History 781:  Studies in Women’s History -

Immigration, Race, and Gender

 

Summer 2004                                                                                                 Prof. J. Wu

Tuesdays 1:30-3:18                                                                           Office:  261 Dulles

Dulles 344                                                                                          Phone:  292-9331

Office Hours:  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 ethnicity, race, and gender. 

The course primarily will introduce you to the new scholarship on 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, or even indigenous peoples of the United States?  How did immigrants 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 gender?  Finally, what is the significance of immigration for conceptualizing national identity, and how might transnational, diasporic or imperialist frameworks change the way we understand immigration?

 

Readings:

 

The following books are available for purchase at SBX.  The additional readings, along with the books, are on reserve at the Main Library. 

 

Donna Gabaccia, From the Other Side : Women, Gender, and Immigrant Life in the U.S., 1820-1990 (Indiana University Press, 1994)

 

Jane T. Merritt, At the Crossroads: Indians and Empires on a Mid-Atlantic Frontier, 1700-1763 (University of North Carolina Press, 2003)

 

Deena J. Gonzalez, Refusing the Favor:  The Spanish-Mexican Women of Santa Fe, 1820-1880 (Oxford University Press, 2001)

 

Vicki Ruiz, From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in the Twentieth-Century America (Oxford University Press, 1998)

 

Linda Gordon, The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction (Harvard 1999)

 

Hasia R. Diner, Hungering for America : Italian, Irish, and Jewish Foodways in the Age of Migration (Harvard 2001)

Kathy Peiss, Cheap Amusements:  Working Women and Leisure in Turn-of-the-Century New York (Temple 1986)

 

Eithne Luibhéid, Entry Denied : Controlling Sexuality at the Border (Minnesota, 2002)

 

Laura Briggs, Reproducing Empire : Race, Sex, Science, and U.S. Imperialism in Puerto Rico (California 2002)

 

Catherine Ceniza Choy, Empire of Care: Nursing and Migration in Filipino American History (Duke University Press 2003)

 

Course Assignments

            As a graduate colloquium, the success of this course depends upon your active participation.  All reading and writing assignments must be completed by the appointed date and time.  Incomplete assignments and lack of participation will not only adversely affect your grade but will also lessen the overall learning experience for everyone else in the course.

 

1.         Eight weekly reading responses (30% of overall grade).  These 3-4 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 two to three 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 9 a.m. in my office, 261 Dulles, the day of class.  You also may email the responses to me, but they must arrive by the deadline.  You are not required to turn in a response during the week that you co-lead a discussion.

 

2.         Leading or co-leading a discussion and class participation(30%).  When you lead discussion, prepare a short overview of the week’s reading(s).  The presentations should not last more than 5 minutes for each discussion leader.  Focus your comments on the main issues raised by the works.  Do not just summarize the arguments but reflect on the ways in which the readings converse with one another.  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 empire and science, 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 and why 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 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, and so on.

 

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.

 

Schedule

 

Historiography

 

22 June            Introduction

 

29 June            Donna Gabaccia, From the Other Side : Women, Gender, and Immigrant Life in the U.S., 1820-1990

 

The State of the Field Forum, Journal of American Ethnic History (Summer 1999):  40-166. 

 

 

Gender in the Borderlands

 

6 July               Jane T. Merritt, At the Crossroads : Indians and Empires on a Mid-Atlantic Frontier, 1700-1763

 

           Lucy Eldersveld Murphy, “To Live Among Us:  Accommodation, Gender, and Conflict in the Western Great Lakes Region, 1760-1832,” in Contact Points, ed. By Andrew R. L. Clayton and Fredrika J. Teute,  pp. 270-303.

 

13 July             Deena J. Gonzalez, Refusing the Favor:  The Spanish-Mexican Women of Santa Fe, 1820-1880

 

Vicki Ruiz, From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in the Twentieth-Century America

 

Motherhood and Food

 

20 July             Linda Gordon, The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction

 

Patricia Kelleher, Maternal Strategies: Irish Women's Headship of Families in Gilded Age Chicago”  Journal of Women’s History 13:2 (2001):  80-106.  Available online.

 

Christina Klein, “Family Ties and Political Obligation: The Discourse of Adoption and the Cold War Commitment to Asia” in Cold War Constructions, ed. By Christian G. Appy, pp. 183-216.

 

Sarah Banet-Weiser, “Elian Gonzalez and ‘The Purpose of America’:  Nation, Family, and the Child-Citizen,” American Quarterly 55:2 (June 2003):  149-178.  Available Online.

 

Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo and Ernestine Avila, “‘I’m Here, But I’m There’:  The Meaning of Latina Transnational Motherhood,” Gender and Society 11:5 (October 1997):  548-571.

 

27 July             Hasia R. Diner, Hungering for America : Italian, Irish, and Jewish Foodways in the Age of Migration

 

                        Jenna Weissman Joselit, The Wonders of America:  Reinventing Jewish Culture, 1880-1950 (Hill and Wang, 1994), pp. 171-263.

 

                        Ji-Yeon Yuh, “Introduction” and “Cooking American, Eating Korean,” from Beyond the Shadow of Campton:  Korean Military Brides in America (New York University 2002), pp. 1-8 and 126-153.

 

                        Uma Narayan, Dislocating Cultures:  Identities, Traditions, and Third World Feminism (Routledge 1997), pp. 159-188.

 

Popular Culture, Class, Sexuality, and the Body

 

3 August           Kathy Peiss, Cheap Amusements:  Working Women and Leisure in Turn-of-the-Century New York

 

Kristin Hoganson, “Cosmopolitan Domesticity:  Importing the American Dream, 1865-1920,” American Historical Review 107:1 (February 2002):  55-83.  Available Online.

 

Jennifer Guglielmo, “Italian Women’s Proletarian Feminism in the New York City Garment Trades, 1890s-1940s,” in Women, Gender, and Transnational Lives:  Italian Workers of the World (University of Toronto Press, 2002), pp. 247-298.

 

Joyce Antler, “Between Culture and Politics:  The Emma Lazarus Federation of Jewish Women’s Clubs and the Promulgation of Women’s History, 1944-1989,” Unequal Sisters (3rd edition), ed. By Vicki L. Ruiz and Ellen Carol DuBois, pp. 519-541.

 

Valerie Matsumoto, “Japanese American Girls’ Clubs in Los Angeles during the 1920s and 1930s,” in Asian/Pacific Islander American Women:  A Historical Anthology, pp. 172-187.

 

Shirley Jennifer Lim, “Contested Beauty:  Asian American Women’s Cultural Citizenship during the Early Cold War Era,” in Asian/Pacific Islander American Women:  A Historical Anthology, pp. 188-204.

 

10 August         Eithne Luibhéid, Entry Denied : Controlling Sexuality at the Border

 

                        Nayan Shah, Contagious Divides, pp. 1-16, 77-104

 

Judy Tzu-Chun Wu, “Was Mom Chung a ‘Sister Lesbian’?:  Asian American Gender Experimentation and Interracial Homoertocism, Journal of Women’s History 13:1 (2001):  58-82.  Available online.

 

                        Allison Varzally, “Romantic Crossings:  Making Love, Family, and Non-Whiteness in California, 1925-1950,” Journal of American Ethnic History 23:1 (Fall 2003):  3-54.

 

Douglas C. Baynton, “Disability and the Justification of Inequality in American History,” in The New Disability History:  American Perspectives, eds. Paul K. Longmore and Lauri Umansky (New York University Press, 2001):  33-57.

 

Science, Empire, and Diaspora

 

17 August         Laura Briggs, Reproducing Empire : Race, Sex, Science, and U.S. Imperialism in Puerto Rico

 

                       Jennifer A. Nelson, "‘Abortions under Community Control’: Feminism, Nationalism, and the Politics of Reproduction among New York City's Young Lords,” Journal of Women’s History 13:1 (2001):  157-180.  Available online.

 

24 August         Cathy Ceniza Choy, Empire of Care : Nursing and Migration in Filipino American History

 

                        Kristen L. Hoganson, "As Badly off as the Filipinos": U.S. Women's Suffragists and the Imperial Issue at the Turn of the Twentieth Century, Journal of Women’s History 13:2 (2001):  9-33.  Available Online.

 

                        Nancy Prince and the Politics of Mobility, Home and Diasporic (Mi)Identification,” American Quarterly 53:1 (March 2001):  32-69.  Available online.

 

26 August         Turn in a hard copy of the final paper by 1:30 p.m. to 261 Dulles.

                        Ethnic Potluck Celebration at 6 p.m.  Location TBA.

 

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