This research involves studying the Tongan culture in the San Francisco Bay Area with a feminist perspective focused on Tongan women and Tongan cultural materials known as koloa. Koloa is a major component of keeping with Tongan traditions and customs. Koloa is used for all cultural, religious, and social events. Those with proprietary entitlement are women. Women create, collect, and sell koloa. Studying women and their dominant role as cultural providers will shed light on their valuable assets and talents within the community. The Tonga Islands are located in the deep South Pacific. The study was conducted from interviews with the women, observations, and a focus group.

The curriculum will be developed for current inmates at the local county jail experiencing co-occurring disorders. Culminating healthier approaches to communication and stress management as well as developing systems of support in regards to personal relationships may provide foundations for increasing overall functioning and wellbeing. The curriculum will be guided by the empowerment process, based on an individual’s right to self-determination; valuing personal perspective, acknowledging difficulties and encouraging self-regulated personal growth. The project will attempt to address current problematic and maladaptive thinking and behavior for current inmates with co-occurring disorders.

In 2012, Humboldt County was the home of just over 25,000 people over the age of 60. By 2050 Humboldt County will be the home of nearly 60,247, more than double documented in 2012. These statistics are alarming and should get the attention of all local (State & National) sectors working with the aging population on track to establish and sustain community resources necessary to allow the elderly to age safely, comfortable, respectfully, and with dignity in their homes and communities. In the efforts of enhancing local social services for seniors, I worked alongside Area 1 Agency on Aging on a client-centered survey geared to enhance local senior programming.

The prison ecology project (PEP) maps the intersection of mass incarceration and environmental degradation by investigating the environmental impacts and human health problems created by the prison industrial complex. It is the first to study the myriad of environmental issues associated with prisons such as: water pollution from prison sewage and industrial waste; threats to listed species through the construction of prisons in remote, environmentally-sensitive rural areas; and, environmental justice concerns regarding prisoners, staff and surrounding communities concerning clean drinking water, exposure to coal ash dust and toxic waste.

This chapter explores the intersection of food and place in one of the most important places in the lives of children and youth -- school. The critical rhetorical analysis examines school menus, but makes it clear that food at school involves more than school lunches. Food at school has included breakfast, lunch, and dinner, as well as vending machines and campus gardens (Duram & Klein, 2015). In the broader society, food at school is at the center of public argumentation about agriculture, citizenship, economics, government, health, power & empowerment, religion, sustainability, and values.

Prior research finds lesbian, gay, bisexual (LGB) individuals offending more than their heterosexual peers, due to differential experiences in social institutions like school and family. There are no qualitative studies of queer pathways into or away from crime, or research on the offending of transgender and gender non-conforming individuals. We seek to fill this gap by analyzing life trajectories of LGBTQIA individuals with qualitative interviews. We explore pushes/pulls into/away from criminal behavior and respondents’ relationships with social institutions--including chosen families and political participation--to illuminate sites of intervention in the queer life course.

This special issue of the Humboldt Journal of Social Relations (HJSR) captures work and experiences in higher education as they relate to changes and challenges around diversifying U.S. college campuses. Race, class, gender, sexuality, able-bodiedness, and citizenship shape contemporary conversations about campus climate, curricular content, organizational structures, decision making and the disparate impacts of related policy changes or stagnation. These conversations shape the everyday experiences of faculty and staff, and ultimately are linked to student success.

Kelley and Bri are helping professor Janelle Asdit with her textbook: "Critical Creative Writing: An Anthology of Craft-Criticism" published by Bloomsbury publications. They are in charge of writing chapter summaries.

This research project examines the historical experience of Chinese communities living in Humboldt County in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, with particular focus on the 1885 Chinese expulsion from Eureka. Offering a broad survey of primary sources, the project delves into personal letters, court cases, retrospective reports, newspaper articles, maps, and photographs to piece together a multi-faceted picture of the Chinese experience in the region. Newspapers from the time also shed light on the expulsion of the majority of the Chinese population from Eureka on 8 February 1885, a tumultuous event that dramatically transformed the culture and history of the county.

Understanding how limited funding for public health services impacts the homeless population of Humboldt County, California. This includes the demographic of the homeless population, the types of local public health services, and the current and future problems of the homeless in regards to access to public health services. Finally, considers local and national policy options to address the issue.