HISTORY OF IMMIGRATION AND ETHNICITY IN THE UNITED STATES

Dr. Karen Manners Smith Fall 1999 (AH 522 C, M 2:00 - 4:50)

Find out about the History of Immigration class trip to New York City.

COURSE DESCRIPTION AND OBJECTIVES
All Americans are immigrants or the descendants of immigrants, including those we call Native Americans and those who did not come to this continent willingly. This course will constitute an exploration of the processes involved in the transplantation of peoples of a wide variety of ethnic and geographic origins to the area that became known as the United States of America during more than 400 years of the country’s history. The course also deals with the adaptive strategies of various ethnic groups in the new environment.
A sub-discipline of social history, immigration history has its own theoretical structure, a set of interpretations students will become familiar with in the early weeks of the course and be able to apply to their study of varying waves of immigration.. Although the course touches on the experiences of all immigrant groups, major foci will be Irish immigration of the mid-nineteenth century, eastern and southern European immigration of the turn of the 20th century, and Asian and Latin American immigration of the post-Vietnam War period.
All students in AH522C are invited to participate in a related course which is a field trip to historical immigration sites in New York City (AH522D and 522E). Because the field trip is an extra expense to students it has been listed separately from the main immigration course and is not required for successful completion of AH522C.

COURSE REQUIREMENTS
There is a significant amount of reading in this course (see list below). In addition to completing all books and articles before the class in which they will be discussed, students will be expected to participate in class discussion and notetaking. Students will also be expected to produce short response papers and a research paper on an immigrant group of their choice. The course has a mid-term and a final exam. This class meets only 14 times in the entire semester, so attendance at all class meetings is required. Please notify the instructor if you absolutely must be absent, and be prepared to get notes and make up all work in a missed class.

READINGS FOR THE COURSE
1. TEXT #1: Roger Daniels, Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life, Harper 1990

2. TEXT #2: Jon Gjerde, ed. Major Problems in American Immigration and Ethnic History, Houghton Mifflin 1998

3. Noel Ignatiev: How the Irish Became White, Routledge 1995

4. Michael Gold: Jews Without Money (1930) (any edition)

5. Elizabeth Ewen: Immigrant Women in the Land of Dollars: Life and Culture on the Lower East Side 1890-1925 Monthly Review Press 1985.

6. Maxine Hong Kingston: China Men (1977) (any edition)

7. Vicki Ruiz: From Out of the Shadows: Mexican Women in Twentieth-Century America, Oxford 1998

COURSE SCHEDULE
August 23: Introductory. Family immigrant history.

August 30. Prepare for this class Gjerde, Ch. 1, Daniels, Part I, (pp.xi - 29)

September 6: Labor Day Holiday. No meeting.

September 13: Colonial America. Prepare for this class Daniels, Part I (pp. 30-118) and Gjerde Chs. 2 and 3, including essays.

September 20: Irish and German Immigration. Prepare for this class Daniels, Part II (pp. 121-184) and Gjerde Ch. 4 Documents. We will watch a film on the Irish famine.

September 27: Irish and German Immigration, continued. Prepare for this class” Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White, and Gjerde, Ch. 4 essays.

October 4: Nativism. Prepare for this class Daniels Part II (pp. 238-284)
Gjerde Ch. 5, documents in Gjerde Ch. 6 and essay by Sucheng Chan. We will conclude discussion of Ignatiev. Topics for research paper must be approved by instructor before end of October.

October 11: Midterm Exam

October 18-November 1: The Tidal Wave of Immigration: 1880-1924. Prepare Daniels, Part II (pp. 185-284) and Gjerde Chs. 6, essay by Dino Cinel; Gjerde Chs. 7-10. Read Jews Without Money and Immigrant Women in the Land of Dollars. More specific assignments in this section of the course will be arranged in class. For those completing a response paper on Jews Without Money, that paper is due October 25. Immigrant Women will be discussed in class 11/1.

November 8: Immigration Between the Wars. Prepare Daniels Part III (pp. 287-306) and Gjerde, Chs. 11 and 12.

November 15- December 6: Immigration in the Post-Vietnam Era. Prepare Daniels Part III (pp. 307-end) and Gjerde, Chs. 13 and 14. Assignments for each week will be specified in class. Read also, Kingston: China Men, and Ruiz: Out of the Shadows For those completing a response paper on China Men, that paper is due November 29. Out of the Shadows will be discussed in class 11/29.

December 6: Research paper due in class. Finish Gjerde, Ch. 14. Review for final exam. Adjourn to Dr. Smith’s house for ethnic pot-luck. Specific dishes to be assigned in advance, according to each student’s ability and resources. Over dinner, we will discuss the recipes, the ingredients, and the experience of making the food.

Final Exam scheduled Tuesday, December 14 at 1:00.

For more information, contact:
Professor Karen Manners Smith
phone: (316) 341-5570

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