Graduation Year
2025
Document Type
Senior Thesis
Degree
Bachelor of Arts
Primary Major
Social Justice
Primary Minor
Latin American Studies
Second Minor
Spanish
Thesis Advisor
Emily Wu, PhD
Community Partner(s)
Canal Alliance
Abstract
This thesis presents Homiezation as a practical framework for building transformative relationships across cultural and racial boundaries, focusing on intercultural engagement for scholars, educators, and community practitioners. Based on community research in Marin County, California, it draws on interviews with Latino/a immigrants, first-generation Latino/a citizens, and one non-Latino BIPOC community member. I coined the term ‘Homiezation’ during my community work to describe the process of fostering care, trust, and shared humanity within Third Spaces, where diverse cultures interact and learn from one another.
Six interconnected themes—showing up, trust, social awareness, cultural humility, humor, and compañerismo—form the foundation of Homiezation. These themes show how presence, reliability, and empathy foster genuine connection and mutual learning, and how centering relational accountability and humanization challenges superficial diversity initiatives.
By integrating storytelling, reflection, and community voices, this paper contends that transformation occurs through consistent presence, vulnerability, and reciprocity—key elements of Homiezation. Designed for educators, students, and community practitioners, this framework offers a substantive alternative to performative DEI models by redefining justice as a daily practice of solidarity and humility, providing a concrete relational method to bridge divides among these groups.
Included in
Latin American Languages and Societies Commons, Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons