CSRC Research Grants, 2017-2018

When and How Do Diversity Courses (and Other Inclusion Initiatives) Teach Lessons that Reduce Social Inequality?

Principal Investigator: Tiffany Brannon, UCLA Department of Psychology

This research project examines the social psychological processes that allow for diverse cultural ideas and practices within intuitions such as colleges. Brannon will conduct two studies: one study involves the “simulation” of a course on African American and Latino American literature; the other is a longitudinal analysis of intergroup consequences of freshman who identify as white or Asian American.

Manufacturing Celebrity: Whitewashed Red Carpets, Latino Paparazzi, and the Political Economy of Hollywood Media Production

Principal Investigator: Vanessa Diaz, Visiting Scholar, Communications

IAC funds were awarded for the continued study of the power of media producers, even those on the periphery (e.g. paparazzi), in shaping national culture and discourse. Díaz will analyze the motivations behind the decisions of individuals and companies that create celebrity media. Funding will assist in the completion of Díaz’s paparazzi-related research, which includes the completion of a book manuscript, article, and documentary film. Note: Diaz’s visiting scholar appointment was extended through summer 2017, entitling her to apply for research funds for the 2017-18 year.

Sexing Empire: Producing Nationhood, Sexual Economies, and Racialized Gender and Sexuality in the Nineteenth-Century Literary Borderlands and Archive

Principal Investigator: Bernadine Hernández, Visiting Scholar, University of New Mexico Department of English

Hernández, assistant professor of English Language and Literature at UNM, will be in residence to complete her book project “Sexing Empire: Producing Nationhood, Sexual Economies, and Racialized Gender and Sexuality in the Nineteenth-Century Literary Borderlands and Archive,” which links the utility of Mexican and Mexican American females living and laboring on the borderlands to the process of racialization and the emergence of capitalism in the U.S.

El Rio Grande as Unruly Archive: Submerged Voices of the Chamizal Diaspora

Principal Investigator: Alana de Hinojosa, PhD student, UCLA César E. Chávez Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies

This study examines the Chamizal dispute —a century-long land dispute between the U.S. and México, settled in 1964, caused by the meandering of the Río Grande. De Hinojosa’s dissertation project will argue that geopolitical borders are a colonial fiction that separates the empowered from the disempowered, and reshape the lives and worldviews of those caught in the middle of geopolitical disputes. Relying on interviews and archival research, the project will also be informed by Third World women of color feminism, U.S.-México borderlands history, and the intersection of Chicana/o/x studies and human geography. De Hinojosa will tell a new history through narrative and poems, the latter based on the interviews.

If Vendors Get No Justice, You Don’t Get No Peace! Black and Latina/o Street Vendors Demand Rights in Contested Urban Spaces

Principal Investigator: Leighanna Hidalgo, PhD student, UCLA César E. Chávez Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies

Supported in part by the Tamar Diana Wilson Fund

Cultural, Interpersonal and Communication Themes in a Depression Prevention Program with Adolescents from Low-Income Immigrant Families

Principal Investigator: Tamar Kodish, PhD student, UCLA Department of Psychology

This study concerning depression prevention among adolescents from low-income immigrant families will ask the following research questions: (1) Do cultural/class differences emerge in the types of target goals and presenting interpersonal stressors that teens present with in treatment? (2) Are there cultural/class differences in the types of coping and emotion regulation strategies adolescents report using? (3) Do cultural/class differences emerge in the cultural values, behaviors and themes that arise in treatment? (4) Are there cultural/class differences in adolescent success in applying target treatment skills? Between 2014 and 2016 Kodish has performed 131 interviews at the two schools and developed in consultation with her advisor a coding manual based on their qualitative analysis. IAC funds will cover half of the budget for software (and related licenses) to code the transcripts and analyze the differences between the two schools’ results.

‘They Say Pushout, WE SAY PUSHBACK!!!’ A Case Study Examination of Chican@-Latin@ After-School Youth Development and Transformational Resistance

Principal Investigator: Johnny Ramirez, PhD student, UCLA Department of Education

Supported in part by the Tamar Diana Wilson Fund

Urban Girls of Color on the Beaten Track: Disciplined and Tracked Out of College Opportunities

Principal Investigator: Shena Crystal Sanchez, PhD student, UCLA Department of Education