UC Merced Undergraduate Research Journal

My thesis titled "Bridging the Fragmented Identities and Experiences of Immigrant and Queer Women of Color: A Queer Analysis of the Film Everything Everywhere All at Once" was completed during Fall of 2022 in the senior capstone course for the English department, ENG 190 with Professor Weisong Gao. This paper seeks to establish the way this film bridges the intersectional stories of immigrant and queer communities by exploring the experiences of both groups as queer. The research and writing was conducted all in one semester individually and with the guidance of Professor Gao. Due to the popularity of the film, film critiques and online articles on the main text were readily accessible. However, the academic discussion of the film shown in this thesis is arguably one of the earliest considering the lack of academic writing on such a new film. Still, the film's radical exploration of Asian American, queer, and immigrant communities has been widely recognized in the media; therefore this thesis sets out to include the film as an important exploration of these areas of study in the academic sphere.

First-Generation college students are the first in their families to attend college.Approximately 39% of UC undergraduates are first-generation college students. Being the first to attend college can create a lot of stress, anxiety, and pressure, leaving students to question if they can complete a four-year degree. According to psychology research, many first-generation students struggle with imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is defined as “the persistent inability to believe that one's success is deserved or has been achieved as a result of one's efforts or skills''.

Throughout the history of modern-day medicine, clinicians and medical professionals have seen sickness and disease as having discrete biological causes. The health care system has seemed to be lacking in advancement recently, with provided care focusing on symptoms of disease and sickness, while not building a trusting relationship with the patient. For clinicians or medical professionals to effectively treat a patient and their underlying sickness and or disease, health care workers must be able to navigate across language barriers to aid in linguistically and culturally diverse communities. For clinicians and health care professionals to gain these skills, they must be trained throughout their medical school education with more respect for immigrant, migrant, and or minority Spanish-speaking patients by being taught Medical Spanish with a focus on communication skills. The use of Spanish in patient care by clinicians allows for multilingual patients who speak Spanish to understand one another through the variability of language for a focus on patient–centered care and providing the best equitable health care possible.

Floatation-REST (Reduced Environmental Stimulus Technique/Therapy), more commonly known as sensory deprivation, is a technique for relaxation and stress reduction that is quickly growing more popular due to the many benefits it seems to provide for its participants. Floatation-REST is a mild form of sensory deprivation/isolation in which the participant floats in a tank of saltwater (magnesium sulfate) which has been heated to skin temperature (35.5-36℃). The buoyant saltwater allows the participant to relax in a supine position, and they experience complete darkness and silence within the tank. Many studies have shown this technique to be beneficial in treating ailments such as anxiety, chronic pain, and other conditions associated with stress and muscle tension. However, Floatation-REST has much stigma surrounding it due to the negative histories associated with the term ‘sensory deprivation’, and many of those who experience anxieties that could be helped by Floatation-REST are put off by the idea of it and experience anxiety about the idea of the technique itself. It is necessary to de-stigmatize Floatation-REST and for it to be presented as a more accessible, viable option for those with severe anxieties, chronic pain, and other conditions which could benefit from this technique.

El siguiente trabajo de investigación fue hecho para iluminar el papel que tienen los intérpretes profesionales con el fin de poder mejorar los servicios de interpretación en el ámbito médico, especialmente para los pacientes que hablan poco inglés. Entrevisté a Enrique, un señor indocumentado originalmente de Jalisco, México por lo cual ha experimentado con diferentestipos de intérpretes a causa de su diagnóstico de dermatomiositis en el 2018. Lo entrevisté para poder entender mejor los problemas que pueden surgir a falta de intérpretes no calificados. Investigaciones pasadas han encontrado que los intérpretes no capacitados tienen más probabilidades de cometer errores, violar la confidencialidad y aumentar el riesgo de malos resultados.

This paper is a review of the literature of gender stereotypes. It examines thedeconstruction of gender stereotypes through clothing in settings such as academia and the workplace, magazine and pop culture, and shopping behavior and consumerism. It is found that attire has a profound influence on traditional gender norms in the workplace, and shown that men use clothing to signal their sexuality and their social status. Gender portrayals within children’sand men’s magazines often form stereotypes, which can be damaging to one’s development of identity - pop culture does the same when contributing to societal gender norms. This paper investigates how internalized homophobia can affect the shopping behavior of gay men, and reviews how young people’s clothing choices are closely linked to self-expression in determiningpersonality and congeniality. Fashion psychology plays a role in everyone’s life and has the same impact as other branches such as social, abnormal, or child psychology may have.

My essay on Allen Ginsberg’s Howl is actually a chapter of a bigger research paper I’m working  on. While performing research on literary censorship, I found a source from the UC Merced  Library search engine. It was a book called Howl on Trial. Thus, I went down the rabbit hole. My objective was to actually argue against a commonly-viewed idea regarding Howl. Thanks to  the information provided by Howl on Trial, it was evident that many scholars had specific takes  on why Howl was initially banned. I decided to assert that many authors don’t really consider the  idea that the people who banned Howl, mainly police officers from the 1950s, never understood  the point of the poem. It was actually thanks to Professor Garcia from the UC Merced English  Department who gave me the idea to create a thesis that contested a previously established point.  Thus, thanks to the UC Merced Library, I chose to discuss American Scream: Allen Ginsberg's  Howl and the Making of the Beat Generation by Jonah Raskin.

The attack happened on Sunday morning at 6:00 am, once every Apache went to sleep after their traditional ritual dance. Under the command of William Sanders Oury (also known as Bill Oury) and Juan Elias, an organized attack was arranged to target the Apache near Camp Grant in Arizona on April 30, 1871. As Oury, Elias, and their 148 followers pursued their attack, approximately 108 Apache were murdered with a small number of survivors. As the nation (including President Grant) received word about the Camp Grant Massacre, a trial proceeded months later that underwent 17 minutes with the verdict of not guilty for the defendants involved within the massacre. In the next following paragraphs, I will uncover the historical context, production of silences, historical actors, lateral memory, exemplary memory, and current memory activism of the Camp Grant Massacre.

Native Americans, as the indigenous people of North America, have a unique history and background in the United States and those living in remote, rural areas are particularly vulnerable to health disparities that impact their quality of life. While existing literature often focuses on these health disparities, gaps exist when considering how remote, rural environments can affect health promotion in Native American communities. To address this issue, a narrative review was conducted to examine interventions aimed at reaching rural Native Americans forhealth promotion. The review utilized credible studies published in reputable journals and a total of 12 articles were chosen for the final review. The selected studies were organized into main sections of key health disparities, culturally-relevant approaches, community-based participatory research, and ethical considerations. The review found that utilizing community-based participatory research can help create culturally tailored interventions by involving communitymembers in the research process. Further research is needed to focus on the differences between interventions in urban versus rural Native American communities to utilize appropriate approaches to health promotion based on setting. Overall, community-based participatory research has the potential for effective health promotion in rural Native American communities.

In the United States, mental health disorders are an issue that is quickly becoming more prevalent. This is especially true in children between ages three and seventeen. According to the article “Children’s mental health” by Ashley Abramson, approximately one in five of these children have a mental health disorder, and these rates have been worsened by the recent pandemic. (Abramson, 2022) Besides events such as a pandemic, a child’s family’s income level can have an impact on their mental health. It is important to know how the socioeconomic status of children and their families influences their chances of developing depression or anxiety. Understanding how parental stress, financial stress, and living conditions affect children’s mental health allows for intervention for those children. According to the article “Prevention and early intervention in youth mental health” by Marco Colizzi et al., having early intervention for thesechildren can improve academic performance and decrease the risk of developing mental health issues. It also has long-term benefits, such as decreasing the likelihood of developing substance abuse and behavioral health problems (Marco Colizzi et al., 2020).

The purpose of this research was to understand the impact that the zero-tolerance immigration policy had on the well-being of children who were forcibly separated from their guardians at the U.S. border. Focusing on the factors that influence children and their families to migrate to the United States from their countries, the impact that forcible family separation has on children and their mental well-being. The experiences that children went through while in thecustody of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in the immigration detention centers, and the impact that the zero-tolerance immigration policy had on migrant families and children over time. I will be using a qualitative research method, a small-N study of 20 children who completed the UCLA Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Reaction Index. Focusing mainly onchildren but also looking at their relationship with their family members after they were reunited if they were. This research helped me find that some migrant children who were not separated from their guardians and family members still showed to have PTSD. This could be due to the experiences that the children saw or experienced at the immigration center or experiences thatthey saw crossing the border or pre-migration. Additionally, this research helps to show the impact that pre-migration factors had on children's mental health before they were forcibly separated from their families and guardians and the impact the zero-tolerance policy had on families and children who were separated.

Imagine yourself in this situation, it is Sunday morning and you are heading to church. It is a fairly large church with many people attending and many services are offered. You notice the lead pastor is arguing with one of the younger pastors. The conversation itself seems a bit loud and inappropriate for the location but it is not the first time it has happened, and no one elseseems to notice. The following week, you attend a different church that is smaller in followers. You notice the lead pastor arguing with a younger pastor. Everyone is watching the conversation at this point since it seems as if it is uncommon to happen at all. What is the difference? Why arepeople more tolerant in larger churches? Research shows that Narcissistic pastors of larger churches have less dominant followers than smaller churches. The reason for this is that there is a fear that if a narcissistic pastor were to leave the church, the number of attendees would drop because of their devotion to the pastor. In this case, having an understanding of why a pastor caneither reduce or increase church attendance.

Imagine yourself getting ready to embark on a skydiving session. As you strap on your parachute and open the airplane door, a grin breaks across your face as you realize that in just mere seconds, you’ll experience the adrenaline rush and sense of freedom that comes with falling through the sky at terminal velocity. However, as the pilot tells you the plane has reached 14,000 feet above ground level, doubts slowly begin to trickle into your mind. Is the risk you’re taking truly worth it? The ground is so far below you, and if your parachute fails, there will be nothing to stop your inevitable gruesome death. You also have a wife and two beautiful children at home who love you. What would happen to them if you were to die today? With these thoughts running through your mind, you reluctantly tell the pilot to turn back, and decide that the risk just isn’t worth it. Now imagine yourself on the plane again, but this time, things are different. Rightbefore getting onto the airplane, you had just attended church, where you spent hours praying to God. After confessing your sins and thanking God for what he has given you, you asked him to protect you while you embark on your skydiving journey. Would you be more likely to jump out of the plane now? According to research conducted in the field of religious cognition, reminders of God can lead to increased risky behavior. The associations between God and psychologicalcontrol and between control and risk taking are one possible explanation for this phenomena. However, as the next few articles will show, the link between supernatural reminders and risk taking is a highly complex effect which needs further studying.

Research into memory transfer, the concept of taking one specimen’s experienced memory and transferring it to a naive specimen’s, dates back to the 1950s and 60s when studies first utilized forced cannibalism between specimens to theoretically achieve memory transfer (Albert, 1966;Babich et al., 1965; Braud, 1970; Jacobson et al., 1965; McConnell, 1962; reported by Bédécarrats et al., 2018). Recently, experimental research conducted by Bédécarrats et al. (2018) demonstrated the potential to transfer physiological and behavioral changes experienced by Aplysia to Aplysia not experiencing these changes, with the changes initially occurring due toconditioned fear responses to touch. In this literature review, a new paradigm will be proposed for studying memory transfer: the multimodal utility of virtual reality technologies, false memory productive paradigms, and existing physiological and behavioral measures as part of a between-subjects design. Skin conductance response and eye-tracking technologies will beexamined for their potential to observe transferred correlates, while a variety of survey measures will also be proposed for optimal use under this proposed paradigm.

The experience of female gamers in online gaming and gaming communities arecharacterized by a lack of social-emotional and organizational support, as well as prevalent general harassment and sexual harassment. Offline, negative stereotypes associated with female gamers and the lack of understanding from others towards women with video games as a hobbylead to the unwillingness of women to self-identify as gamers. Gender stereotypes, specifically, traits of male gamers being traditionally associated with gamer stereotypes cause the exclusion of female gamers and feminine traits from fair and normal treatment in the gaming community. In this contribution, the effects of existing gender stereotypes and misogynistic ideals present insociety on the gamer stereotype and gaming community, as well as the subsequent treatment of female gamers are examined. I conclude that only a multifaceted approach capable of addressing the aforementioned relationship between the larger society and the gaming world would beeffective in improving the overall condition and support for women in the gaming community. Additionally, I argue that the categorization and grouping of coping strategies used by female gamers in response to harassment online should be standardized into specific categories – taking into account previous methods of categorization grounded in both quantitative and qualitativeapproaches – to benefit future research.

The stigmatization of mental health is a detriment to society. Learning healthy coping mechanisms or seeking professional mental health services are crucial to preventing others from perpetuating bad and problematic behaviors and better the mental health of the general population. The focal point of this research is how the stigma of mental health specifically harms Hispanic adolescents because mental health disparities disproportionately affect Latinos (a sizable minority group in the United States) in comparison to their white counterparts. FourHispanic adolescents were virtually interviewed to document their anecdotal experiences with the stigma of mental health issues in their families. The analysis of studies conducted by Susan Caplan and William Vega et al. are used to bridge and apply concepts of mental health stigma to the participants’ responses. It was found that poverty, language barriers, fear, societal stigma, and discriminatory stigma accumulate to make proper mental health treatment inaccessible and cause harm to a person’s mental well-being. This research has shown the harm stigma does to Hispanic adolescents’ mental health because of destructive cultural, religious, and societal values held by those in this community.

This literature review analyzes different studies and articles that focus on Latina/Hispanic women’s perception of postpartum depression (PPD). The cultural, social, and healthcare delivery barriers Latina/Hispanic women experience and the effect these barriers have on the use of resources are discussed. The following concerns are addressed in more detail: traditional differences, women’s expectations, beliefs about motherhood, the negative stigma around PPD, immigration status, language barriers, and adverse effects of PPD on the infant children of Latina/Hispanic women. Due to cultural factors influencing the underutilization of resources, interventions that target reducing these barriers need to be developed. Further research should be focused on testing the effectiveness of suggested interventions such as implementing universal screening for PPD, having additional support programs available, offering classes about PPD, and involving family members in early informational interventions. The findings of this literature review can be used to help raise awareness about PPD and encourage Latina/Hispanic women struggling with PPD to reach out for help to benefit both themselves and their infants.

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease) is a neurodegenerative disorder that is characterized by the progressive loss of motor neurons. Consequently, patients afflicted with this disease eventually lose the motor function associated with moving, speaking, eating, and even breathing. One neuroscience team identified a common mechanism in nearly all sporadic ALS patients in which transactive response DNA binding protein 43 kDa (TDP-43) was mislocalized from the nucleus to the cytoplasm. This suggests that the mislocalization of TDP-43 into the cytoplasm is central for the onset of ALS in patients, but the underlying factors that result in this process are not fully understood as there are no current laboratory methods to study the progression of TDP-43 mislocalization. However, the development and refinement of lattice light-sheet microscopy (LLSM) as a laboratory technique has significant potential in helping scientists elucidate the unknown processes behind ALS. This review discusses the implications of lattice light-sheet microscopy and its optimization methods as a solution to the issue and identifies LLSM as a key method that could be significant in the field of ALS research.

Physics terms are terms that most people use in their day-to-day language which could create confusion when being taught in a physics classroom setting. In my experience, I found some concepts confusing when we first learned about velocity and acceleration. Acceleration to me meant speeding up which exactly means an increase in speed, but the term velocity is theterm used in physics for speed. When words fail us, it states that the physics teacher’s interpretations and filtration that they developed could appear different to every student based on how the language is developed (Tougher, 1991). In one aspect of this study, it appeared that the more the definition of a physics term is distant from an academic definition and more into an application to real life, then it becomes easier to understand.

Darwin’s Theory of Evolution is widely known as one of the most important aspects of biology among scientists and researchers. The relationship between evolution and medicine is a critical phenomenon which can lead to the innovation of newly implemented models and techniques, in hopes of suppressing life-threatening diseases in humans such as cancer. This paper aims to discover and understand how evolution can predict and prevent cancer inhumans. A major topic that this paper delves deep into is understanding the connection between evolution and medicine. Additionally, it looks to gain insight on how cancer has evolved and what scientists have learned from its progression over past generations. Lastly, this paper identifies and explains the various models that exist to aid in the prediction of cancer. Evolutionary medicine is a modern tool that can be used to further develop today’s medicine. Predicting evolution can allow scientists to implement advanced technological tools in the field of medicine, such as antibiotics and vaccines, which can prevent and treatdiseases including cancer before the onset of severe outcomes. Evolution is a fundamental principle that has the potential to improve the field of medicine.