Small Grants

Assessing real-world access to trauma-informed mental health services for historically marginalized youth: A mystery shopper study

Dani Adams

NIMH T32 Postdoctoral Fellow, Brown School

• Email: a.danielle@nospam.wustl.edu

• Twitter

Access to Mental Health Services
Child and Adolescent Mental Health
Health Disparities
Implementation Science
Medicaid
Mixed Methods
Organizational Interventions

The awardee used the grant to support presenting their project, “Assessing Real-World Access to Trauma- Informed Mental Health Services for Historically Marginalized Youth: A Mystery Shopper Study” at the American Public Health Association Conference in Boston, Massachusetts in November of 2022. Dr. Adams presented the paper in the form of an oral presentation and used funds to cover the costs of travel (flight and hotel). At the conference, Dr. Adams was able to share the findings of the study that indicated that discrimination on the basis of race or ethnicity may be occurring at the point of scheduling in community mental health settings, as the Black and Latina voice actresses in the study who called these agencies to schedule services were 18% less likely to be granted an appointment than the White actress. Dr. Adams was able to share these findings and network with experts in the field of public health in a continued effort to develop solutions to reduce bias and discrimination in community mental health settings. Since the conference, this paper was submitted to a peer-reviewed journal for publication; it is currently in the review process.  

Conditional Visibility: Strategies of Insertion of Afrocaribbean art and artifacts in Cuba, Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic’s Contemporary Museums

Karla Aguilar Velazquez

Hispanic Studies PhD Student, Romance Languages and Literatures & Museum Educator at the Kemper and the Pulitzer Museum, Curator at the Center of Creative Arts (COCA)

• Email: kpaguilarvelasquez@nospam.wustl.edu

Afro-spirituality
Folklore
Hispanic Caribbean
Memory Studies
Museum Studies
National histories
Witchcraft

During the Spring semester and summer of 2023, the awardee used the grant to purchase 25 art catalogues in the Caribbean, from the 1970s to the present for her research project Conditional Visibility. By accessing materials that were not available through traditional research sources in the U.S. they was able to craft an innovative dissertation chapter. This innovation consisted in the use of a quantitative approach that challenges assumed ideas of the invisibility of race discussions in contemporary exhibitions in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Dominican Republic. By changing the focus from exhibition frequency to exhibition language in the catalogues they argued that the museums participated in larger cultural policies that reduced Afro-Caribbean culture to folklore and an overcome past. Finally, they presented a conference proposal with these research conclusions to the conference Afro-Cuban Legacies: Visual Arts, Literature, Theatre, Music and Religion, hosted at the University of Missouri at 2024.   

Social Justice in our Schools

SynClaire Arthur

Doctoral Student, Psychological & Brain Science

• Email: a.synclaire@nospam.wustl.edu

Adolescents
Black/African American
Education
Identity
Social Justice
Sociopolitical Development
Trauma

Funding was used to provide monetary compensation for participants in the pilot research study, “Social Justice in our Schools.” This study aims to explore what factors contribute to Black educational administrators’ beliefs about the use and importance of a social justice lens within their work. The project aims to accomplish three primary goals: 1. Identify how Black administrators’ social identities (e.g., race, gender, and social class) and their work-related experiences in education contribute to their leadership approach within their current position; 2. Explore Black administrators’ perceptions of how and why social justice matters within educational settings; and 3. Consider how Black administrators’ beliefs inform their implementation practices via academic and social programming initiatives within their schools. Despite challenges in recruitment, preliminary findings from completed interviews were able to be presented by the PI during a graduate student poster session at the first annual Innovation in Social and Community Psychology Summit on October 27, 2023.  

High school mentorship program to further diversity, community, and leadership in the field of occupational therapy

Diana Castellanos

Doctoral Student, Occupational Therapy

• Email: castellanos.d@nospam.wustl.edu

Early exposure to healthcare careers
Educational inclusion
Diversity
Mentorship Developing

The research aimed to address the lack of diversity in the occupational therapy (OT) profession in the United States by developing a mentorship program targeting high school students. After identifying Gateway High School in St. Louis City as a suitable pilot site, researchers proceeded with program development based on a needs assessment. The mentorship program, led by experienced faculty member Dr. Catherine Hoyt, consisted of six bi-weekly in-person sessions, with recruitment efforts including lunch booths and gift card incentives. Anticipated outcomes included fostering mentorship relationships, increasing diversity in OT and healthcare professions, and establishing ongoing connections with the high school. Success was measured by the percentage of participants completing at least four meetings, with 75% participation targeted, and through pre-post satisfaction surveys. Additionally, funding was sought for travel to a professional conference in April 2023 to present findings and for continuing education in mentorship program development. 

anthology of roma poetry

Rajnesh Chakrapani

PhD Student, Comparative Literature

• Email: rajneshchakrapani@nospam.gmail.com

Immigration and Migration
Social Justice
Translation
Gender
Speculative Archive
Diasporic Writing
Documentary Poetics

This grant enabled the awardee to travel to Romania to curate an anthology of contemporary poetry from Romanian and Roma poets. During the trip, the awardee interviewed and translated the works of Elvisey Pisica, a rapper, poet, and social activist. Pisica discusses the challenges he faces as a Trans Roma artist in his city, as well as the continued discrimination and stereotypes encountered by the Roma community due to limited exposure and communication between Roma and Romanian artists. The YouTube interview conducted with Pisica has garnered significant attention. Through this interview, centered on the translation of Pisica’s poetry, the awardee realized the transformative potential of translation in fostering discussions and promoting cultural understanding within a larger global audience and within the community being translated. 

(re)constructing Latinx anthem through the 2020 superbowl halftime performance

Kaché Claytor

PhD Candidate, Romance Languages and Literatures, Hispanic Studies

• Email: kache.claytor@nospam.wustl.edu

This grant supported the awardee in attending the Second ALARI Conference on Afro-Latin American Studies, hosted by the Afro-Latin American Research Institute at Harvard University. The conference was held from December 7-9, 2022, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She presented her paper titled “(Re) constructing the Latinx Anthem through the 2020 Super Bowl Halftime Performance.” The paper explores how Shakira and J. Lo’s 2020 Halftime performance, featuring reggae ton artists Bad Bunny and J Balvin at the Super Bowl, can be viewed as a Latinx anthem. However, it also examines what the (re)constructed anthem eulogizes in relation to race and ethnicity for the Latinx community in the US context. She argues that the anthem maintains ideologies of mestizaje from Latin America that exclude Black populations from being part of the “Latinx” community. Presenting at the ALARI conference was pivotal to her budding career and network as a race, gender, and Afro-Latin American scholar-in-training. She was able to connect with scholars, activists, and colleagues across the African diaspora.  

Diverse Parent Perspectives on Genetic Testing for Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Jordan Cole

Neurogenetics Fellow, Neurology

• Email: jordan.cole@nospam.wustl.edu

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Health disparities
Neurodevelopmental disorders
Neurogenetics
Social determinants of health

The awardee attended the “Intersections: A Workshop on Black and Indigenous Sound in the Early Atlantic World” workshop at the University of Virginia. This grant allowed him to travel to Richmond to workshop his research on early modern Black sound with an interdisciplinary group of scholars. He particularly benefited from the feedback provided by music scholars. This workshop also constituted the first meeting of his working group, which was later expanded for a symposium at the Clark Library in Los Angeles in the spring of 2023. Going forward, the group intends to meet two more times to workshop and finalize papers based on the research they workshopped in Richmond, respectively. 

Critical Race and Ethnic Studies Approaches to Popular Dance in Research and Pedagogy

Joanna Das

Assistant Professor of Dance, Performing Arts Department

• Email: joanna.d.das@nospam.wustl.edu

African Diaspora
Critical Race Theory
Dance
Popular Performance
Racial Capitalism
US History
Whiteness

The award covered the awardee’s travel cost to the “Critical Race and Ethnic Studies Approaches to Popular Dance in Research and Pedagogy” roundtable in Detroit, Michigan in the summer of 2022. Her roundtable contributed to ATHE’s efforts by offering examples of how to approach popular dance research and pedagogy from Critical Race Theory and Ethnic Studies frameworks. Her project, “Reclaiming Space for Black Dance in St. Louis,” discussed how Professor Denise Ward-Brown (Sam Fox) and Professor Das, as co-conveners of a Divided City Research Working Group, engaged in a collaborative research endeavor to interrogate the relationship between public policy and cultural erasure—how the demolition of St. Louis’ Black neighborhoods in the mid-twentieth century contributed to historical amnesia about those communities’ contributions to the development of jazz dance. The roundtable prompted substantive and generous discussion, including questions about how to balance thinking about individuals and thinking about communities, about how different media (live performance or film) affects racial representation, about historical memory, and other questions 

A Zooarcheological Perspective of the Early and Late Atlantic Slave Trade’s Social and Economic Disruption in West Africa

Paige DeVos

Arts & Sciences, Anthropology

This research project culminated in the completion of the awardee’s Master’s thesis for the Department of Anthropology. The project utilized a relatively recent advancement in zoo archaeological techniques called Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS) to investigate animal consumption, cuisine, and elite identity in the Kingdom of Dahomey. Dahomey was a West African kingdom in modern-day Benin whose strong centralized monarchy was heavily involved with the Slave Trade. The investigation focused on the ways in which cuisine was used to project the Dahomean elite’s self-perceived cosmopolitan identities to both their subjects and foreign dignitaries by re-analyzing an archaeological faunal assemblage. Research involved accessing and sorting the assemblage at the University of California Santa Cruz and receiving training in ZooMS techniques at the University of Tennessee Knoxville. Ultimately, 109 samples were analyzed, making the awardee the first researcher at Washington University in St. Louis to utilize ZooMS. In the future, there is a hope to expand the analysis to cover non-elite cuisine and to connect that research to a larger discussion of how people in West Africa were impacted by the increased violence of the Slave Trade.  

Performance Disparities Between Accents in Automatic Speech Recognition

Alex DiChristofano

PhD Student, Division of Computational & Data Sciences

• Email: a.dichristofano@nospam.wustl.edu

Algorithmic fairness and bias
Data science
Housing
Machine learning
Resource allocation

Funds from this grant enabled the dissemination and publication of “Performance Disparities Between Accents in Automatic Speech Recognition” at the 37^th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence in 2023. Funding from the grant covered registration and travel expenses to Washington, D.C., a necessary condition for publication. The paper was selected as a finalist for the Student Abstract presentation competition, and the awardee presented the work both at the competition and during the poster presentation session. The work was published as a student abstract in the Proceedings of the 37^th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence, while a longer preprint is available on arXiv under the title, “Global Performance Disparities between English-Language Accents in Automatic Speech Recognition”. 

Medicaid Equity for Puerto Rico

Raul Gierbolini

PhD Student, Public Health Sciences, Brown School

• Email: g.raul@nospam.wustl.edu

Dissemination & Implementation Science
Health Equity
Latin America
Physical Activity

 

 

 

Eugen Resendiz Bontrud

Doctoral Student in Public Health Sciences, Brown School

• Email: eugen@nospam.wustl.edu

Built Environment

The research proposal sought funding to present a poster entitled “Descriptive Analysis of Poverty Measurement: The Case for Medicaid Equity in Puerto Rico” at the 2023 Annual Research Meeting. Through this presentation, the researchers aimed to delve into the intricate relationship between poverty measurement and Medicaid equity in Puerto Rico, offering insights crucial for policymakers and practitioners in healthcare. By employing descriptive analysis, the study intended to uncover the multifaceted factors contributing to the disparities in Medicaid access within Puerto Rico.

The Impact of an Educational Intervention on Anti-Black Interpersonal Bias Among Medical Students in an Academic Medical Center

Gmerice Hammond

Instructor of Medicine, Cardiology

• Email: ghammond@nospam.wust.edu

Health care policy implementation
Value based payments
Racial and socioeconomic based inequities in outcomes
Social determinants of health

Ilana Olin

MD/PhD Student, School of Medicine

• Email: i.olin@nospam.wustl.edu

Anti-racism
Bias mitigation
Educational interventions
Health disparities
Medical education
Social determinants of health

Joshua Tobin

Graduate Student, School of Medicine

• Email: joshua.tobin@nospam.wustl.edu

Healthcare disparities
Anti-racism
Medical Education
Interpersonal racism
Implicit bias

Interpersonal racism and anti-Black bias among healthcare providers were identified as modifiable causes of glaring racial health inequities. In response, Washington University School of Medicine (WUSM) and other peer institutions developed and deployed educational interventions targeting medical students to mitigate the effects of such biases on patient outcomes. However, the evidence base for these interventions remained underdeveloped, with little long-term follow-up and short intervention durations. To address this gap, a study was initiated to examine the effectiveness of the Gateway Curriculum, recently implemented at WUSM, which includes a Health Equity and Justice Thread focused on anti-Black bias training. The study aimed to contribute to an evidence base for educational interventions addressing racial inequities by conducting a longitudinal study of students’ beliefs and attitudes regarding anti-Black bias at various stages of their medical education. Funding was used to incentivize robust student participation in pilot studies necessary to validate assessment tools and conduct initial data collection. This funding helped facilitate the refinement of assessment tools for the launch of longitudinal data collection with the WUSM entering class of 2023. 

Development of a Theoretical Model to Move Towards Equity in Occupational Therapy

Catherine Hoyt

Instructor, Occupational Therapy

• Email: hoytcr@nospam.wustl.edu

Child development
Early intervention
Occupational therapy
Sickle cell disease

Previous models in occupational therapy focused on the characteristics of the individual, the environment, and the desired occupations (things that the person needs and wants to do). This project focused on developing a theoretical model for the field of occupational therapy that includes the clinical provider as a part of the solution to providing inclusive and supportive client- and family-centered care. The awardee used funds to hire graphic designer Lamar Woods from Wood & Tech LLC to support the development of a new model for conveying this new complex topic to their audience. This collaboration resulted in two papers that were reviewed by the American Journal of Occupational Therapy and Occupational Therapy in Health Care. The collaboration has also resulted in an accepted poster abstract that was presented at the American Occupational Therapy Association Annual Conference in April 2023 in Kansas City, MO. 

Guanyu Xu and expanding Asian representation in Contemporary Photography

Meghan Kirkwood

Assistant Professor, Sam Fox School/Visual Arts

• Email: meghan.kirkwood@nospam.wustl.edu

Natural resources
Landscape photography
South Africa

The project sought funding to facilitate the visit of artist Guanyu Xu to Washington University in February 2023. As a nationally-recognized Chinese photographer, Xu’s work delves into themes such as power dynamics in photography and the interplay between personal freedom and political contexts, particularly from the perspective of a Chinese gay man. Xu’s exhibition at the Weitman Gallery aimed to provide a platform for his unique perspective. Xu conducted a print workshop and critique session with students, offering invaluable insights into his artistic process and perspectives. Notably, this initiative marked the first time the gallery featured an Asian artist, despite the significant presence of Asian students in photography classes. The awardee collaborated closely with Xu, facilitating the workshop and critique, while also leveraging this opportunity to learn from Xu’s approach to teaching and engaging with students. This experience informed the Professor Kirkwood’s work with non-white photography students on campus. 

measuring stereotypes via text

Messi Lee

PhD Student, Division of Computational and Data Sciences

• Email: hojunlee@nospam.wustl.edu

Language
Machine Learning
Quantitative Methods
Stereotyping and Prejudice

This project aimed to measure the associations of racial/ethnic groups with semantic attributes from open-ended text responses. The small grant facilitated data collection through Qualtrics and the Cloud Research platform, resulting in over 120 responses that provided valuable insights into recent experiences of racial prejudice, serving as the foundation for analysis. Findings indicated alignment with the positions proposed in the Racial Position Model (Zou & Cheryan, 2017), revealing that African and Hispanic Americans were more associated with inferiority compared to Asian and White Americans, while Asian and Hispanic Americans were more associated with foreignness compared to African and White Americans, although these effects were almost negligible. Consequently, modifications were made to the survey question to explicitly capture dimensions of superiority/inferiority and Americanness/foreignness, minimizing noise in measurements. The small grant was instrumental in facilitating data collection and analysis, contributing to the advancement of understanding in racial/ethnic associations with semantic attributes, with plans to present findings at the Annual Conference for the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. 

Immigrants in St. Louis

Sharlene Lee

Graduate Student, Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts

• Email: sharlenelee@nospam.wustl.edu

Cultural identity
Feminist Theory
Immigration
Language
Projection Mapping
Video Art

The award was used to develop “Well-Spoken, 2023,” an immersive video installation at the Kemper Museum featuring interviews with immigrants in St. Louis, exploring perceptions of individuals who speak or appear different. The artist aimed to delve into the social and cultural impacts of the English language, both locally and globally. Participants reenacted personal experiences, such as job discrimination or unpleasant encounters due to language barriers. Viewers entering the installation encountered various languages spoken around them, challenging their understanding and reversing power dynamics. Feedback from viewers indicated a heightened awareness of language barriers and a desire for deeper understanding, promoting reflection on personal biases and encouraging openness and respect towards diverse communities. 

Ugly White People

Stephanie Li

Lynne Cooper Harvey Distinguished Professor of English

• Email: stephanie.li@nospam.wustl.edu

American Literature
Blackness
Gender and Sexuality
Popular and Political Culture
Racial Representations
Whiteness

The goal of the Black Lives Matter Literature RWG was to create a space where faculty, students, staff and community members interested in exploring contemporary writing concerning Black Lives Matter could meet to discuss and develop a vocabulary for talking about the literature of BLM. Specifically, their goal was to foster discussion about Black Lives Matter as a concept that unites literary, political, and historical debate across works and genres. These discussions helped to reshape the works that members had in progress.  

The Relationship Between State Violence, Trust in Government, and Vaccine Uptake

Caitlin McMurtry

Assistant Professor, Brown School

• Email: mcmurtry@nospam.wustl.edu

• Twitter

Firearm Deregulation
Health Disparities
Health Politics
Racial/Ethnic Discrimination
Policing

The project delves into the structural roots of vaccine hesitancy among Black Americans, examining how aggressive policing practices and state violence impact trust in government and vaccine acceptance. Initially intending to analyze the relationship between police stops, government trust, and vaccination rates using California Department of Justice data, the researchers encountered data access hurdles. Consequently, they redirected their efforts towards conducting focus groups with Black adults in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, utilizing the grant for this purpose. The focus groups aimed to unravel perceptions of police, government, and vaccines, factors shaping trust, and their interplay within communities. With meticulous planning, including website development, recruitment strategies, and participant incentives, the researchers conducted four focus groups in St. Louis and planned additional groups in Wisconsin. Facing recruitment challenges in Minnesota, they shifted the secondary site to Milwaukee, where access to detailed policing and vaccine data facilitated research. Seeking grant reallocation for travel expenses, they emphasized the necessity of racial concordance between interviewers and respondents for meaningful discussions. Future plans involve utilizing insights from focus groups to develop a survey instrument for a poll in Milwaukee in 2025, with funding sought from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Through these endeavors, the project aims to deepen understanding and address vaccine hesitancy among Black communities, contributing to public health initiatives and policy interventions. 

The Plantation Imagination: Studies in Salt, Oil, and Sugar

Robin McDowell

Former Assistant Professor of African and African American Studies

Black Ecology
Black Geographies
Design Methods
Environmental Racism
Louisiana
Racial capitalism
History of U.S. Slavery

The award funded travel to New Orleans for the awardee to lead a public Earth Pigments workshop in conjunction with INHABITATION, an exhibition at the Albert and Tina Small Center for Design at Tulane University on December 21, 2022. Fourteen participants from across the Greater New Orleans area included local activists, artists, students, educators, and government workers. After a short lecture on histories of environmental racism in Southeast Louisiana locations and a hands-on demonstration, participants worked together in a beautiful outdoor patio space to create watercolors with soil samples taken from locations explored in the lecture. They also used the pigments to create experimental paintings. While working, participants shared stories of their own experiences and knowledge of environmental issues in Louisiana and reected on the process of pigment-making in a community (as opposed to alone in a studio) as a form of environmental justice. The awardee shared a series of photographs taken by the Albert and Tina Small Center for Design of the lecture, workshop, and the participant’s experimental paintings. The images and reections were also incorporated into the lecture: “Plant, Prison, Port, and Pigment” presented at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Washington University in St. Louis Living Earth Collaborative Seminar Series, and Seoul National University American Studies Institute.  

Constructing the Racial “Other”: Race and Ethnicity in Latin America

Mabel Morana

• Email: moranamabel@nospam.gmail.com

Critical Race and Cultural Studies in Latin American cultures
Migration and Borders
Race and the Nation
Race in Modernity

The research project aimed to produce a comprehensive book titled “Constructing the Racial Other: Race and Ethnicity in Latin America,” comprising 18 chapters analyzing historical and cultural developments related to racial conflicts and integration across Latin America from the Discovery era to the present. The book, accepted for publication by Vanderbilt University Press and Herder Eds., covers all regions of Latin America, providing an interdisciplinary and comparative examination of colonial and postcolonial societies. The small grant was sought to facilitate professional revision and editing of the chapters prior to publication. The outcomes of this project will contribute to the existing literature by offering a unique and in-depth exploration of sociological, economic, and political issues concerning diverse ethnicities in Latin America, including Africans, Afro-descendants, Indigenous peoples, Creoles, Asians, Syrians, Lebanese, Jews, and others. 

AI-Transcription of Manuscript Court Records for “The Color of Bankruptcy”

Rafael Pardo

Walter D. Coles Professor of Law, School of Law

• Email: pardo@nospam.wustl.edu

Bankruptcy
Commercial Law
Contracts
Courts and Judges
Legal History
Race and the Law
Slavery

This grant supported Dr. Pardo’s book project, “The Color of Bankruptcy: Financial Failure and Freedom in the Age of American Slavery,” which was published as part of Columbia University Press’s Columbia Studies in the History of U.S. Capitalism series. The book examines how federal bankruptcy law supported American slavery’s capitalism while simultaneously facilitating claims to civic inclusion by free Black Americans. The awardee relied on manuscript court records produced under the Bankruptcy Act of 1841 in the Eastern District of Louisiana to tell this story. Funds were used to purchase credits on the AI platform used to transcribe the manuscript court records produced under the Bankruptcy Act of 1841. 

The Ugly Caribbean: Caribbean Writers and the Rejection of Paradise

Crystal Payne

Graduate Student, English and American Literature

• Email: c.payne@nospam.wustl.edu

Black diaspora
Border Theory
Caribbean Studies
Exile
Hemispheric American Studies
Migration and movement
Postcolonial theory

The project involves an in-depth historical analysis of colonialism and the representation of the Caribbean as both paradise and purgatory, examining how Caribbean writers challenge exploitative portrayals of their home. The awardee sought funding to advance this study at the British Library, accessing archives on migration, ethnicity, and post-colonialism, among others. By examining the narratives of Caribbean people and spaces, the research aimed to highlight the impact of colonialism and racism on global perceptions of the region. The awardee was able to spend spent considerable time at the British Library in London during a summer trip in 2023, immersing themselves in colonial West Indian newspaper archives and rare texts. This research informed the development of the fourth chapter of their dissertation, which will be expanded into an article, revealing nuanced dimensions of Caribbean identity beyond traditional paradigms of paradise and ugliness. Additionally, by exploring books on return migration, the researcher uncovered insights into conflicting narratives about home, culminating in the concept of the “Poetics of Home,” which became the title of their dissertation. 

The State of Pediatric Neurosurgery Disparities Research

Sangami Pugazenthi

MD, School of Medicine

• Email: s.pugazenthi@nospam.wustl.edu

Health disparities
Social determinants of health
Medical Specialty Decision Making
Perceptions of Neurosurgery

The awardee used the grant to support presenting their project, “Assessing Real-World Access to Trauma- Informed Mental Health Services for Historically Marginalized Youth: A Mystery Shopper Study” at the American Public Health Association Conference in Boston, Massachusetts in November of 2022. Dr. Adams presented the paper in the form of an oral presentation and used funds to cover the costs of travel (flight and hotel). At the conference, Dr. Adams was able to share the findings of the study that indicated that discrimination on the basis of race or ethnicity may be occurring at the point of scheduling in community mental health settings, as the Black and Latina voice actresses in the study who called these agencies to schedule services were 18% less likely to be granted an appointment than the White actress. Dr. Adams was able to share these findings and network with experts in the field of public health in a continued effort to develop solutions to reduce bias and discrimination in community mental health settings. Since the conference, this paper was submitted to a peer-reviewed journal for publication; it is currently in the review process.  

“Negra, criolla, horra, morena y ladina”: Black Women’s Agency as Legal Witnesses in Seventeenth-Century Lima

Juan Manuel Ramírez Velázquez

Former PhD Candidate, Romance Languages and Literatures

Colonial Latin America
Critical Race Theory
Displacement
Ethnicity
Gender
Migration
Mobility

This award supported travel to the Kentucky Foreign Languages and Literatures Conference in Lexington, Kentucky, in April 2023.  The awardee presented their project titled “‘Negra, criolla, horra, morena, y ladina’: Black Women’s Agency as Legal Witnesses in Seventeenth-Century Lima.” This paper examines the testimonies of Black women servants in early seventeenth-century Lima, focusing on their pivotal role in a divorce lawsuit filed by a Spanish woman against her Genoese husband, arguing that these Black women demonstrate agency and socio-economic savvy amidst discriminatory treatment, challenging traditional narratives of servitude and subjugation. The awardee participated panels with scholars in their field. Presenting their project at this conference also provided the opportunity to receive insightful comments and feedback other panelists studying colonial Latin America.

Disrupting Perceptions of Colorblindness as the Norm: Children’s Talk About Race

Grace Reid

PhD Candidate, Psychological & Brain Sciences; Chancellor’s Fellow

• Email: reid.g@nospam.wustl.edu

Developmental Psychology
Intersectionality
Race
Social Cognition

This grant supported the dissertation project titled, “Disrupting Perceptions of Colorblindness as the Norm: Children’s Talk About Race.” The award helped compensate approximately 50 8- to 12-year-old children for their participation in the dissertation project. The award also provided financial support for travel to the 2023 Society for Research in Child Development Biennial Conference, where this work was presented as a poster. A portion of the dissertation project was also presented as a talk at the Boston University Developmental Science Emerging Scholars Symposium on Culture, Ethnicity, and Structural Racism: Influences on Child Development. Finally, an oral defense of this project was given to fulfill the dissertation requirements. A dissertation paper was also written that includes two manuscripts that are in preparation for submission at peer reviewed journals.  

How Civic Education Mitigates and Exacerbates Outgroup Discrimination

Jeremy Siow

Graduate Student, Political Science

• Email: wsiow@nospam.wustl.edu

Comparative Politics
Political Socialization
Southeast Asia Politics
Ethnic and Race Politics
Education Policy
Quantitative Methods

This project sought to understand whether exposure to civic education affects social and political attitudes towards ethnic and national outgroups, such as immigrants and refugees. The awardee recruited Rakuten Insight and conducted a survey in Singapore in the month of November 2022. Overall, they found that respondents who received civic education displayed less ethnic outgroup prejudice but supported greater restrictions against immigrant entry. This result highlights the paradoxical effects of civic education, where the emphasis on nation building and identity mitigates intergroup prejudice between citizens of different ethnicities; yet, it exacerbates discrimination against immigrants who do not belong to the nation. His end goal is to complete the first draft of the paper and present the findings at the Midwest Political Science Association (MPSA) that will be held in April 2024. 

Gendering Energopoetics: Violence and Symbiotic Bodies

Francisco Tijerina

Graduate Student, Romance Languages and Literatures/Hispanic Studies

• Email: francisco@nospam.wustl.edu

Contemporary
Energy
Extractivism
Latin America
Literature
Minerals
Oil

The awardee attended two prominent conferences in their field and presented papers amidst esteemed colleagues. At the Modern Language Association (MLA) conference, a paper titled “Moth Women and Other Forms of Devouring the Canon in Veronica Gerber Bicecci’s Work” was presented. This paper explores the presence and importance of the 

figure of moth women that Gerber Bicecci introduces over her intervention of Semonides de Amorgo’s Types of Women published in the anthology Tsunami (2018). The overarching argument is that through this minimal figure, Gerber Bicecci explores not only in importance of non-human beings as core members of our ecosystems but also the role that Latin American women (and other minoritized groups)are taking as they respond to a male dominated canon of literature. 

“Petromasculine Capitalism: Men in Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor” was presented at the Latin American Studies Association (LASA) conference. This paper’s goal was to show how capitalism, through the enactment of extractivism, prioritizes the patriarchal pact that has been terrorizing contemporary Mexico to uphold both entangled systems altogether. These presentations facilitated discussions on the awardee’s research and fostered connections with scholars working on similar topics.  

sarita sundar: Archival research & cross-cultural design dialogues

Aggie Toppins

Associate Professor & Chair, Sam Fox School/College of Art/Design

• Email: a.r.toppins@nospam.wustl.edu

• Twitter

Design
Social History
Critical Historiography
Representation
Semiotics
Intersectional Feminism
Racial Capitalism

This grant supported bringing Sarita Sundar, founder of Hanno, to campus. She delivered two lectures on her research, provided feedback to students on their work, and collaborated on published research. Her research and creative practice focus on the history of Indian design and visual culture in the 20th century. She investigates intercultural design dialogues between India and the United States, colonial and post-colonial representations of India, as well as Indian cultural practices in response to European modernism. 

Intersections: A Workshop on Black and Indigenous Sound in the Early Atlantic World

Miguel A Valerio

Assistant Professor of Spanish

• Email: m.a.valerio@nospam.wustl.edu

• Twitter

Africans and Afro-descendants in colonial Latin America literature and culture
Africans and Afro-descendants in the Mediterranean
Africans and Afro-descendants in Renaissance and Baroque literature and culture
Black confraternities in the Iberian Empires
Renaissance and Baroque festival culture
Funeral rituals among black confraternities
Afro-Latin American literature and culture
The history of race and racism
Identity formation

The awardee attended the “Intersections: A Workshop on Black and Indigenous Sound in the Early Atlantic World” workshop at the Commonwealth University of Virginia. This grant allowed him to travel to Richmond to workshop his research on early modern Black sound with an interdisciplinary group of scholars. He particularly benefitted from the feedback music scholars provided. This workshop also constituted the first meeting of his working group, which was expanded for a symposium at the Clark Library in Los Angeles in the spring of 2023. Going forward, the group intends to meet two more times, to workshop and finalize papers based on the research they workshopped in Richmond, respectively. 

Activism as a Life Direction: Understanding How Purpose Motivates Activists

Megan Wilson

Graduate Student, Psychological & Brain Sciences

• Email: meganwilson@nospam.wustl.edu

Activism
Discrimination
Health disparities
Intergenerational discrimination
Purpose in life

This project centered on understanding when, whether, and why forgivingness may influence activism among Black adults. CRE2 funding has provided critical insights into the nature of forgivingness and activism; namely, it does not appear that being a disposition ally forgiving person in one’s social life carries consequences with respect to activist engagement. Put differently, being a forgiving adult does not lead individuals to avoid activism for social change, when they are confronted with everyday discrimination, and in fact may actually strengthen that association. These intriguing findings provide multiple next steps for research into forgivingness and activism. Hill and Wilson were able to conduct a second study to examine whether similar findings hold in scenarios were participants are asked to imagine a discriminatory experience occurring. They were also able to draft a manuscript based on their findings, present their work at a summit they co-hosted on the Psychology of Social Change here at Washington University, and discuss these counterintuitive findings with experts from across the nation.