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Unfortunately there is virtually no existing scholarship on Prince and even basic information regarding his life and works is not readily available. The lack of organization of the manuscript scores and the absence of dates of his works has further pushed the composer into obscurity. An investigation therefore was necessary in order to explore the neglected aspects of the life and works of Prince as a violinist and composer. This document is the result of such an investigation by including extensive new biographical information, as well as the first musical analysis and edition of the complete recovered works for violin and piano.
In order to fill the gaps present in the limited biographical information regarding Prince’s life, investigative research was conducted in Mexico City. Information was drawn from archives of the composer’s grandchildren, the Palacio de Bellas Artes, the Conservatorio Nacional de Música de México, and the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional. The surviving relatives provided first-hand details on events in the composer’s life; one also offered the researcher access to their personal archive including, important life documents, photographs, programs from concert performances, and manuscript scores of the compositions. Establishing connections with the relatives also led the researcher to examining the violins owned and used by the late violinist/composer.
This oral history approach led to new and updated information, including the revival of previously unpublished music for violin and piano. These works are here compiled in an edition that will give students, teachers, and music-lovers access to this unknown repertoire. Finally, this research seeks to promote the beauty and nuances of Mexican salon music, and the complete works for violin and piano of Samuel Máynez Prince in particular.
Part I of this work establishes the concept of ethnotrauma-- a layered experience of collective trauma among minority populations under racial persecution. By following stories of Mescalero, Chiricahua, and Warm Springs Apaches in the nineteenth-century Southwest, this dissertation reveals how Apaches grappled with ethnotrauma through generations during times of war, imprisonment, and exile. These narratives also reveal how Apaches overcame these legacies of pain through communal solidarity and cultural continuity. Part II explores the concept of perpetrator trauma. By following stories of Mexican norteños, Mexican-Americans on the US-Mexico border, and American settlers, the impact of trauma on violators also comes to light. The concept perpetrator trauma in this context denotes the long-term cultural impacts of committing violence among perpetrating communities. For perpetrating groups, violence became a method of affirming and, in some cases, reconstructing group identity through opposition to other groups. Finally, at the heart of this work stands two critical symbols-- Geronimo, victim and villain, and the land itself, hostile and healing-- that reveal how cycles of violence entangled ethnotrauma and perpetrator trauma within individuals struggling to survive and thrive in a savage land.
In study 1, I prospectively examined a model in which Mexican-origin parents’ perceptions of social and cultural resources in neighborhoods may support parents to engage in higher levels of cultural socialization and, in turn, promote adolescents’ ethnic-racial identity (ERI). Findings suggest neighborhood social and cultural cohesion in late childhood promoted middle adolescents’ ERI affirmation via intermediate increases in maternal cultural socialization. Similar patterns were observed for ERI resolution, but only for adolescents whose mothers were born in the United States. Findings have critical implications for how neighborhoods support parents’ cultural socialization practices and adolescents’ ERI.
In study 2, I used a convergent mixed methods research design to compare and contrast researchers’ neighborhood assessments collected using systematic social observations (e.g., physical disorder, sociocultural symbols) with adolescents’ qualitative neighborhood assessments collected by semi-structured interviews with Mexican-origin adolescents. Using quantitative methods, I found that researchers observed varying degrees of physical disorder, physical decay, street safety, and sociocultural symbols across adolescents’ neighborhood environments. Using qualitative methods, I found that adolescents observed these same neighborhood features about half the time, but also that they often layered additional meaning on top of distinct neighborhood features. Using mixed methods I found that, in the context of high spatial concordance, there was a high degree of overlap between researchers and adolescents in terms of agreement on the presence of physical disorder, physical decay, street safety, and sociocultural symbols. Lastly, adolescents often expanded upon these neighborhood environmental features, especially with references to positive and negative affect and resources. Overall, findings from study 2 underscore the importance using mixed methods to address the shared and unique aspects of researchers’ objectivity and adolescents’ phenomenology.
Understanding elections now requires an understanding of how Mexican immigrants participate in politics. Mexican immigrants are a growing demographic in the United States. Latinos have started to sway elections. As the largest Latino bloc, Mexican Americans and Mexican immigrants have the power to evoke change. Mexican immigrants’ role in politics continues to grow in importance as the Latino voting bloc continues to grow. This study focuses on Mexican immigrants and their mobilization in the United States. It discusses the motivations of Mexican immigrants to organize and mobilize in the United States, regardless of their status. The researcher discusses Mexican immigrant mobilization in the United States, evaluates prior research on immigrant mobilization, and identifies the research's shortcomings. The literature review indicates that regardless of status in the United States, Mexican immigrants will organize and mobilize to defend, protect, and improve their livelihoods in America.