Grappling with ethnic identity is fraud for many people. Labels and categorizations of race and ethnicity complicate answering the question of “who am I?” Labels, in this case, such as “Latino,” “Chicano,” and “Mexican-American” hold vast differences that do not authentically represent how a person relates to themselves and the paradigms that the labels offer. In the current research and creative practice, the artist examines their identity through mixed media and organic sculptural art. Here, art is utilized as a method of researching, processing, and educating others on their identity and their belonging to a larger community that is united in experiencing similar strifes. To investigate identity, the artist examines historical events that have targeted their community and the use of organic material to represent place. These events include the War of the Grapes in California, 1973, and our unfolding history of implementing stricter immigration laws in Florida. Both of these events affect predominantly Latino populations that have shaped who they are and, in turn, shaped how each individual interprets their own identity and belonging to their community. By using organic material from Tucson, Arizona, a different location from California and Florida, the artist offers their perspective as a member of their community despite not experiencing these conflicts locally as art is a medium and language that overcomes geographic borders. Overall, the artist employs art as a medium to materialize and communicate their grappling of identity in an effort to generate greater awareness and empathy for their community.

The present study explores how Black American musicians are significantly more likely to collaborate with each other across musical genres than other races, suggestive of a larger African American Diasporic cultural movement. This topic is important because it contributes to an understanding of how music is being made, and in what context, especially when it comes to African American Culture, a subject that has been historically understudied, misrepresented, and misunderstood. This research aims to contribute closing that gap, by linking, through multiple case studies, the commercial, and cultural success of recent key Black American figures in music, with the ways they interact with Pan-Africanism in the context of an African American Diasporic cultural movement. These finding contribute to the field, and society as a whole because it provides the lenses to see how artists can be complex individuals, more than just a musician or a producer in a particular musical genre, they can also possibly be acknowledged as scholars, innovators across multiple cultural spaces, agents of social change, and so forth. Broadening our understanding of music in general as more than just an art form but also a social force, a manifestation of culture.

With more and more research coming out about how autism works for people, one thing that is lacking is the relationship between autism and live theater. As an autistic person and a theater actor in their 20s, how does autism affect the way live theater can be enjoyed? Is there a way to enjoy theater for autistic people and people with sensory issues? By watching a couple shows from different theater companies in the Salt Lake City Utah area and recording down what is felt during each production, it can be determined how even for someone who is closely in theater can still be heavily affected by their autism. Researching what a sensory friendly show is and making it an option for my own college's theater department by making an action plan on how to do it. Research that is readily available only discusses how children react in sensory friendly shows.Those children still must grow up, and there are adults that find out they are autistic after childhood. What about them? How are they able to enjoy theater? Without any research indicating how autistic adults react to sensory friendly or non-sensory friendly performances, understanding it in myself will help advocate for having more theater companies do more sensory friendly shows. There are more questions and more things to do with this topic but understanding it myself and trying to make a change in my own college is at least a first step in the right direction for more accommodating theatre.