The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Journal 2010 A collection of scholarly research by fellows of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program Through subtle shades of color, the cover design represents the layers of richness and diversity that flourish within minority communities. The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Journal 2010 A collection of scholarly research by fellows of the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Program Preface It has been my distinct pleasure to assemble the collection of articles authored by undergraduates in the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship (MMUF) for a third year. Having welcomed its 25th cohort of Fellows in 2010, the MMUF program has offered support to more than 3,500 undergrad- uates and continues to play a critical role in increasing the number of minority students and others with a demonstrated commitment to eradicating racial disparities that pursue PhDs in the arts and sciences. Indeed, with more than 150 fellows who are graduate students at the ABD level, in addition to more than 340 fellows who have earned their PhDs and are now actively teaching, MMUF is mak- ing significant inroads in reducing the serious underrepresentation of certain minority groups on faculties across the nation. The articles presented in the 2010 MMUF Journal showcase the original research of fellows who par- ticipated in the program during the 2009–2010 academic year as well as the program’s recent alumni. This year’s MMUF Journal spotlights just a few of these apprentice scholars as they begin to define their own scholarly agendas. Fellows were encouraged to submit works showcasing their intellectual endeavors, particularly the culmination of their Mellon research projects. The diverse articles in this year’s journal reveal the breadth of perspectives represented in the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship 21 fields of designated study.1 They probe in the essays range from Cindy Camacho’s exploration of Latina reproductive health and Nicole Gervasio’s examination of how stigmatization, HIV, and disability inheres in the postcolonial body, to Melinda Rios’s research on architecture in the Gilded Age, Kyera Singleton’s portrayals of Japanese-American identity, and Alonzo Vereen’s exploration of the manifold influences on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s writings and speeches. The breadth of students’ research topics—traversing the globe and spanning disciplines, historical eras, and conceptual commitments—bears testament to their promise in the pursuit of knowledge and engagement with their world(s). Whether exploring the practice of critical pedagogy in elite institutions, the dilemma of implement- ing HIV/AIDS prevention treatment, or the inner workings of microfinance institutions and loan diversification in St. Lucia, these students are examining issues critical to our intellectual, social, political, and practical understanding of underrepresented groups and society at large. Their engag- ing questions and analyses are a testament to the added value—and necessity—of such scholars to diversify the homogenized nature of institutions and provide new perspectives in our quest for knowledge. We present students’ original research in the MMUF Journal in continued support of their aim to obtain doctorates and become exceptional scholars. We hope you will enjoy their articles. Jovonne J. Bickerstaff Meg Brooks Swift Editor Contributing Editor MMUF Graduate Student Advisor, 2006–2010 MMUF Coordinator, 2006–2010 Harvard University, PhD Candidate in Sociology Harvard University 1Designated fields for the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship: Anthropology, Area Studies, Art History, Classics, Computer Science, Demography, Earth Science, Ecology, English, Ethnomusicology, Foreign Languages, Geology, History, Literature, Mathematics, Musicology, Philosophy, Physics, Political Theory, Religion, and Sociology. The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Journal 2010 Table of Contents 2 55 Nathalie G. Ais, Smith College Kimberly Love, Tuskegee University Critical Pedagogy in Practice: Institutional Structures and Individual Remembering Beloved and Discovering A Mercy: The Roles of Practice of Critical Pedagogy at an Elite Institution of Higher Education Patriarchy, Capitalism, and Race During Slavery Advisor: Professor Adrianne Andrews, Smith College Advisor: Dr. A. Ankumah 9 59 Darren Arquero, Rice University Yvette Martinez, University of California, Los Angeles Out of the Closet: Frank Kameny’s Militant LGBT Activism of the 1960s A Study of Transculturation vis-à-vis Language and Design Elements in A Bowl of Beings 13 Mentor: Marissa K. Lopez, Ph.D. Christiana Pinkston Betts, Hampton University The Show Must Go On!: Creating a Place in Maxine Hong Kingston’s 63 Tripmaster Monkey: His Fake Book Juliana Partridge, Spelman College Mentor: Dr. Amee Carmines Multiracial Racial Identity in Contemporary America: An Overview Mentor: Dr. Barbara Carter 15 Cecilia Caballero, University of California, Berkeley 67 Indigeneity, Mythistory, and la Virgen de Guadalupe in Sandra Albert Rigosi, Columbia University Cisneros’s Caramelo Optical Characterization of Gallium Arsenide (III) Mentor: Aron Pinczuk 19 Keru Cai, Harvard College 70 The Aesthetics of Music According to Proust: Its Human and Melinda Rios, Wellesley College Superhuman Capacities Personal Expression in Gilded Age Architecture 22 74 Cindy Camacho, Oberlin College Tyler J. Rogers, Brown University Divergent Discourses: Medical and Cultural Understandings of Latina Interpreting Difference through Different Interpretations: Reproductive Health in the Era of Gardasil Ethnohistories at Plimoth Plantation 27 78 Eliazar Masansi Chacha, University of California, Berkeley Tamlyn Roman, University of Cape Town, South Africa Compromising Race: The Politics of Being Three-Fifths Can We Treat Our Way Out of the Epidemic? Mentor: Charles Henry, Ph.D. 83 31 Kyera Singleton, Macalester College Patricia Cho, Williams College Ambiguous Bodies: Rethinking Race and Gender through the Trope of Ishmael’s Failed Heresy: Perpetuating the Overrepresentation of Man the Octoroon in Antebellum Louisiana Mentor: Cecilia Chang Mentors: Dr. Kennetta Perry and Dr. Peter Rachleff 36 87 Michael P. Esquivel, Rice University Susan Tan, Williams College Alfred, King of Wessex, and Anglo-Saxon Kingship Wishing the World Undone: Domestic Destruction in Macbeth Mentor: Professor Robert Bell 39 Darryl Finkton Jr., Harvard College, and Gerrel Z. Olivier, Boston 90 College Sharon Tran, Macaulay Honors College at CUNY Queens Social Profit from Microfinance Institutions: A Survey of the Perceived Looking Behind the Bedroom Door: Productive Sensationalism and Impact of Loan Diversification in St. Lucia Domestic Violence in Leonora Sansay’s Secret History 42 95 Nicole Gervasio, Bryn Mawr College Alonzo Vereen, Morehouse College Operating on the Postcolonial Body (Politic): Stigmatization, HIV/AIDS, One’s Heritage Does Not Define Oneself: An Analysis of Factors that and Disabled Identity in Africa Contributed to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Writings and Speeches 46 98 Jason Craige Harris, Wesleyan University Kayla Vinson, Yale University “An Exhortation and Caution to Friends”: A Short Analysis of a Quaker Paradigmatic Confinement: Examining the Limitations of the Antislavery Treatise “Acting-White Hypothesis” Mentor: Professor Elizabeth McAlister 102 51 Britney Wilson, Barnard College Destin K. Jenkins, Columbia University The Regulation of Cyclooxygenase-2 by MicroRNA-101 in Prostate Conflicting Reports: The Role of Foreign Correspondents in Shaping Cancer Cells Coverage of Wartime China Advisors: Dr. Xing Gu, Dr. Yubin Hao, Yuan Zhao Mentor: Eric Foner 1 Critical Pedagogy in Practice: Institutional Structures and Individual Practice of Critical Pedagogy at an Elite Institution of Higher Education Nathalie G. Ais, Smith College Nathalie G. Ais, who hails from Plantation (Fort Lauderdale), outcomes (Duncan-Andrade and Morrell, 2008). However, FL, graduated in 2010 from Smith College, with a double little has been written in the literature on the practice and major in sociology and government. With her passion for educa- purpose of critical pedagogy in elite settings, where the tion and teaching, she plans to continue her research on critical majority of students come from non-marginalized and often pedagogy, earning a Master of Arts in Teaching and doctorate in more privileged backgrounds. My research examines the the Philosophy of Education to be a teacher and college professor. ways in which the social structures of elite institutions of higher education impact the practice of critical pedagogy. My analysis of my respondents’ interviews shows that the Abstract structures of elite institutions of higher education both facil- As the culmination of my MMUF two-year research itate and constrain the practice of critical pedagogy. project, this article discusses my major research findings on Theoretical Framework the practice of, and structural impacts on, critical pedagogy at an elite institution of higher education. Emerging from The debate over the primacy of structure or agency radical social thought and progressive social movements in determining outcomes in the social world is one of the committed to the empowerment of the oppressed, as an most central issues in sociology. Social structures are recur- approach to teaching, critical pedagogy empowers students rent patterns of relationships or behaviors and enduring to think critically about power relations in the classroom and patterned arrangements