Placing immigrant incorporation: Identity, trust, and civic engagement in Little Havana

Immigrant incorporation in the United States has been a topic of concern and debate since the founding of the nation. Scholars have studied many aspects of the phenomenon, including economic, political, social, and spatial. The most influential paradigm of immigrant incorporation in the US has been, and continues to be, assimilation, and the most important place in and scale at which incorporation occurs is the neighborhood. This dissertation captures both of these integral aspects of immigrant incorporation through its consideration of three dimensions of assimilation – identity, trust, and civic engagement – among Latin American immigrants and American-born Latinos in Little Havana, a predominantly immigrant neighborhood in Miami, Florida. Data discussed in the dissertation were gathered through surveys and interviews as part of a National Science Foundation-funded study carried out in 2005-2006. The combination of quantitative and qualitative data allows for a nuanced understanding of how immigrant incorporation is occurring locally during the first decade of the twentieth century. Findings reveal that overall Latin American immigrants and their American-born offspring appear to be becoming American with regard to their ethnic and racial identities quickly, evidenced through the salience and active employment of panethnic labels, while at the same time they are actively reshaping the identificational structure. The Latino population, however, is not monolithic and is cleaved by diversity within the group, including country of origin and socioeconomic status. These same factors impede group cohesion in terms of trust and its correlate, community. Nevertheless, the historically dominant ancestry group in Little Havana – Cubans – has been able to reach notable levels of trust and build and conserve a more solid sense of community than non-Cuban residents. With respect to civic engagement, neighborhood residents generally participate at rates lower than the overall US population and ethnic subpopulations. This is not the case for political engagement, however, where self-reported voting registration and turnout in Little Havana surpasses that of most benchmarked populations. The empirical evidence presented in this dissertation on the case of Latinos in Little Havana challenges the ways that identity, trust, and civic engagement are conceptualized and theorized, especially among immigrants to the US.

Arc crust-magma interaction in the Andean Southern Volcanic Zone from thermobarometry, mineral composition, radiogenic isotope and rare earth element systematics of the Azufre-Planchon-Peteroa volcanic complex, Chile

The Andean Southern Volcanic Zone (SVZ) is a vast and complex continental arc that has been studied extensively to provide an understanding of arc-magma genesis, the origin and chemical evolution of the continental crust, and geochemical compositions of volcanic products. The present study focuses on distinguishing the magma/sub-arc crustal interaction of eruptive products from the Azufre-Planchon-Peteroa (APP 35°15'S) volcanic center and other major centers in the Central SVZ (CSVZ 37°S–42°S), Transitional SVZ (TSVZ 34.3–37.0°S), and Northern SVZ (NSVZ 33°S–34°30'S). New Hf and Nd isotopic and trace element data for SVZ centers are consistent with former studies that these magmas experienced variable depths of crystal fractionation, and that crustal assimilation is restricted to the lower crustal depths with an apparent role of garnet. Thermobarometric calculations applied to magma compositions constrain the depth of magma separation from mantle sources in all segments of the SVZ to(70-90 km). Magmatic separation at the APP complex occurs at an average depth of ~50 km which is confined to the mantle lithosphere and the base of the crust suggesting localized thermal abrasion both reservoirs. Thermobarometric calculations indicate that CSVZ primary magmas arise from a similar average depth of (~54 km) which confines magma separation to the asthenospheric mantle. The northwards along-arc Sr-Nd-Hf isotopic data and LREE enrichment accompanied with HREE depletion of SVZ mafic magmas correlates well with northward increasing crustal thickness and decreasing primary melt separation from mantle source regions indicating an increased involvement of lower crustal components in SVZ magma petrogenesis. ^ The study concludes that the development of mature subduction zones over millions of years of continuous magmatism requires that mafic arc derived melts stagnate at lower crustal levels due to density similarities and emplace at lower crustal depths. Basaltic underplating creates localized hot zone environments below major magmatic centers. These regions of high temperature/partial melting, and equilibration with underplated mafic rocks provides the mechanism that controls trace element and isotopic variability of primary magmas of the TSVZ and NSVZ from their baseline CSVZ-like precursors.^

Tourist See Tourist Do: The Influence of Hollywood Movies and Television on Tourism Motivation and Activity Behavior

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of Hollywood movies and television (movies/TV) on US viewer’s motivation to travel to and participate in activities featured in Hollywood movies/TV productions. A survey was administered in an online format to a convenience sample of 433 respondents via Qualtrics. Factor analysis, correlation, and regression was employed to explore relationships between the variables. Findings identified a profile of Hollywood movies/TV viewers, sources of information used to determine destination choice, and level of involvement among viewers of Hollywood movies/TV productions. Additionally, this study explored the relationships between Hollywood movies/TV productions, tourist motivations, and the propensity to participate in activities featured. Findings indicate that Hollywood movies/TV productions have a positive impact on viewer involvement and that movie/TV related tourism is likely to be affected by movie and TV viewing preference and destination image. The results identify that the predictor “TV viewing behavior” is the strongest predictor of entertainmentmotivated tourism, followed by “destination image” and “movie viewing behavior.” Findings also indicate that “destination image” is the strongest predictor of movie-related activities and that the image portrayed in a movie does influence the viewer’s inclination to visit and participate in activities featured in a movie.