Through the common themes of motherhood, spiritualism, and power, Jesmyn Ward’s Let Us Descend and Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass reveal that patriarchal systems commodify and exploit women and the natural environment alike, specifically women of color in Western cultures. This project serves to reveal the inner workings of the connection between how the patriarchy treats women and the environment in similar ways due to their ascribed femininity. Through a critical analysis of the primary sources listed above along with theoretical texts by Melanie Harris on Ecowomanism, Rosemary Ruether’s writings on Ecofeminism as well as Winona LaDuke’s book Recovering the Sacred: The Power of Naming and Claiming it is revealed that women and nature, as well as femininity as a whole, are viewed as fragile and weak by the oppressor, which results in their similarly situated oppression through the means of exploitation, control, domination, etc. The primary literary works emphasize the importance of maternal and feminine relationships, the experience of spiritualism and knowing, as well as uncovering the oppressive powers that control the world around them. Despite being two very different texts, Braiding Sweetgrass and Let Us Descend assist in revealing why women and the environment are treated similarly through a patriarchal lens.

Every March 8th and November 25th, thousands of women gather throughout various cities in Mexico to protest rising rates of gender-based violence and feminicide. In these marches mothers, activists, and community members demand for justice through organizing, mobilizing, and enacting radical care. The radical care practices utilized in these political spaces are able to then support activists’ communities and fight against systematic violence. Through this project I aim to understand the role of radical care and how systemic violence manifests in these marches and their impact on activists in Tijuana, Mexico. I am investigating the following questions: How do radical care practices manifest in Tijuana Mexico’s annual 8M & 25N marches? How does the state of Mexico perpetuate tactics of systemic violence toward the women in these marches? How does practicing radical care affect leaders in the Mexican Feminist movement? How does systemic violence affect leaders in the Mexican Feminist movement? Through a qualitative study, I am using community-based ethnography to shed light on these women's stories. Concurrently, I am creating a zine featuring mixed media art that conveys the project’s findings. In understanding activists’ self-valorization via direct action we are able to better comprehend the value of radical care acts for advancing womens’ rights in Mexico. This research aids in giving care and resources to the women who have been at the forefront of this decades long movement.

The early 20th century was marked by heightened racial tensions and anxieties surrounding American identity, culminating in San Francisco’s selection as the host city for the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition (PPIE). While the fair aimed to showcase national progress and Western civilization, it also reinforced exclusionary ideologies through its “Joy Zone” and “Race Betterment” exhibits, further marginalizing communities of color. In this context, African American women’s clubs emerged as critical vehicles for community uplift and civic participation. Building on the legacy of activism shaped by the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, this project explores how Black women in the Bay Area carried out racial uplift through their use of local networks. Drawing from newspapers, letters, and organizational documents, I analyze how Black clubwomen responded to misrepresentation at the PPIE by forging more localized, collective practices of citizenship. These women navigated the fair’s discriminatory structures and used the surrounding momentum to assert a presence that white fair organizers had worked to suppress. The 1915 PPIE symbolized a turning point in Black women’s civic activism in the Bay Area, highlighting how African American women contested distorted portrayals of race and carved out space for their voices in the public sphere. This research addresses archival silences and emphasizes the significance of Black women in shaping racial uplift and civil rights discourse in the early 20th century.

In this work, I intend to analyze the mobilization of El Partido Comunista Mexicano (PCM) during the 1950s and 60s, emphasizing the role of Mexican women. Focusing on the influence of the overwhelmingly masculine political leadership and the lack of importance placed on Mexican women by the Mexican Communist Party leaders, this article studies how the party's internal hierarchy and structure made it very easy for women to become overpowered and outnumbered. Which, in turn, had a hand in potentially impeding the Partido Comunista from increasing its membership, as many Mexican women began to align themselves with organizations like the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF) and political parties like El Partido Popular(PP), recognizing the roadblock created by their gender. Through the exploration of archives of Mexican Communist artwork, the party's published ideological guides, and secondary sources explaining the inner workings of the PCM, this work expects to paint a clearer picture of the discrimination that made women feel unwelcome from entering communist political spaces and becoming active political actors, especially during the Cold War Era.