To meet the climate target set by the 2016 Paris Agreement and prevent climate catastrophes, upscaled carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is required by the end of this century. Of the several CDR strategies being explored, placement of macroalgae to the sea floor is one of consideration by the United States Department of Energy and other groups. This process utilizes the photosynthetic capabilities of macroalgae to capture carbon. Carbon-rich macroalgae can then be transported to the deep ocean, storing the carbon through burial for centuries. Laboratory experiments were conducted to determine degradation rates of giant kelp, Macrocystis pyrifera, as a potential species for implementation. We examined the decomposition of kelp into dissolved inorganic and organic carbon and particulate organic carbon, differentiating major kelp components: pneumatocyst, stipe, blade, whole segments, and macerated whole segments. Incubations were conducted at 4°C and 14°C to investigate the temperature effects on fresh and injured frond degradation over a period of two weeks. Contrasting experimental designs based on polynylon PET bags versus glass bottle housings were also compared for their feasibility of tracking degraded carbon. Bag incubations showed evidence for gas permeability, and direct effects of temperature on degradation cannot be quantified. Results for the bag incubations at the two temperatures are documented here but should be considered independently due to the uncontrolled differences in experimental design. In each temperature regime, segments of whole fronds were compared to the degradation of individual kelp components. Results showed incubations at 14°C had greater degradation with decay rate constants from 0.017 to 0.102 day-1, greater dissolved organic carbon (DOC) release rate from 439 to 839 μmol C g −1 (WW) h−1, and 9 to 12% of carbon becoming total inorganic carbon (TIC). Incubations at 4°C have decay rate constants of 0.003 to 0.016 day-1, approximate DOC release rates from 211 to 758 μmol C g −1 (WW) h−1, and 0 to 16% of carbon becoming TIC. In both incubations, particulate organic carbon (0.3 μm- 2.6 μm) was 2 to 3% of the total carbon. Bottle experiments compared segments of whole fronds (WS) with macerated whole segments (MAC). Temperature had no apparent effect on WS respiration rates and minimally decreased MAC respiration rates in warmer conditions. Warmer temperatures had a positive effect on dissolved inorganic carbon (DIC) accumulation for both WS and MAC. After two weeks, incubations at 14°C had decay rate constants of 0.008 and 0.02 day-1, DOC rates of 936 and 777 μmol C g −1 (WW) h−1, and 8% and 4% total carbon becoming DIC for WS and MAC conditions respectively. Average decay constants for MAC kelp at 4°C across the two-week period was the highest of all treatments which was not predicted. After two-weeks, incubations at 4°C had decay constants of 0.014 and 0.016 day-1 and DOC rates of 1,139 and 1,014 μmol C g −1 (WW) h−1 for WS and MAC respectively. No carbon was accounted for in the DIC fraction for either kelp treatment at 4°C. Glass bottles are the preferred experimental vessel over bags for their control of gas exchange. Within the bag experiments, blades had the most similar degradation patterns as that of whole segments and are considered a main determinant in whole frond decomposition. Across the experimental designs, warmer conditions appear to have a positive effect on TIC accumulation for M. pyrifera despite the state of oxygen exposure and is more influential in TIC accumulation compared to the extent of kelp injury that was implemented here. To improve the benefits of kelp placement as an OCDR strategy, these results demonstrate intact kelp in colder waters have slower average degradation over the first two weeks of placement and lower degradation rates at the two week time point compared to macerated kelp which can improve the chances of carbon sequestration into ocean basins. However, colder waters increased the rate of DOC release more than 20% for both WS and MAC kelp in hypoxic environments which should be considered in its effects of the deep ocean carbon cycle.

The dominant narrative of diasporic Korean American history has been founded upon on the narratives the Korean Independence Movement from the continental US and Hawai‘i. It centers the leaders and participants of the movement who began to mobilize diasporic Korean Americans towards a predetermined path of assimilation into US society and global cosmopolitanism – a political subjectivity that reinforces both US and Korea nationalisms. By extension, evocations of the Korean diaspora in academic discourses have also tended to reify territorial, ethnonational, and political boundaries to standardize a singular definition of the Korean diaspora centered on migration, ethnic identification, and connection to the homeland.

By contrast, “A different Diaspora” argues that such renderings tell only a partial story by historical tracing various political struggles of diasporic Korean Americans throughout the 20th century (1903-1968) who challenged narratives of compliance and assimilation defined by diasporic Korean American proximity to whiteness. Through their actions, these exiled militarists, scholars, students, and GI deserters of the US armed forces made apparent the limitation of their proximity to whiteness by imagining a different Korean American diaspora removed from the norms of subservience to white American institutions and individuals in positions of power. By placing them at the center of my story, my dissertation argues for a wider conception of the Korean diaspora that accounts for overlooked narratives such as the cultivation of cross-racial solidarities; development of critical understanding of antiblackness, Indigenous dispossession; and participation in projects of demilitarization to resist US imperialism. These enactments of an alternative worldmaking in the Korean American diaspora, practiced however fleetingly, reveal that notions of belonging are not confined by boundaries set by nation-states or the status quo of the racial-social order in the US. This dissertation thus traces what I call insurgent histories of the Korean American diaspora, focusing on how various diasporic Korean Americans at different times and places sought alternative forms of liberation and belonging. It is a genealogy of how diasporic Korean Americans came to understand and imagined beyond their proximity to whiteness to envision a different Korean American diaspora.

As a population that was forced to undergo mass incarceration and assimilation, Japanese American communities – and the language they use to perform, reproduce, and reconstruct their transnational identities – provide insight into our understandings of heritage language loss, linguistic forms of social differentiation, and surrounding political economies. Following a period of cultural suppression and language loss, Japanese American festivals and pageantry offer a glimpse into the racialized, gendered nature of language and semiotics as they are used to both challenge and reinforce existing social divisions. Utilizing ethnographic data, interviews, and archival research conducted within a Japanese American pageant program in Southern California, I seek to examine racial, gendered, and generational divides within and surrounding the Japanese American community at large. As a participant myself – in a pageant program that seeks to foster the Japanese American community’s next generation of cultural ambassadors – I aim to illustrate the linguistic and sociopolitical contexts surrounding transnational migration, racialized incarceration, and cultural performance as a means of either resisting or perpetuating ethnic assimilation. With a focus on language socialization and multimodal communication, I specifically draw on the work of scholars who study language ideologies and semiotic assemblages (Kroskrity 2021; Gal and Irvine 2019; Pennycook 2017). In doing so, I aim to illustrate the perceived benefits and detriments of Japanese language acquisition within spaces that promote intergenerational solidarity, cross-cultural exchange, and the vestiges of what it means to be either Japanese or American in an increasingly transnational world.

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