had previously had not contact with Jews. The thesis is based largely on interviews I conducted in January with Indian and white people around Wagner, as well as newspaper accounts and court records. Rosina Shiliwala, Mount Holyoke College "The Puppetmasters: Globalization, Cultural Hegemony and Identity Politics in My Year of Meats " - Ruth Ozeki's novel, My Year of Meats, presents the complexities of globalization through her main character, Jane Takagi-Little. Jane, an unemployed bi-racial Japanese-American woman, is given the opportunity to take on a job as a Coordinator of the production team for the Japanese television program "My American Wife!" The goal of the program is to create a dominant discourse for the Japanese about what values, customs and attributes of a "real" American. In this paper, I argue that Jane's character serves as a cultural puppet who is used to forge a link between American (corporate) and Japanese (consumer) societies through two main borders: through the commodification of the meat industry, and through her bi-racial identity as a Japanese American woman. During a period of growing globalization, Jane becomes the perfect liminal identity for the Japanese producers of "My American Wife!" as well as for the American sponsors, Beef EX. As both the Americans and the Japanese string her along in an attempt to use her identity to help establish a newly imagined community of beef consumers, Jane realizes that she must untangle herself from the hands of her puppeteers. To do this, she must first reject any participation in the commodification of beef, and secondly, she must free herself from the commodification of her own identity, a trade that both the American sponsors and the Japanese producers are successful at exploiting. Session IV: Performing the Americas Moderator: Rebecca Miller Assistant Professor of Music of the Americas William R, Barry, UMass Amherst "They Don't Know Who We Be" - Contemporary music is often discarded for its brash tone or capitalistic motive. But when we so quickly disregard the momentum that rap and hip-hop have created, we lose an opportunity to have a dialogue on the forces of culture in America. It is here that I want to focus: culture in America, with a specific discussion on race. I will use three modern musical pieces to provide the groundwork for addressing questions involving race, gender, age and class, specifically "Who We Be" by DMX, "Blackman in Effect" and "Stop the Violence" by Boogie Down Productions. I contend that the question of race provides the vehicle for addressing questions of gender, age and class. Eloisa Toussint, Smith College "Dance Movement Therapy and Capoeira" - Capoeira, an age-old Afro-Brazilian martial art and dance form, was engaged historically in resistance to slavery. Today contemporary Dance Movement Therapy has been used successfully to treat conditions generated by various forms of societal repression. I will argue that traditional capoeira could also be employed as a dance therapy modality. Diana Archuleta, Mount Holyoke College "Re-Membering Connections and Histories Through Theater'" - This paper explores and questions the intersections of art and social change in the US by looking at the roles and accomplishments of Latinas in theater, performance and production. My observations are largely based on my experience with "Brava! For Women in Arts" a feminist and multicultural presenting, producing and educational organization in San Francisco's all-too-rapidly-gentrifying Mission District. "Brava!," founded in 1986, is a cultural foothold for the Mission District community, which is threatened with cultural, economic and political displacement.