The contemporary American Dream is based on the myth that anyone can obtain upward mobility if they work hard enough, regardless of their class or race. This ideology supports the idea that America is the land of equal opportunity, democracy, and liberty. This framework is probl…
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As evangelical Christian demographics in the United States have increasingly diversified, pundits and scholars have sought to understand the persistent political power of white American evangelicals. This interdisciplinary dissertation argues that a key mechanism of the politica…
The prevailing scholarship on the Syrian-Lebanese in Brazil argues that the economic success of these immigrants is mainly the product of merit and hard work—the tenet of exceptional social mobility thesis. This dissertation contends that a key missing aspect of the precept is t…
When an immigrant came to early twentieth-century America, his or her ability to naturalize was dependent on the artificial color designation assigned to his or her group. Armenian and Syrian-Lebanese immigrants, however, entered the country as the ultimate "in-between people." …
Pan-African thinking has come to represent a reaction to Europe's political partition of the African mainland and the similar dislocation of African peoples in the New World. Since the end of the Second World War Africans and Arabians have gained a partial independence from Euro…
This thesis examines Peruvian popular intercultural music fusions and their impact among the white upper classes of Lima, Peru. Often antagonised, essentialised and understudied, Lima's white upper classes have historically distanced themselves from the city's migrant Andean/Ama…
This project emerges out of the rich data derived from ethnographic interviews conducted with 20 American Jews during 2007. It is an effort to locate the compromises and conflicted understandings in which Jews articulate their own experiences, memories and identities. It is also…
This dissertation focuses on the experiences of Arab immigrants in Detroit and Dearborn, Michigan. It integrates both quantitative data (from the Detroit Arab American Study) and qualitative data (in-depth interviews with 46 Arab immigrant owners of small businesses), and explor…
This dissertation is based on three years of ethnographic fieldwork and 40 in-depth interviews with members of the Michigan militia. Militia members are mostly white men who believe in an originalist interpretation of the Constitution. Armed with rifles, they practice paramilita…
This thesis explores the appeal of Israel and Zionism for Ashkenazi Jews in Canada. The origins of Diaspora Zionism are examined using a genealogical methodology and analyzed through a bricolage of theoretical lenses including post-structuralism, psychoanalysis, and critical rac…
This dissertation advances a new argumentative approach to the political problem of black reparations in the contemporary United States appealing to the normative principle of fair play. Among its core presumptions is the view that getting appreciable numbers of white Americans …
This thesis considers the ways built environment practitioners, namely urban planners, architectural designers, and real estate developers, imagine the spaces they plan, design, and develop. In particular, it examines the built and social consequences of said imaginings through …
This dissertation examines how the production of scientific knowledges has been entangled with the making of inter-generational, environmental, interspecies, and memory (in)justices in Austral Patagonia, 1920s-1940s. I have studied science and more-than-human colonialism in Tier…
Every Sunday morning, whether for an hour or more--depending on your community—our sacred gathering time is the most common and can be the most consistent public witness Christians do. It is in this space, amid celebration and ritual that we grapple with the pathos and ethos of …
Public Health’s dominant focus on white opioid users coupled with a colorblind ideology has resulted in the reiteration of racially stratified public health discussions, strategies, initiatives, and treatment both nationally and in the Pittsburgh region. This case study uses dis…
Educators have discussed multiculturalism and its iterations such as inclusion and cultural competency for several decades, yet Black and Brown students still have worse educational outcomes than white students and those from some Asian populations. These include lower graduatio…
Modern United States society carries with it a legacy of White supremacy culture that is woven into its institutions, history, and societal expectations. This legacy is often not understood, taught, or integrated into United States education and socialization. The reach of this …
Kokusai kekkon , marriage among Japanese and non-Japanese nationals, are common, yet sometimes it comes with difficulties. The study aims to uncover Japanese people’s hidden perceptions of gaikokujins , foreigners, and Japanese identity shaped in relation to gaikokujins based on…
The historic summer of 2020 in the United States was described by many as a “racial reckoning.” In the weeks following the murder of George Floyd by the Minneapolis Police, polling showed up to 26 million U.S.-Americans taking to the streets to support Black Lives Matter and to …