During the 1980s hundreds of thousands of Central American refugees streamed into the United States and Canada in the Central American Refugee Crisis (CARC). Fleeing homelands torn apart by civil war, millions of Guatemalans, Nicaraguans and Salvadorans fled northward seeking a safer and more secure life. This dissertation takes a "bottom-up" approach to policy history by focusing on the ways that "ground-level" actors transformed and were transformed by the CARC in Canada and the United States. At the Mexico-US and US-Canada borders Central American refugees encountered border patrol agents, immigration officials, and religious activists, all of whom had a powerful effect on the CARC and were deeply affected by their participation at the crisis. Using government archives, news media articles, legal filings and oral history this study examines a series of events during the CARC. Highlighting the role of "ground level" actors, this dissertation uses three specific case studies to look at how individuals, small groups, and a border town transformed and were transformed by the Central American Refugee Crisis. It argues that (#1) the CARC deeply affected the lives of those who participated in it, and (#2) the actors' interpretation and negotiation of, as well as resistance to, refugee policy changed the shape and outcomes of the Central American Refugee Crisis.

The Legacy of the Filibuster War: National Identity, Collective Memory, and Cultural Anti-Imperialism is a dissertation project analyzing how the Filibuster War becomes a staple for Costa Rican national identity. This work presents several challenges to traditional theories of modernization in the creation of nationalism. By focusing on the development of cultural features defined by the transformation of collective memory, this project argues that national identity is a dynamic process defined according to local, national, and international contexts. Modernization theories connect the development of nationalism to the period of consolidation of the nation-state, usually during the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. The Costa Rican case demonstrates that, while modernization coincides with the creation of symbols of official nationalism, the Filibuster War became a symbol of national identity beginning in the 1850s, and it has been changing throughout the twentieth century. Threats to sovereignty and imperialist advances served to promote the memory of the Filibuster War, while local social transformations, as the abolition of the army and internal political conflict forced drastic changes on the interpretation of the war and the establishment of a national narrative that adjusts to social transformation.

The purpose of this dissertation is to study not only relations between Latin America and the United States, but also Latin American states with each other. It specifically aims to examine the extent to which the United States, the principal hegemonic power in the Americas, can play a constructive role by providing regional public goods. These goods include conflict resolution and economic progress. Although the United States has the potential to create such goods, it also has the potential to create public bads in the form of regional instability, political terror, and economic stagnation. This raises two fundamental research questions: Under what conditions can Washington play a positive role and if these conditions cannot be met, under what conditions can Latin American nations bypass the United States and create their own economic progress and conflict resolution strategies? Drawing upon qualitative research methods and case studies that have attracted scant academic attention, this dissertation finds that through regional multilateral diplomatic negotiations, the United States can play a positive role. However, due to U.S. parochial economic interests and the marginalization of diplomacy as a foreign policy tool, these conditions rarely occur. This research further finds, however, that through flexible regionalization Latin American nations can bypass the United States and create their own goods. Supported by an alternative regional power, flexible regionalization relies upon supranational institutions that exclude the United States, emphasize permanent political and economic integration, and avoid inflexible monetary unions. Through this type of regionalization, Latin America can decrease U.S. interference, sustain political and economic autonomy, and open space for alternative conflict resolution strategies and economic policies that Washington would otherwise oppose. This dissertation is academically significant and policy relevant. First, it reconsiders diplomacy as an instrumental variable for peace and offers generalizable results that can be applied to additional cases. Moreover, finding that Latin American countries can address their own regional issues, this study recognizes the positive agency of Latin America and counters the negative essentialization commonly found in U.S. academic and policy research. Finally, this research offers policy advice for both the United States and Latin America.

The Phoenix area had no sizable Mexican presence before the U.S. took over the territory. Some assumed that the region was founded completely by whites from the outset. Whites and Mexicans actually held nearly equal populations throughout the first two decades of settlement. Though they did not hold equal status, their cohabitation was largely characterized by mutual interdependence and respect. Transforming the Salt River Valley's desert terrain into a regional agricultural hub depended on the Sonorans' preindustrial skills. As the town modernized, a new class of resident sought large scale projects to integrate Phoenix into the U.S. economy. Two pivotal projects achieved this. First, railroad spur lines made Phoenix accessible for migrants, as well as allowing farmers to supply commercial markets profitably. Second, the massive Roosevelt Dam secured a stable water supply for valley farmers. While these projects provided the foundation for development, it was cotton that brought commercial success. Throughout World War I, valley cotton growers capitalized on the booming cotton market by expanding their average acreage from 400 acres in 1912 to 130,000 acres in 1920. This rapid escalation to meet wartime demands depended upon a massive seasonal labor force from Mexico. While this boom brought prosperity to valley farmers, it solidified the Mexican's role in the Salt River Valley as little more than a laborer. Valley cotton growers impressively managed all labor issues through a well-organized collective association. Over-recruitment and wage setting kept workers from collective bargaining for better wages. The cotton growers' hegemony crashed along with cotton prices in 1921. Though the industry recovered fairly quickly, the cotton growers faced a new challenge in the rising national clamor to restrict Mexican immigration to the U.S. Though growers fought restrictions in Congressional hearings throughout the decade, the economic crash of 1929 finally ended widespread Mexican immigration. By the time of the crash, most Mexicans who remained lived in the agricultural peripheries or scattered urban barrios.