University Press of Florida

Exploring the stories of nurses who served Florida’s Indigenous communities during the Great Depression and the decades of change that followedIn this intersectional history, Christine Ardalan tells the stories of nurses who worked among the Seminole and Miccosukee people in Florida during the mid-twentieth century. Ardalan profiles three US government field nurses, several public health nurses, and the Seminole practical nurse Betty Mae Tiger Jumper. Ardalan’s analysis offers insights into the tensions between the white nurses and their supervisors, cultural differences between them and the communities they served, and the ways they often reinforced settler-colonial ideologies. Ardalan looks at the work of the US nurses together with that of Betty Mae Tiger Jumper, who led the effort to respect traditional practices alongside government clinical care. Tiger Jumper cemented the healthcare message that the people themselves should determine their own paths toward healthfulness and well-being. The book concludes in 1971, when the Seminole Tribe of Florida assumed control of its health services. The information in this book contributes to the history of nursing and of Florida’s Indigenous communities during a period of great change.

Featuring over 1,000 hikes from across Florida, this comprehensive guide to experiencing the state’s outdoor landscapes is fully updated in a new editionHiker’s Guide to the Sunshine State is the definitive guide to experiencing the Florida outdoors through hiking. Featuring trails in environments as varied as jungle-like forests with aquamarine springs, longleaf pine savannas, grassy prairies, and coastal sand dunes, this book includes over 1,000 hikes from across the state—including portions of the 1,500-mile Florida National Scenic Trail, the state’s premier hiking destination—tried and tested by the authors, avid hikers Sandra Friend and Chris Stevens. This fully updated second edition contains almost double the number of hikes as the first. Organized by cities within regions of the state, it includes detailed featured hikes the authors find particularly outstanding for each city along with many other recommended hikes, including accessible hikes friendly to wheelchairs and slow walkers. From short interpretive nature trails to day hikes of every length to multi-day backpacking trips, this book details opportunities for discovering the more than 80 natural communities that make up Florida’s incredible habitat diversity. Complete with overview maps, logistical information, and hike descriptions, this guide is a user-friendly trail companion for beginners and experienced hikers alike.

A memoir of growing up in Florida interwoven with cultural reflections of the state from The X-Files to Emerson—revealing the complex truths of life as a FloridianFlorida and pop culture are a magnetic, viral match. From true crimes on social media to spring break movies to Miami Vice, the state has been served up for the rest of the world as a place of swamp things, serial killers, beach bums, teen girls, and dead poets. In Anywhere Else, Rachel Knox weaves her own story around the media caricatures, digging deeper into what it’s like to be from a “wild” place—and who gets to decide what that means. Knox writes from her own experiences of Florida as a child in Sunday school, a student on field trips to Everglades National Park, and a bartender making drinks for both out-of-state partiers and locals. She blends these memories with critical looks at touchstones from different cultural moments, such as Aileen Wuornos, America’s most famous female serial killer; Florida’s Highwaymen artists and Thomas Kinkade, the much-beloved religious “Painter of Light”; Ralph Waldo Emerson, the transcendentalist writer who spent time in St. Augustine; the gloriously trashy 90s neo-noir Wild Things; and the “Monster of the Week” episodes of The X-Files. Writing with clarity and searing honesty about real issues refracted through this prism of pop culture, Knox is both witty and vulnerable. In these essays, whether she’s bobbing in the warm waters of the Gulf or running through the trailer parks of her childhood, Knox portrays a Floridian struggling with a deep, complicated love of her home state. Anywhere Else is a book for anyone who resonates with the message that home may not be a perfect place, but that it is worth fighting for.

World War II letters of a New Englander's journey from civilian to elite fighter squadron pilot  Before the Marine Fighting Squadron VMF-214 became known as the Black Sheep squadron led by “Pappy” Boyington, this air group was already flying missions from Guadalcanal. Commissioned in 1942, the squadron was originally known as “The Swashbucklers.” Lt. Carl Dunbar was one of the squadron’s original pilots, and his letters home describe the training and living conditions he faced as a Marine in the Pacific theater during the early years of World War II. Dunbar ultimately flew eighty-two missions during the Solomon campaign, and this volume includes his private logbook. Like many veterans, after returning to the United States Dunbar rarely spoke about his wartime service. Only after his death did his son Peter discover this trove of material, and his commentary provides context for each of his father’s letters. Both personal and universal, this volume offers a glimpse of what life was like for a man with a great sense of loyalty and compassion caught up in the war of his generation.

Inside notorious and influential struggles to define what it means to be “un-American,” illuminating the complex evolution of the term throughout US historyThe term “un-American” has been wielded as a powerful tool throughout US history, from Jefferson’s vision of the early Republic to the Trump era, yet no objective definition has ever been universally agreed upon. For the first time, George Lewis’s Un-Americanism offers a long history of this term, tracing what it has meant to whom through close looks at the most prominent contests for control of its definition and deployment. Lewis examines case studies that show politicians using the idea of the un-American to advance their agendas, organizations using it in racial nationalist campaigns, and federal committees using it in investigations such as those of the anticommunist “Red Scare” of the Cold War, along with activists and coalitions who have countered rhetoric of the “un-American” by claiming their own use of the term. In these chapters, Lewis delves into the role of institutions and organizations such as the American Legion, the House Un-American Activities Committee, and the American Civil Liberties Union. Lewis paints a compelling picture of how the term has both shaped and been shaped by the country’s social and political landscape. Un-Americanism offers a profound analysis of how this term has drawn and redrawn lines between what is considered “good” or “bad” politically. By exploring its complex evolution, the book highlights how the term has impacted each generation’s understanding of national values and American identity. Lewis challenges readers to reflect on its ongoing influence in defining who truly belongs in the American story.

How contemporary Latin American filmmakers are using the father figure to critique political leadershipIn this book, through an analysis of twenty-first-century films created in Latin America, Irina Dzero argues that contemporary filmmakers are using the figure of the father as a metaphor for political leadership. Dzero makes the case that the abusive and controlling fathers in many recent films reflect a growing rejection of predatory and coercive authority in the region. The chapters in Fathers, Masculinity, and Authoritarianism in Latin American Cinema focus on films made in Peru, Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, and Chile. Dzero identifies different types of authoritarian leaders represented in these works the histrion who basks in the admiration of crowds the disciplinarian enforcing rules the profiteer without principle the backslapping charmer the rapist who awes with transgression and the scold who berates and gaslights. Many of these films are based on plays, novels, and memoirs written under oppressive dictatorships in the 1970s, and Dzero shows how today's cinematic retellings revise the original stories to portray children confronting and even defeating their fathers. Dzero's thought-provoking interpretations establish an innovative new way of understanding societies with political histories of authoritarianism. By tracking the shift within these countries toward accountability for leaders and their actions, this volume demonstrates the potential of creative work to represent, shape, and change cultural beliefs. Publication of this work made possible by a Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.