Faculty Profiles

Permanent URI for this community

https://hdl.handle.net/1794/691

This site provides a forum for showcasing the work of individual faculty members. Faculty may have their work archived here as well as with their departments or institutes.

Faculty interested in establishing a collection for themselves in Scholars' Bank are invited to contact, Scholars' Bank team, University of Oregon Libraries.

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Now showing 1 - 20 of 1029

Open Access
Chicana Mothering in the 21st Century: Challenging Stereotypes and Transmitting Culture
(Columbia University Press, 2008) Vasquez-Tokos, Jessica
This chapter examines the experiences of mothering among Mexican American women in the early 21st century. Mexican Americans are a large and growing minority group due to both immigration and fertility rates. Chicana mothering involves acting as a guardian or mediator between racial messages from the “outside world” (school, media, inter-racial social networks) and their children. Mothers are responsible for overseeing their children’s growth and development; as minorities, this often requires defusing negative racial messages and replacing them with affirmation.
Open Access
Check(Out) Your Privilege or: How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Putting on a Diversity Event
(McFarland, 2019) Campbell, Damon; Harlan, Lydia; Lilley, Rachel
The University of Oregon Libraries’ well-established Library Diversity Committee adopted a newly energized tone when a new Dean of Libraries joined the institution and assumed the responsibility of chairing the committee. Inspired by the sense of urgency in her leadership, our committee recognized the need to move conversations surrounding diversity into action which, ultimately, resulted in a public program focused on privilege.
Open Access
Leveraging SharePoint to Better Manage the University's HR Records
(University of Oregon, 2024-02-27) Harlan, Lydia
The goal of this project is to survey UO’s current administrative processes, and how the information (records) from those processes is being handled (where are the records stored, who is responsible for them, how do the records get into those systems, who reviews the records for retention, how are the records disposed of). Next, determine which of those processes could be moved into SharePoint, and prioritize the list in terms of what you believe the University should focus on first.
Open Access
Don’t Call It a Comeback: Popular Reading Collections in Academic Libraries
(American Library Association, 2018) Brookbank, Elizabeth; Davis, Anne-Marie; Harlan, Lydia
Despite the persisting notion that recreational reading does not have a place in the academic mission of college and university libraries, these libraries have a long history of providing pleasure reading for their patrons. During the latter half of the twentieth century, the idea of academic libraries meeting the recreational reading needs of students seems to have fallen out of favor, but a literature review of that time period shows that the collections themselves still existed. Discussion of—and justifications for—these collections, however, has enjoyed a resurgence in the library literature over the past decade. Given this renewed interest, this study seeks to assess just how common these collections are in US academic libraries today, and whether or not they are, in fact, enjoying a comeback from previous decades. This study surveyed the thirty-nine academic libraries that make up the Orbis Cascade Alliance in the Pacific Northwest, a diverse group of libraries in terms of size, type, budget, and student populations. The results of the survey show that a majority of libraries have a recreational collection and that these collections are valued by patrons and librarians alike. Recommendations are made for shifting the perspective on popular reading collections and their place in academic libraries, as well as for how to study them in the future.
Open Access
Cost per Use in Power BI using Alma Analytics and a Dash of Python Authors Lydia
(University of Oregon Libraries, 2024) Harlan, Lydia; Buxton, Kristin; Hayden, Gabrielle
A trio of personnel at University of Oregon Libraries explored options for automating a pathway to ingest, store, and visualize cost per use data for continuing resources. This paper presents a pipeline for using Alma, SUSHI, COUNTER5, Python, and Power BI to create a tool for data-driven decision making. By establishing this pipeline, we shift the time investment from manually harvesting usage statistics to interpreting the data and sharing it with stakeholders. The resulting visualizations and collected data will assist in making informed, collaborative decisions.
Open Access
Mexican Migration and Settlement
(Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, 2010-06) Vasquez-Tokos, Jessica
Literature on international migration, assimilation, and transnationalism continues to be concerned with questions about ties that migrants and their descendants have with their homelands, coethnics, and the native-born population. Tomás R. Jiménez's Replenished Ethnicity: Mexican Americans, Immigration, and Identity and Joanna Dreby's Divided by Borders: Mexican Migrants and their Children provide important perspectives on different aspects of the larger phenomenon of international migration from Mexico to the United States that is a consequence of labor demand in the United States, economic need and job scarcity in Mexico, and a global economy. Both books deal with social life that takes place across ethnic boundaries, within ethnic groups, and across national borders. Taking qualitative approaches and dealing with the perennial tension between inclusion and exclusion, these books analyze the experiences and perspectives of Mexican migrants, Mexican children, and Mexican Americans.
Open Access
Methodological Appendix: A Note on Sociological Reflexivity and "Situated Interviews"
(New York University Press, 2011) Vasquez-Tokos, Jessica
Open Access
5. Whiter is Better: Discrimination in Everyday Life
(New York University Press, 2011) Vasquez-Tokos, Jessica
Ruben and Adele Mendoza are a married second-generation couple who are both light skinned and have a Hispanic surname. They tell me a powerful tale about how their Spanish-sounding name—Mendoza as a “giveaway” last name—restricted their access to housing when they were newlyweds.
Open Access
8. Conclusion: Racialization despite Assimilation
(New York University Press, 2011) Vasquez-Tokos, Jessica
This book has addressed the question of Mexican immigrants’ and their descendants’ integration into U.S. society. One more glimpse into respondents’ lives reinforces the point that racial/ethnic identity is a fluid process that is highly contingent upon context and that assimilation path-ways are not straightforward but open to voluntary personal switchbacks and vicissitudes driven by external social forces.
Open Access
2. Thinned Attachment: Heritage is Slipping through Our Fingers
(New York University Press, 2011) Vasquez-Tokos, Jessica
Sixty-five-year-old Maria Montes is a devout Catholic, bilingual in English and Spanish, and the matriarch of her family.1 One of six siblings, Maria emigrated from Mexico when she was four years old with her mother and sister, while her brothers stayed in Mexico. Maria’s mother chose to immigrate in part because one of her brothers and her eldest son were already in the United States and encouraged her to move. They crossed the Rio Grande River and took the train into the United States. Upon arrival, she worked in the fields picking potatoes and green beans and then at the packing house. Maria would join her mother in the fields when she was young or would be under the care of her older sister, a “second mother” caretaker for her. Twelve years later Maria’s mother brought two of her other sons over to the United States.
Open Access
3. Cultural Maintenance: A Pot of Beans on the Stove
(New York University Press, 2011) Vasquez-Tokos, Jessica
When I arrived at the Benavidas home in the Oakland hills, my respondent’s wife, Melissa, gave me a tour of the front portion of the home, saying her husband would join us in a minute. The house was immaculately decorated, boasting art on the walls from Spain, Mexico, and Ecuador, as well as southwestern art hand crafted by Melissa’s father. As Melissa ushered me into the kitchen, she laughed, saying tongue in cheek, “Not to be a stereo-typical Mexican family or anything, but we’ve got to get the beans on!” We both laughed. She followed up with, “Well, really, we usually do have a pot of beans in the house.”
Open Access
4. Tortillas in the Shape of the United States: Marriage and the Families We Choose
(New York University Press, 2011) Vasquez-Tokos, Jessica
Marriage is a central component of assimilation. Marriage patterns, in particular frequency of intermarriage, are a basic yardstick used to measure assimilation. Marriage has historically been understood as a way to preserve or alter the racial makeup of society. Antimiscegenation laws that banned interracial marriage and interracial sex were enforced until ruled unconstitutional in the 1967 Supreme Court decision Loving v. Virginia. “Anti-miscegenation laws . . . were both a response to increased immigration from Asia [and Latin America] and a reflection of persistent concerns regarding racial purity and the nature of American citizenship” (Sohoni 2007: 587). While marriage patterns have been the subject of heated popular debate and legal battles, we know less about the role marriage plays in the subjective experience of race among the marital partners and their children, which is the subject of this chapter.
Open Access
7. As Much Hamburger as Taco: Third-Generation Mexican Americans
(New York University Press, 2011) Vasquez-Tokos, Jessica
Nearly seven million people are third-plus generation Mexican Americans (Macias 2006: 6), yet there is great diversity and fluidity within this group regarding the way they classify themselves. This chapter analyzes how the contradictory forces of “flexible ethnicity” and “racialization” influence the way third-generation Mexican Americans identify. “Flexible ethnicity” refers to the ability to deftly and effectively navigate different racial terrains and be considered an “insider” in more than one racial or ethnic group. “Racialization,” by contrast, refers to the process of distancing and oppressing people perceived as nonwhite. In this case, other people’s expectations and enforcement of difference create or reproduce social distance and unequal power dynamics. Regardless of whether Mexican Americans experience their racial/ethnic identity to be more “flexible” or “racialized,” they often encounter challenges to their racial “authenticity.” This chapter is organized in four sections. First, I examine the diversity of racial/ethnic claims third-generation Mexican Americans make. Second, I develop the concept of “flexible ethnicity.” Third, I analyze the process of racialization. Finally, I discuss the issue of racial authenticity and the dynamism of culture, especially with regard to gender.
Open Access
Review, Latinos in American Society: Families and Communities in Transition
(Contemporary Society: A Journal of Reviews, 2013-04) Vasquez-Tokos, Jessica
Review of Latinos in American Society: Families and Communities in Transition by Ruth Enid Zambrana.
Open Access
Artificial imaginings: ChatGPT envisions its future in academic libraries
(2023-07)
Miriam: Many essays have been written recently about ChatGPT (https://chat.openai.com/) and its impact on higher education, not least of which is a review of the technology in C&RL News in March 2023. But how many have asked ChatGPT what it has to say on the matter? I set out to learn what ChatGPT thought it could contribute to academic libraries. ChatGPT: Hi there, I’m ChatGPT! As a language model, I wrote a fun essay on using ChatGPT in academic libraries. I generated the text using my natural language processing skills, which let me create text that sounds like a real person wrote it. It’s like magic! I used my programming and training to come up with the essay, and I’d love to answer any questions you have.
Open Access
Open Secrets: Exploring Institutional Spending on Open Access
(Chinese American Librarians Association (CALA), 2024-12-20) Rigby, Miriam
A robust corpus exists on Open Access (OA) spending within libraries, however there is less literature on assessing OA expenditures across colleges and universities. Due to the nature of the fragmented and uneven investment in OA, researchers are likely not optimizing institutional resources on Article Processing Charges (APCs) as part of the open access environment. This article describes how personnel at University of Oregon Libraries built a Power BI model to encapsulate and visualize our institution’s open access outlay as well as apprise researchers of their options for selecting OA publication venues based on APCs and impact metrics.
Open Access
6. Fit to Be Good Cooks and Good Mechanics: Racialization in Schools
(New York University Press, 2011) Vasquez-Tokos, Jessica
School systems are simultaneously racialized and racializing. Educational institutions possess tremendous capacity to reproduce the power structure and racial hierarchy of society. Family, as another social institution, mediates the racializing effects of the educational system. The family is a critical site of racial identity development as it is a locale where intergenerational biography-based teaching occurs and strategies of action and resistance are formed. Within both schools and families, students respond to racializing messages and renegotiate their racial self-understanding. School experiences are conditioned by historical context, gender, and parental influences as parents use their own schooling experience as fodder for the intergenerational transfer of knowledge and ideologies to their children. This chapter asks, What influence do educational systems have on immigrants’ and citizens’ racial identity formation? What role do families play in amplifying or mitigating the process of racialization? From a long-term perspective, what are the cumulative effects of racialization across family generations? This chapter examines how second- and third-generation Mexican Americans experience their social identity within the educational system and how parents’ experiences with their own schooling shape their parenting styles.
Open Access
The "ethnic core" as an unsung reference group
(Ethnic and Racial Studies, 2020-08) Vasquez-Tokos, Jessica
Using longitudinal survey data and interviews, Edward Telles and Christina Sue’s book, Durable Ethnicity: Mexican Americans and the Ethnic Core (2019), seeks to explain both the endurance and variation of ethnicity among the Mexican American population. They offer the concept of the “ethnic core”: structures and institutions that promote ethnicity that serve as a counterpoint to the mainstream. The ethnic core is a major contribution to Mexican American and Latino/a studies that avoids valorizing a White, middle-class mainstream as the presumed “goal” of assimilation. Honouring Mexican Americans’ simultaneous participation in mainstream and ethnic communities, participation in (or removal from) the “ethnic core” contributes to intra-group variation. In presenting the ethnic core as an alternative to the “mainstream” (coded as White), Telles and Sue undercut the White supremacy pervading much academic scholarship and highlight the importance of a heretofore unsung reference group that exerts its own “gravitational pull” (the ethnic core).
Open Access
Couple Identity Work: Collaborative Couplehood, Gender Inequalities, and Power in Naming
(Gender & Society, 2024-01) Vasquez-Tokos, Jessica; Sue, Christina A.; Nunez, Adriana C.
The study of baby naming is valuable for understanding how gender inequality is reproduced in families. Often treated as an event, baby naming also represents an important social and cultural process that can reveal gendered dynamics in couple decision-making. Baby naming, which represents a highly visible and symbolic family milestone, is a strategic site in which to examine how couple identities are constructed—for self, partner, and others—through the naming process and through stories parents tell of how they named the baby. Drawing on 46 interviews with U.S. Mexican-origin heterosexual parents, we expose tensions that result when practices do not align with a desired (egalitarian) couple identity and detail the ensuing cognitive, emotion, and narrative labor that parents—primarily women—perform to reconcile inconsistencies. We introduce the concept of couple identity work, or the work involved in creating and projecting a desired impression of a relationship for multiple audiences, to provide a theoretical framework for these gendered dynamics. We show how couple identity work is enacted—and power expressed—through men’s and women’s strategies of action/inaction and storytelling, and how this work reproduces and obscures gendered power and inequality in the intimate context of baby naming.
Open Access
Across Borders, Across Generations: Immigration, Assimilation, and Racial Identity Formation in Multi-Generational Mexican American Families
(University of California, Berkeley, 2007) Vasquez-Tokos, Jessica
This dissertation investigates how racial identities of Mexican Americans both change and persist inter-generationally within families. Using purposive and snowball sampling, I interviewed three-generation middle class Mexican American families in California. I conducted in-depth interviews with sixty-seven members from twenty-nine three-generation families (Mexican immigrant grandparents and their children and grandchildren born in the U.S.). Two questions inspire this inquiry. First, what are the families’ trajectories of racial identification and incorporation across the three generations? Second, what familial and social forces influence each generation’s racial identity formation? My research elaborates on and refines existing theories of assimilation and racial identity formation by using a generational, family-centered approach. I evoke and utilize the categories of "thinned attachment" and "cultural maintenance" to capture trajectories of assimilation across generations. My study suggests that eight factors are significant in shaping racial identity development and incorporation patterns: spouse/partner, personal traits (phenotype and name), cultural toolkit, gender, social position, social context, institutions, and immigration/citizenship status. Intergenerational family memory (knowledge and stories transmitted through generations), parental ideologies, and historical context are also significant in shaping both racial identity and incorporation trajectories. My research finds that assimilation, as a mode of structural incorporation, is predominant among the families interviewed. Structural assimilation influences racial identity formation in two bifurcated ways: it prompts a loss of Mexican affiliation or sparks a desire to retain a Mexican-oriented identity. Public and institutional discrimination have a tremendous impact on Mexican Americans’ racial identity. Historical period is also influential: the Civil Rights’ Movement offered a new racial rhetoric with which to combat racism and promote visibility. Finally, third generation Mexican Americans range from displaying flexibility in their identification options to being highly racialized in a way that makes Mexican American identity not a matter of choice. This research extends racial identity and assimilation theories by highlighting the mechanisms that drive these processes. Neither racial identity nor assimilation are straightforward progressions but, instead, develop unevenly and are influenced by family, society, and historical social movements.