Cohort 2022-2024

Florencia Bravo

Hometown: Rosario, Argentina

Major(s): English Literature, Minoring in Creative Writing

Graduate Interests: English Literature, World Literature, Gender Studies

Scholarships and Academic Awards: Dean’s Honor Roll List

MMUF Mentor: Dr. Roderick Hernandez

Research Project Title: “What Makes a Man: Exploring Male Stereotypes, Machismo, and Toxic Masculinity in Gabriel García Márquez’s Novels”

Research Project Abstract: Ideas of machismo and toxic masculinity are still prevalent in Latin American societies today. Even with modern feminist movements and newer ways of thinking both men and women find themselves trapped within patriarchal structures. Gabriel García Márquez challenges these values and ideals in his novels, Love in the Time of Cholera and Chronicle of a Death Foretold by questioning men’s roles in the family and society. By depicting his male characters as one of three stereotypes: a womanizer, a provider, or a dictator, he challenges what is considered to be the perfect Latino man. Furthermore, these cycles of machismo and toxic masculinity plague families across generations and those that stray away from the status quo can fear being ostracized or worse. The two womanizers, Florentino Ariza and Santiago Nasar mistreat and use women while also being sexually objectified themselves. Ultimately, they prove to be unable to hold healthy romantic or platonic relationships with women. Similarly, the providers, Bayardo San Román and Dr. Urbino are often seen more as banks or financial resources than actual men. They are admired for their status and held up to an unachievable standard. Lastly, the dictators, Lorenzo Daza and the Vicario Twins are not only portrayed as patriarchal leaders, but protectors. These three characters are blind to their own hypocrisy and are obsessed with their families’ legacies and reputations being tarnished. García Márquez uses these three stereotypes to criticize all these standards which objectify, trap, and fetishize Latino men to this day, completely challenging the way Latin America still values these dated and sexist machista standards.

Ricardo Lopez Jr.

Hometown: Los Angeles, CA

Major(s): English Education

Graduate Interests: 20th and 21st Century Latin American Literature, Ethnic Studies, Culture Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies

Scholarships and Academic Awards: Dean’s Honor Roll List

MMUF Mentor: Dr. Roderick Hernandez

Research Project Title: Militarized Machismo: Latin American Military Men in Roma and El Secreto de Sus Ojos

Research Project Abstract: The Dirty Wars of Latin America during the 1960s-1980s left a cultural scar on the several countries involved. One of these scars is how the identities of men who were a part of the various paramilitary groups during the Dirty Wars were shaped by their experience training with Americans. The method in which young Latin American men were exposed to nationalist ideologies in combination with the level of humiliation and oppression they experienced in their training created a hypermasculine machismo described by Anzaldua in her seminal work Borderlands: the New Mestiza = La Frontera. Films like Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma (2018) and Juan Jose Campanella’s El Secreto de sus Ojos (2009) provide examples of how young men in military groups develop a hypermasculine identity and contribute to the high level of violence towards women. The trauma that shaped this kind of identity is intergenerational, passed on to the sons of these paramilitary men. This research intends to investigate the root of machismo identity and how it has persisted into our contemporary culture.

Kevin Jones

Hometown: Los Angeles, CA

Major(s): Africana Studies

Graduate Interests: 20th and 21st Century Latin American Literature, Ethnic Studies, Culture Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies

MMUF Mentor: Dr. Donna Nicol

Research Project Title: Africanisms in North American Food Culture

Research Project Abstract: Africanisms in North American Food Cultures shows the steady retention of indigenous African food and its surrounding culture historically in North American History. Debunking the association with Double Consciousness ideology, as applied to the American negro. The propaganda that was circulated, suggesting that the African diaspora in America have no history prior to slavery, and brought no contributions from their culture with them, has done seemingly irreparable damage to the African American community. Employing literature and findings, claims are made to uncover and prove the retentions, losses, innovations and adaptations of the Africans before, during and after the slave trades.

Monique Mangum

Hometown: Torrance, CA

Major: Language & Linguistics

Graduate Interests: Phonology & Fieldwork

Scholarships and Academic Awards: OUR Summer Research Fellowship, Deans Honor Roll List

MMUF Mentor: Dr. Iara Mantenuto

Research Project Title: "Gaddang: Grammaticalization & Rule Ordering"

Research Project Abstract:This study focuses on Gaddang (ISO: gad), an understudied language spoken in the Philippines that has shown effects of change occurring overtime. By comparing my own data and past works by Calimag (1965) and Troyer (1959), I present evidence of grammaticalization and change in phonological rule ordering. In order to show evidence of grammaticalization, I focus on the development of a verb that is produced from a noun by adding a prefix /ma/ as shown in (1)-(2). In present progressive aspects, a part of the verb should be reduplicated before the prefix is added, as in (3). However, sometimes the prefix is added before reduplication occurs, and thus it is reduplicated together with a part of the verb stem as shown in (4). The derivations reported in (5) and (6) show a prefixation and reduplication rule applied to a verb to help one understand how words are conjugated in Gaddang and demonstrate the idea of rule orders competing with one another.

1. diyut: ‘bath’ | Calimag (1965: 46)
2. maddiyut: ‘bathe(s), will bathe | Calimag (1965: 46)
3. a) malakad 'walk'
   b) malaklakad ‘is walking’
4. a) matagab 'burns'
   b) matmatagab 'is burning'
5. /lakad/ input
   laklakad Reduplication rule
   malaklakad Prefixation rule
   [malaklakad] Output
6. /tagab/ Input
   matagab Reduplication rule
   matmatagab Prefixation rule
   [matmatagab] Output

These competing rules that were absent in previous reports by Calimag (1965) and Troyer (1959) may exist because overtime native speakers may have forgotten that matagab was actually tagab. In the presentation, I focus on whether or not the prefixation rules are competing with the reduplication rules in Gaddang progressive, I also explore additional phonological rules present in the language. I conclude by showing how this effects the linguistic community and how my research may be beneficial to native speakers of Gaddan.

Isabelle Hutchins

Hometown: Norwalk, CA

Major: English-Linguistics

Graduate Interests: Linguistics

Scholarships and Academic Awards: MMUF

MMUF Mentor: Dr. Iara Mantenuto

Research Project Title: Investigating Heritage Speakers of Tagalog and their Production and Perception of Stress

Research Project Abstract: This project examines the ways in which heritage speakers (those who learned a language informally at home rather than at school) stress certain syllables within words and sentences.