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Ikuko Asaka, UW-Madison Matthew Desmond, UW-Madison Rebecca Lowenhaupt, UW-Madison MyLou Moua, UW-Milwaukee Jackleen Salem, UW-Milwaukee |
Ikuko Asaka (iasaka@wisc.edu), Department of History, UW-Madison - "Race Across Empires: Flight from U.S. Slavery to Canada as Subversive Mobility, 1830s-1870s."
In her research, Asaka explores the construction of race and nationality through transatlantic discourse that developed between the 1830s and the 1870s around slaves' escapes from the United States to Canada. Communication networks emerged to connect groups and individuals in England, Canada, the U.S., and the post-emancipation British West Indies. The question at issue was: Did former slaves become British subjects once they arrived in Canada, and if so, was Canada a rightful place for former slaves? The answers reflect various understandings of race, space, and national belonging. Many British officials and abolitionists defined Canada as a white settler colony and the West Indies as a black space on the grounds that blacks were only suited for agricultural labor in the tropical climate. In the face of the racialized spatial division and a call to relocate them to the West Indies, former slaves in Canada fashioned themselves as British subjects entitled to citizenship rights, including the freedom to live anywhere in the empire. They strengthened their claim to British nationality by identifying with the British West Indian blacks, seizing on the shared racial, national, and diasporic experience of being recently (self-)emancipated under British law, but also refuting the association between the tropics and blackness. In exploring former slaves' articulations of their sense of self in the language of the British Black Atlantic, Asaka's dissertation sheds light on transnational identity formation among blacks from the U.S. and addresses the increasingly important question of how a transnational perspective can redefine the traditional contours of African American history.
Matthew Desmond (mdesmond@ssc.wisc.edu), Department of Sociology, UW-Madison - "Eviction and the Reproduction of Inner-City Poverty."
At the height of the national housing crisis, there exists no book-length, social-scientific treatment of eviction. Even before the crisis, thousands of Americans were forcibly removed from their homes each year - a traumatic experience linked to homelessness, job loss, and suicide. With the sharp deterioration of the housing market, the dearth of sociological research on evictions no longer marks a mere scholarly lacuna but increasingly hampers the informed design of suitable policy interventions. This study aims to fill that gap. Employing survey-based and ethnographic methods to study tenants and landlords living and working in inner-city Milwaukee, it explores some of the causes, dynamics, and consequences of eviction, thereby providing a unique glimpse into the structures and practices of poor neighborhoods and the intricate workings of the low-cost housing market. While the ethnography will inform the development of survey questions and will provide information about social mechanisms and housing dynamics, the survey will assess the generalizability of Desmond's ethnographic findings, determining if patterns observed on the ground level are also observed at the aggregate level. Eviction is a practically important and theoretically instructive process. A thorough analysis of eviction - its antecedents, consequences, and social ramifications - not only will advance the sociological understanding of inequality, it also will provide policy-relevant insights into the central role of housing with respect to urban poverty and racial inequality.
For more information on Matt Desmond's background and scholarly career, go to: http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~mdesmond.
Rebecca Lowenhaupt (lowenhaupt@wisc.edu), Department of Leadership and Policy Analysis, UW-Madison - "Educating the New Latino Diaspora: School Adaptation to Demographic Shifts."
Current immigration trends have led to a rapid, ongoing increase of racial, linguistic, and cultural diversity in the public school system. As Latino immigrant numbers increase across the nation, the fastest proportional growth is occurring in communities with little tradition of immigration. Although emerging Latino communities constitute a widespread and significant immigration trend, little is known about how schools respond to demographic shift and the impact of this response on the educational experiences of Latino students. This dissertation aims to develop an understanding of the institutional response to demographic shift in schools undergoing a rapid growth in their populations of Latino immigrant students. Drawing on theories of immigrant acculturation, educational leadership, and school reform, Lowenhaupt uses interviews and surveys of school leaders and educators in schools serving the new Latino diaspora across the state of Wisconsin to investigate how they view the shift and how their perspective shapes the nature of their response. In so doing, she hopes to generate an understanding of the factors impacting the educational experiences of Latinos across the state. Lowenhaupt anticipates that the findings from this research will shed light on the school experiences of Latino students, and provide valuable information to schools undergoing demographic shift as they attempt to learn how to meet the changing educational needs of an increasingly diverse student population.
MyLou Moua (mylou@uwm.edu), Department of Educational Psychology, UW-Milwaukee - "Socialization Patterns and Hmong American Families."
Moua's dissertation examines ethnic socialization or parenting practices associated with teaching children about their cultural background. It involves parents teaching children about their native language and ethnic group history, and encouraging children to be proud of their ethnic background. Recent studies have found ethnic socialization to be an important factor in the development of children's ethnic identity.
This quantitative study will examine the variability in ethnic socialization behavior among ethnic minority families, focusing particularly on Hmong Americans. Furthermore, she will examine the relationship between parents' kinship support and their ethnic socialization patterns. In other words, how do extended family members influence parents' ethnic socialization behaviors? Based on Garcia Coll et al.'s integrative framework on understanding the development of ethnic minority children, it is hypothesized that supportive kinship will be related to overall higher ethnic socialization. Other variables, such as parents' immigration status and social class, will also be examined in relation to their ethnic socialization.
The goal of this research is to inform the area of child development in understanding the socialization environment or experience of ethnic minority children. This study aims to address the normative daily interaction between ethnic parents and their children. It is proposed by several authors that the socialization context of ethnic minority children varies from that of the majority and that a mainstream socialization model is ineffective in understanding parenting practices among ethnic families.
This research explores Muslim communities in America and how they define their space. In particular, Salem is interested in the history of a Muslim community in the southwest suburbs of Chicago between 1981-2003 as a testament to how an immigrant Muslim community develops, settles, adjusts, assimilates, and grows in the American context while trying to establish a Muslim space. She would like to explore how varied interpretations of Islam in America created a thread of division in the community that has been impacted by different ethnic backgrounds. Ethnicity plays a crucial role in the development of the community and the issues faced by Arabs, Indians, and other Muslim ethnic groups. Also, the role of women has altered with the growth of these communities and they have become key players in identity formation. All members of the community have attempted to preserve their religious beliefs while maintaining their American self and it has produced a complex identity that came under attack after 9/11. In addition, global transformations in how citizenship, race, and religion were viewed dramatically altered the experience of Muslims in Chicago during these periods. She will address the exponential growth of the community and its transformation in response to the 9/11 attacks and the breach of civil rights they faced. This little suburban Muslim community in Chicago has fundamentally altered the geography of the region and brought it national and global prominence. How Muslim communities metamorphosize is essential in comprehending how they view and define public, religious, and cultural space.
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