Tuesdays 4:30-6:18Office:261 Dulles
Dulles 344Phone:292-9331
Office Hours:Tuesdays 2:30-3:30 & by appointment Email:wu.287@osu.edu
Description and Objective:
This graduate level course will explore the themes of immigration, race, and gender in U.S. History.While traditional scholars have tended to focus on individuals of European descent in the field of immigration history, African Americans in conceptions of race, and native-born white women in discussions of gender, this class will examine scholarship that expands and complicates the categories of immigrant, race, and gender.
The course will introduce you to "classic" texts as well as new research to examine various approaches for understanding the experiences of immigration.Through weekly readings and discussions, we will explore the following questions:How did the experiences of European immigrants compare with those who trace their ancestry to Asia, Latin America, Africa, or even indigenous peoples of the United States?How did im/migrants conceive of themselves and how were they perceived in terms of their ethnicity, nationality, and racial identities?In what ways did gender define the migration and racialization processes?In turn, how did migration and ethnic/racial formation alter conceptions of male and female identities?Finally, what is the significance of immigration for conceptualizing national identity, and how might a transnational, diasporic or imperialist framework change the way we understand immigration?
Readings:
All the books are available at SBX.The state-of-the-field immigration forum is available in a course reader, sold by COP-EZ at the Tuttle Park Garage.If you do not want to purchase the reader, the same readings, along with other essays and most of the books, are on reserve at the Main Library.
John Bodnar, The Transplanted:A History of Immigrants in Urban America(Indiana 1985)
Rachel Buff, Immigration and the Political Economy of Home:West Indian Brooklyn and American Indian Minneapolis, 1945-1992 (California 2001)
Neil Foley, The White Scourge:Mexicans, Blacks, and Poor Whites in Texas Cotton Culture (1997)
Susan Glenn, Daughters of the Shtetl:Life and Labor in the Immigrant Generation (Cornell 1990)
Linda Gordon, The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction (Harvard 1999)
Matthew Frye Jacobson, Barbarian Virtues : The United States Encounters Foreign Peoples at Home and Abroad, 1876-1917 (Hill and Wang 2001)
Peggy Pascoe, Relations of Rescue:The Search for Female Moral Authority in the American West, 1874-1939 (Oxford 1990)
David Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness : Race and the Making of the American Working Class (Verso 1991)
John Kuo Wei Tchen, New York before Chinatown:Orientalism and the Shaping of American Culture, 1776-1882 (John Hopkins 1999)
Optional:
Nayan Shah, Contagious Divides:Epidemics and Race in San Francisco's Chinatown (California 2001)
1.Weekly reading responses (30% of overall grade).These 2-3 page responses are graded +/check/-.This is your opportunity to reflect on the main themes for the weekly reading assignments and to suggest discussion questions for the class.I recommend writing one to two paragraphs summarizing the main argument or arguments from the readings and an additional two to three paragraphs offering your critiques of the readings.Keep in mind, it is rather difficult to write a concise review.Think about being precise with your language and focus on the most significant and/or intriguing arguments in the readings.These responses are due by 1 p.m. in my office, 261 Dulles, the day of class.
2.Leading or co-leading a discussion and class participation(30%).In leading discussion, prepare a short overview of the week's reading(s).The presentation should not last more than 3-4 minutes.Focus your comments on the significance of the work.Do not just summarize the arguments but reflect on their contribution to the field.In addition, prepare a list of topics or questions that you would like the class to explore.Remember, your job as a facilitator is not to dominate but to facilitate discussion.Feel free to meet with me beforehand if you have questions.
3.Final Paper (40%).
Option 1:A 12-15 page historiography paper on a topic of your choice.You may want to explore a particular theme from the course, such as the significance of religion and gender on immigration, or focus on a particular group, such as Caribbean immigrants.The paper should examine the most important works related to your topic and assess how the scholarship in the field has evolved.How have the questions, methodologies, sources, and interpretations shifted over time?
Option 2:If you are engaged in an extensive project that is related to the topic of this course and would like to use the final paper as an opportunity to strengthen your existing research, please see me about possible alternatives to the historiography paper.
Late Assignments:Any late assignment will be deducted 1/3 of a grade for every day or fraction of a day that it is late. For example, an otherwise "A" or "+" paper that is turned in after the due time but not more than one day late will be marked as "A-" or "check/+."The paper will be marked as "B+" or "check" if it is up to two days late.
Plagiarism:All work presented in class or turned in must be a student's own. Plagiarism or any other form of academic misconduct will be dealt with in accordance with the guidelines laid down by the University's Committee on Academic Misconduct and will seriously affect a student's grade.
Absences:If you will be unable to attend class, please inform me beforehand.If an emergency arises and you are unable to reach me before the class, contact me as soon as possible to explain your absence.If you miss more than two classes, you will not be able to pass the course.
Enrollment:All students must be officially enrolled in the course by the end of the second full week of the quarter.No requests to add the course will be approved by the department chair after that time.Enrolling officially and on time is solely the responsibility of each student.
Course
Schedule
Immigration
Historiography
25 SeptemberIntroduction
2
OctoberJohn Bodnar, The Transplanted
Mae N. Ngai, "The Architecture of Race in American Immigration Law:A Reexamination of the Immigration Act of 1924," Journal of American History 86 (June 1999): 67-92
The
State of the Field Forum in COPEZ reader, or
Journal of American Ethnic History (Summer 1999):40-166
Race,
Nation, and Class
9 OctoberDavid Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness
Barret and Roediger, "In-between Peoples:Race, Nationality and the 'New Immigrant' Working Class," Journal of American Ethnic History 16, 3 (Spring 1997):3-44
Caroline Waldron, "Lynch-Law Must Go!":Race, Citizenship, and the Other in an American Coal Mining Town," Journal of American Ethnic History (Fall 2000):50-77
16
OctoberJohn Tchen, New York before
Chinatown
Mary Ting Yi Lui, "The Real Yellow Peril":Mapping Racial and Gender Boundaries in New York City's Chinatown, 1870-1910," Hitting Critical Mass 5, 1 (Spring 1998) http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~critmass/v5n1/luiprint.html
23 OctoberNeil Foley, The White Scourge
George
Sanchez, "Go After the Women:Americanization
and the Mexican Immigrant Woman, 1915-1929," Unequal Sisters, 250-263
Vicki
L. Ruiz, "A Promise Fulfilled:Mexican
Cannery Workers in Southern California," Unequal Sisters,
264-274.
Religion, Immigration, and Women
30 OctoberSusan
Glenn, Daughters of the Shtetl
Karen Brodkin, How Jews became white folks and what that says about race in America (Rutgers, 1998), pp. 103-137
6 NovemberPeggy Pascoe, Relations of Rescue
Nayan Shah, Contagious Divides, pp. 77-119
13
NovemberLinda Gordon, The Great
Arizona Orphan Abduction
Karen Leonard, "Punjabi Mexican American Experiences of Multiethnicity" in We are a People, pp. 192-204
Empire
and Nation
20
NovemberMatthew Frye Jacobson, Barbarian
Virtues
Catherine Ceniza Choy, "The Usual Subjects:Medicine, Nursing, and American Colonialism in the Philippines,""Hitting Critical Mass 5, 2 (Fall 1998) http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~critmass/v5n2/choyprint.html
27 NovemberRachel Buff, Immigration and the Political Economy of Home
Christina Klein, "Family Ties and Political Obligation: The Discourse of Adoption and the Cold War Commitment to Asia" in Cold War Constructions, pp. 183-216.
4 December Final Papers due by 4:30 in 261 Dulles