Three years ago I found my mother’s name in a book about muralism throughout California. Not knowing my mother as a “public” artist, I pursued an intimate investigation on Chicana artists in public vs. alternative spaces. This thesis explores the process of making a short documentary film, that focused on two artists Cecilia Aranaydo and Silvia Figueroa Garcia (my mother) from an early Chicana art collective in the San Joaquin Valley called Las Mujeres Muralistas del Valle (1978). As we dig through the memories of constructing their only mural, which was whitewashed and destroyed shortly after its construction, we uncover what it means to be a Chicana artist in California's San Joaquin Valley. This research aims to develop an experiential lens in understanding Chicana Art by asking, when we’re dealing with histories of erasure and censorship, is a name in a book—representation—enough? Should art production merely be evaluated through the product, often losing the artist’s social and political location? A particular focus is posed on how and why the artists moved from public muralism to private crafting collective spaces, exploring connections to the rural and urban divide of the Central Valley and the artists’ connection to place, space and memory.

The paper develops an economic theory of the Chilean Constitution and the legislative process, and the role that play interest groups in the later. For the authors is not clear that the only approach when analyzing interest group politics consists, inevitably, in establishing statutory regulations, like campaign finance laws and lobbying regulation. To the contrary, this paper suggests that the Chilean Constitution and the design of the legislative process should be considered more seriously. Different constitutional principles, institutions and mechanisms are established in the Chilean constitutional design that raises the costs of capturing the State and Congress. Thus, the authors propose an economic theory of the Chilean constitution and analyze different topics such as the bicameral system, executive veto, delegation of legislative powers to the Executive and the legal reserve clause, the respect for the matrix ideas of a legislative proposal, quorums, judicial review of legislation by the Constitutional Court, among others.

The main objective of the 2002 constitutional reform to article 113 of CPEUM was to settle the bases of a State’s patrimonial responsibility system that would improve the quality of the Public Administration. However, nowadays that reform is practically dead letter. The Supreme Court of the Nation (SCJN) discussed in plenary sessions on January 28th, 29th and February 7th, 2008, the Judicial Review 4/2004 promoted by Deputies of the Third Legislature of the Assembly of Representatives. The Deputies denounced the invalidity of the articles 389, 391, 392 of the Financial Code of the Federal District, that regulate the objective responsibility of the authorities of the Federal District and the procedure to demand the repair of damages. The SCJN established in its resolution a new criterion for the interpretation of the patrimonial responsibility of the State stated in article 113 of the Constitution. The proposed criterion of interpretation indicates the scope of application of the patrimonial responsibility of the State in the country, and determines the minimum requirements to fulfill it. This interpretation generates different incentives on agents ruled by the norm. In order to analyze the new scheme, this paper uses the economic model of torts. The model is applied to each one of the rules of responsibility and the incentives they generate for the receiving agents of this standardization. Once studied these rules, and the incentives generated by them, we conclude that by establishing the standard regulated by the norms applied to the of public administration activity, the criterion of interpretation proposed by the SCJN establishes the bases to eliminate the perverse incentives previously generated by the rule of strict patrimonial responsibility. By this means the paper pretends to preset some considerations that may be helpful to get an effective and efficient system of State’s patrimonial responsibility in Mexico, with the porpoise that new or local legislations on the matter, could suitably regulate it in the light of the criteria seated by the Court.

ABSTRACT‘It's like the border is in your head’: Stories from Transborder Students in the U.S.-Mexico Border. by Emma Laura Zamora Garcia This project studies communities of former transborder students, all U.S. citizens born in the United States, who lived in Mexico and crossed the U.S.-Mexico border to pursue their K-12 education in el norte. The individuals in my study are not alone or unique. It is estimated that around 39,599 transborder students regularly cross the border to attend middle and high schools across California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas. Transborder students live in Mexico, but possess documentation that allows them to commute between the United States and Mexico. In oral interviews, these students have identified the reasons or motivations for their commute. They include, family reunification, affordable housing, scarce educational opportunities in Mexico, and a desire to receive a bilingual education for better work opportunities on both sides of the border. The project looks at the personal and structural factors that make (or made) the experience of crossing the border difficult for some transborder students and straightforward for others. This project works to answer the following questions: What are the push and pull factors that motivated transborder students to begin commuting for school? When did it become difficult to cross the border? What were transborder students’ experiences when interacting with border patrol agents at the port of entry? To what extent do experiences of crossing the border resemble what women of color theorize as a “third space”? What was the nature of the relationships between the transborder students and their U.S.-based educators? How can educators be more conscious of the experiences of transborder students/students of mixed-status families and what can the teachers do to create a more welcoming classroom environment? To answer the central questions of this study, this work relies on a set of 10-15 interviews of former transborder students, U.S. citizens, of all genders, between the ages of 18 and 30, who spent at least a year during their K-12 schooling, crossing the border to go to school in the United States. The first-person narratives reveal the personal and emotional toll as well as the joys and everyday triumphs of successfully navigating transnational political boundaries in the transborder students’ effort to access the educational opportunities afforded to them as U.S. citizens. The final goal of this study is to provide educators, K-12 staff, and members of the local communities, who interact with transborder students, with resources and recommendations on how to best support this population.