2024 Undergraduate Research Conference | Program
This multidisciplinary undergraduate research conference will highlight and award original works related to Texas, the Southwester United States, and Northern Mexico.
Friday, March 22, 2024 | 10:00 am - 12:00 pm
Presenter Abstracts
Halle Dobbs | TXST Junior; History and Education Major
Paper Title | Recognition of Japanese Assimilation in Los Angeles in the 1920s and 1930s
Abstract
The Supreme Court decision Takao Ozawa v. U.S. in 1922 established a transformation in Japanese exclusion and immigration in California, and more acts were established to uphold the exclusion of Japanese in the United States. Through analyzing the social spheres between the Issei and Nisei generations and overall American society expectations, this paper recognizes the establishment of Japanese social clubs in Los Angeles as a significant contribution to a thriving social network of Japanese citizens in Los Angeles. However, the effects of exclusion acts and public opinion about the Japanese social clubs regarding assimilation are analyzed, as well as how the organizations provided social benefits for the Nisei generation yet also separated them from American society. The paper focuses on the importance of the well-established Japanese community in Los Angeles in the 1920s and 1930s, as compared to the rest of the United States with lower Japanese populations, and how the established community built the foundation of Japanese connection that would need to be re-forged after World War II.
Angus Dunn | TXST Senior; Anthropology Major, Geography Minor
Poster Title | Experimentation with a Unique Artifact from Northern Mexico and West Texas for Making Stone Tools
Abstract
In the Trans-Pecos region of Texas, and Northern Mexico, mandibles of various small mammals have been found in archaeological contexts and interpreted as possible tools used for making stone tools. These tools, known as pressure flakers, are often made of antler or bone and are a key part of making stone tools, especially when making arrow points. Several examples exist of mandibles wrapped with fiber and sinew, one notably from Spirit Eye Cave in West Texas. This project aims to experiment with jackrabbit mandibles to test their viability as a tool to make stone tools. The goal of this experiment is to identify characteristics of use of these mandibles, and to understand an overlooked artifact in the archaeological record.
Emmanuel Hernandez | TXST Senior; Urban and Regional Planning Major, Horticulture Minor
Paper Title | Caminando en La Victoria: Examining the Uses and Meanings of Green Space in a Latin Neighborhood in San Marcos, Texas
Abstract
This project seeks to use counter narratives to examine and highlight the stories, perspectives, and experiences of Latino residents from Victory Gardens, San Marcos, Texas, in regard to green spaces such as parks and walking trails. In doing so, the project will contribute to scholarly and popular understandings of the history of Latin San Marcos and the perspective of Latin residents of the city. Currently popular environmentalist discourse fails to note Latino experiences and or perspectives on the outdoors, an issue that has also largely been mirrored in scholarly literature. Limited detailed recorded history, complex and contested housing policy in adjacent neighborhoods and rapid growth pressures make Victory Gardens, San Marcos, Texas an important case-study through which to examine how Latin residents understand and interact with urban green space. Compensated interviews with participants of self-identified Hispanic descent and a current or previous residency in Victory gardens will be analyzed with the intent of sharing counter life story narratives. These are stories meant to counter dominant narratives and are developed from the bottom up. As the city of San Marcos continues to make infrastructural improvements in its Latin neighborhoods, including expanded park space and walking trails, this study can aid in gaining a better understanding of how Latin residents interpret and experience these changes in their neighborhoods.
Adriana Montoya | TXST Senior; Public Administration Major
Creative Work Title | Re-membering la Frontera: Reclaiming Borderland Narratives Through Place and Storytelling
Abstract
In both academic spaces and broader societal contexts, life along the US-Mexico border is often defined by representations of its perceived issues and measured in units of tragedy. While these preconceived notions are by no means a new phenomenon, since the 2016 presidential election, the city of El Paso and its surrounding region in particular has remained an epicenter of political polarization and discussion on the national stage, with perceptions becoming especially tragedy-oriented following the August 3, 2019 domestic terrorism attack and recent waves of migration that have been labeled as both invasions and humanitarian crises. This has resulted in a popular narrative of the borderlands which is dominated by heavily problem-based thinking as well as misconceptions from those with limited experience in the community itself.
Re-membering la Frontera is an in-progress honors capstone project by Texas State University senior Adriana Montoya which seeks to amend this issue, applying multi-media and literary components to create an autoethnography based on interviews with six family members about their experiences living in the El Paso region. The project will be a culmination of oral history, mapmaking, photography, and other elements to form a collage that will take readers on a tour of the borderlands through time and space from the perspective of those who live there, combatting existing narratives about the area and ultimately reclaiming its history through the power of storytelling.
In my proposed presentation, I will discuss my methods and motivations for collecting information from each interviewee, read poetry and essay excerpts from the autoethnography, and analyze storytelling as a means of communicating “truth” about the past, present, and future of the borderlands.
Gabriela Moreno | TXST Junior; Communication, Design, and Photography Major
Creative Work Title | Sun City
Abstract
Taken in El Paso, TX, on Thanksgiving weekend of 2023, the work seeks to document life in El Paso; a historic border city that is also home to one of the largest military bases in the country. El Paso is very different from major cities in central Texas, between the cultures that exist there and the terrain, and this work seeks to explore that.
With many photos taken at the El Paso Thanksgiving Day Parade, it allows for a wide variety of portraits of the community within El Paso and how they interact with each other. Also included are examples of the architecture and landscape seen in El Paso.
My father and his siblings were born and raised in El Paso. It is where my abuelita lives and my abuelito rests. I have visited El Paso many times in my life and even lived there briefly. It is unlike any place I have ever been before in the US, and while having not grown up there I find myself always drawn to it. I enjoy driving by the house my abuelita was raised in, and the high school my abuelito attended; my roots are in that city despite not having been raised there. Making work about that desert city was important to me; I wanted to capture what my dad loved talking about and remembers the most, while also capturing the social and political aspects that exist in a city like that.
Idaly Soto | TXST Senior; History Major, Southwestern Studies Minor
Paper Title | Land Grants in Texas: The Displacement after the U.S. Mexico War
Abstract
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, signed in 1848, left the question of how already established grants would be dealt with. Since the Treaty of Guadalupe failed to mention the process of dealing with the land grants in the newly acquired land, each state or territory would have its own form of establishing land grants. California’s land grant process is fully documented as the gold rush sped up land grants’ need to be regularized. New Mexico’s land grant process is also regularized much later. Yet it has been a myth of public memory that Texas did not undergo a similar regularization process. In documenting the processes for Texas and comparing it to California and New Mexico, one can better understand the political and social dynamics after the 1850s. Wanting to process land grants, Texas formed the Bourland and Miller Commission in 1850 to confirm land grants. Its creation was the idea of Governor Bell, who seemed to understand the commission’s needs as he had previously worked with the federal government in adjudicating claims when he looked at formerly Spanish and French territories. The commission had a deadline and hundreds of land grants to confirm while also dealing with racial dynamics brought upon by ideas of Manifest Destiny. This paper examines history of Texas’ process of confirming Spanish and Mexican land grants below the Nueces River after signing the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo while also looking at social and looks at the relationship between Anglo-Americans and Mexican Americans. By focusing on the Bourland and Miller Commission and the legislative acts that followed the commission, one gains a further understanding of how Texas processed land grant claims and how they helped or hindered Mexican Americans.
Martha Izaguirre | TXST Senior; International Studies Major
Paper Title | Bracero’s Program’s mental and physical affects on Mexican Migrant Workers
Abstract
The Braceros Program of 1942 has reflected the great efforts of strong work ethic made through Mexican Migrant farmworkers workers. Through this research, readers can detect the origins of why Mexican migrant workers’ [under the Braceros program] mental and physical health declined under the program. Excerpts studied from Natalia Molina’s ‘A Place in the Nayarit’ as well as archives from the Braceros History Archive help determine the cause and effects towards the decline of health amongst Mexican farmworkers in the United States from 1942 through 1964. This study analyzes the causes such as lack of food, resources, violation of contracts, and risk of deportation as the causes for the decline in health during the Braceros Program.