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I began my graduate studies at Kent State in January of 2019. I am especially interested in identity negotiation among and between marginalized communities—how did people define and present themselves in a place like the Southwest, where your neighbor could be Native American, African American, Euro-American, Chinese, Japanese, Mexican, Filipino, Korean, Lebanese, or Puerto Rican? How did the structural changes of the second half of the 1800s provide new space for alternative self-presentation? I consider people’s everyday interactions with visual and material culture in the contested border space of the Southwest, and how the state sought to shape their negotiations of identity.