Ethnic Studies 102:
Transnational Migrations: Asian-, Arab-, Euro-American and Latino Identities
Spring, 2012 MW 1-1:50 + sections
Merrill 131
Professor:
Dr. Rachel Buff Office: Holton Hall 313
office hours: M 11-1 phone: 229-6483
& by appointment
Teaching Assistant:
Louis Mercer Office: 281 Holton Hall
Hours: Monday, 2:00 - 4:00 PM Phone: x4315
& by appointment
Course Overview:
This course focuses on the experience of immigration as it has shaped race and ethnicity. Immigrants create identities for themselves in their new countries. At the same time, the U.S. has grappled with regulating immigration, and in so doing, conducted a national conversation around issues of race and national identity. What does it mean to be an American? What does it mean to become one? Who has had access to coming to this country, historically and in the present, and why? Just as immigrants have to navigate a new homeland in defining their identities, the nation has struggled with the ways immigrants transform the nation. This struggle has often led to immigration restriction, as well as to the regulation of civil liberties for native-born people.
Course Objectives
Among the objectives of the course are the following:
1. students will gain an understanding of the meanings of race and ethnicity in contemporary and historical perspective
2. students will become familiar with differences in the experiences of im/migrant groups
3. students will understand the significance of transnational migration to labor, domestic life, and national security issues.
One of the more significant learning goals of this course is that you will develop an understanding of contemporary cultural diversity, in the United States and the world. Additionally, you will understand the challenges of multicultural national life for public policy, as well as the challenges of acculturation and assimilation to specific im/migrant groups. Examinations and papers will be designed to help students think these issues through in their own words.
General Education Requirements
This course carries Humanities and Cultural Diversity GER accreditation.
Policies
Attendance: While this is a large lecture class, leading some students to conclude that attendance is optional, attendance is mandatory. Some of the material covered in lecture will not be available anywhere else: not in section, not on-line at the D2L website, not in readings. You skip, you lose.
Therefore, students who miss more than three classes will negatively impact their grades.
Late Assignments: Late work will be graded down at the rate of ½ grade every day.
Exceptions: Of course there are always exceptions to such policies. These exceptions will need to be documented with notes from doctors, police officers, or other institutional state apparati.
Course Work
Preparation
A college course is made up of lectures, in this case two a week, discussion sections, course readings and written work. In some courses, you are assigned a textbook, which pretty much covers the material you are responsible for the semester. Students read the textbook, listen to the professor explain it, and take exams that come out of the material covered by lectures and the textbook.
This course does not work this way. It is arranged so that readings, papers, exams, lectures, and discussions complement, rather than echo, one and other. That means that students must engage with this class on several different fronts: by reading, discussing, writing, and actively listening during lectures.
During the twice weekly lectures, you should come to class prepared to take notes. This means writing down central concepts: NOT EVERYTHING! Before class starts, it’s useful to go back over your notes from the previous class, paying special attention to things you didn’t understand or wanted to discuss further. If you have a question about something, the overwhelming likelihood is that someone else does, too! Active listening means that you think critically about what you are hearing and how it fits into your understanding of what is going on. I encourage students to ask questions or contribute to lectures with pertinent discussion. I will often call on students in class.
Readings should be completed before Wednesday’s class meeting the week they are listed on the syllabus. Completing readings means scanning the pages, as well as underlining important and/or controversial ideas in the text. Students will want to bring questions on readings to class or section, and should also feel free to take these up with the professor or teaching assistants during office hours.
Key Words and Questions:
Each lecture will contain clearly marked key words and questions. These are likely to show up on class exams. Key words and questions are designed to help students focus on important issues.
Readings
There are two books for this course. Both are available at People’s Books, 2122 East Locust Street, (414)962-0575.
Reyna Grande, Across a Hundred Mountains
Toufic El Rassi, Arab in America
All other course readings are available through electronic reserve.
From Campus Computers:
1. Go to library homepage at http://www.uwm.edu/Library
2. Click on “Reserve and E-Reserve” link.
3. At the “Instructor” line, click on the arrow to display a drop down box of all instructors with material on reserve. Select “Buff”
4. At the “Department” line, click on “Ethnic Studies”.
5. At the “Course” line, click on the arrow to display a drop down box of all courses with material on reserve. Select Ethnic 102.
6. Click on the gray “Search” button.
7. Scroll down to the bottom and click on “Link to Electronic Reserve Readings”
D2L Site
This syllabus and all assignments will be posted to the “content” component of the course D2L website. I also post my PowerPoint presentations to D2L after each lecture. These presentations contain a list of the key words and key questions for each class.
On occasion, students will be assigned to discuss an issue or reading on-line at the “discussion” component of the D2L site.
Assignments: All assignments must be completed in order for a student to receive a passing grade for this course. Incomplete work of any kind will result in failure, no matter what mathematical wizardry is exhibited in calculating a final grade without it.
Discussion Preparation: Each student is expected to come to section with the week’s readings. Electronic reserve readings may be printed out; otherwise, please bring the book we are reading at the time.
Additionally, students should come to section with responses to questions that will be posted each week by Wednesday class. These should be imaginative responses that engage the readings. These responses will be handed in; they will be a component of participation grades. Students may skip this assignment up to three times without negatively affecting their participation grade.
Papers: There are two papers for this class. The first is media analysis paper called Buzzwords at the Border. This project will include a group presentation to the class.The second is a response paper to the novel we will read over spring break, Across a Hundred Mountains. Assignment sheets for these papers will be available before the assignments are due.
Two Exams: These exams will ask students to incorporate and synthesize material from course readings and lectures. Material on exams will include: materials from discussion, in-class videos and the three films; key words, ideas and questions. We will be talking about the exams in section and lecture, and students will have a good sense of the direction of the questions to be asked in advance.
Final Exam: The final exam will be a take home exam. Students will write two essays: one on the final reading for the course, Toufic Al-Rasi’s comic book, Arab in America. The second essay will address the course more generally.
Evaluation
2 Papers (@15%) 30%
Two exams (@ 15%) 30%
Final 25%
Attendance/participation 15%
Schedule
January 23 Introduction
Read:
· Vapnyar, “Cinderella School,”
· Hong, “Far From Cool”, and
· Lan Samantha Chan, “The Unforgetting”
·
January 30- Feb 1 At America’s Gates
Read:
· Erika Lee, At America’s Gates: Chinese Immigration During The Exclusion Era, 1882-1943, Introduction & Chapter 1
February 6-9 The Evolution of Restriction
Read:
· “The Golden Door Closes and Opens”, from Roger Daniels, Guarding the Golden Door
February 13-15 Review and Midterm
· Review Monday
· Midterm Wednesday
· No section meetings
February 20-22 Nativism and Immigration Policy
Read:
· Scott Michaelson, “Between Japanese Internment and the PATRIOT Act”
Feb 27-29 Transnational Labor and Family
Read:
· Monisha das Gupta, “The Neoliberal State and the Domestic Workers’ Movement in New York City” and
· Jason DeParle, “A Good Provider is One Who Leaves”
March 5-7 Hemispheric Migrations & Immigration Politics
· Read Lisa Flores,
March 12-14 Buzzwords at the Border
· Group powerpoints in class
· Buzzwords at the Border paper due by Friday @ D2L dropbox
MARCH 19-21 Spring Break
Read: Reyna Grande, Across a Hundred Mountains
March 26-28 The South Side of Milwaukee
Read:
· Introduction-Chapter 3 from Nuestro Milwaukee: the Making of the United Community Center, by Joseph Rodriguez, Sarah Filzer, Susan Hunter, Dana Nix &
· “Polish Routes to Americanization: House Form and Landscape on Milwaukee’s South Side”, Judith T. Kenny, from Robert Ostergren and Thomas Vale, eds., Wisconsin Land and Life
· Response paper on Grande due @ D2L dropbox by Friday at noon
April 2 -4 The Struggle for Education
Read:
· Marc Rodriguez, “A Movement Made of Young Mexican Americans Seeking Change
April 9 -11
NO CLASS MONDAY
Wednesday: Exam #2
April 16-18 Diaspora and Refugee Policy
Read:
· “Introduction”
· “Battles Between the Generations,” and
· “Being American”, from I Begin My Life All Over: The Hmong and the American Immigrant Experience, by Lillian Faderman and Ghia Xiong
April 23-25 Arab-American Migrations
Read:
· Bayoumi, Ch.
April 30- May 2 Arab in American after 9/11
Read: Toufic Al-Rasi, Arab in America
May 7-9: American Identities
FINAL EXAM: Take Home due May 14 by 4 pm
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