Theses and Dissertations

Every season from September to March in Taiji, Japan, around 23,000 dolphins, and other small cetaceans are slaughtered or sold to dolphinariums in the name of a 400-year-old tradition. The word ‘tradition’ is often used to rationalize and justify the terrible acts of animal cruelty, as seen in many countries such as bullfighting in Spain, fox hunting in Britain, Thanksgiving in America, and drive hunting in Japan. However, just because something is deemed as a tradition, does not mean it should not be challenged and judged against the standards of morality. Whale and dolphin hunting has stopped becoming a proud cultural tradition of small-scale subsistence whaling and has become a business run on wholesale slaughter and the exploitation of another species. The disconnect between the past and present has led to an evil distortion of the past.
However, this event cannot simply be explained by blaming solely greed and selfishness for driving this long-lasting tradition. By analyzing poems by Misuzu Kaneko, early hunting methods, memorial services, and graves built in the past and comparing them to the current hunting methods, dolphin shows, and the Taiji Whale Museum, one can determine the variety of factors driving these actions and find the point in time when the intentions of these practices shifted. By having a better understanding of the past and the present, one can follow a once-proud tradition becoming a source to justify unethical and cruel behavior.

AIR, being short for the Arts Initiative for Refugees, is a new, self-founded organization that provides refugee youth with sessions, programs, and opportunities to help them achieve artistic and personal success through teaching and mentorship. AIR strives to offer individualized and group mentoring programs to its students designed for their unique interests in the arts fields of their choice. The immediate objective of this organization, which my thesis was founded upon, was to introduce refugee youth at a newcomer school, Valencia Newcomer School, to various new art forms utilizing direct application, to play and have fun, to create a sense of community and support, to create a safe, inclusive environment, to help the students learn more about each other's cultures and backgrounds, and to allow the students to create art work that is genuine to them and their backgrounds. The ultimate goal of AIR is to branch out to become a small-scale, national/international non-profit organization.