Introduction

This course will investigate race and ethnicity as ideological categories that both inform group identity and reproduce social inequalities.   We will begin with an overview of the political and economic forces that developed these categories over the last five hundred years, and then discuss the historical development of the most important ethnic groups in the United States.  However, we will frequently note that U.S. power relations cannot be understood without reference to transnational, multinational, and global interests, and that race and ethnicity are inextricably linked to other identity categories, especially gender, religion, and sexual identity.

Textbooks

• Toni Morrison, Bluest Eye (Plume, 1994).
• Vincent Parillo, Strangers to these Shores (Allyn and Bacon, 1996).
• Piri Thomas, Down These Mean Streets (Random House, 1997).

Course Requirements

3 field reports based upon original sociological research: a content analysis of newspaper/television images surrounding race and ethnicity, a participant observation of an ethnic enclave, and either an ethnographic interview or a survey.  Further details will be given in class.  I encourage students to collaborate with a partner on research reports. 60% of final grade. Link to Writing Guide

2 examinations, essay and short answer format,  take home, open book. Examinations must be typed, doubled spaced, with pages stapled and numbered.  Complete sentences, an academic writing style, and a minimum of grammar, spelling, and punctuation errors are required.  40% of final grade.  

Course Outline

Week #1:  Introduction to Race and Ethnicity

Group identities: assimilationist and separatist impulses.  The rise of race and ethnicity as defining categories, 1500-1900. Myths of race. 

Read: Parrillo, “The Study of Minorities” (Ch. 1); Anthony W. Marx, “Racial Domination and the Nation State”*

Week #2: Racism

Majority-minority relations.  Prejudice and discrimination.  Ideologies of racism.  The color of racism. Ethnic identity and social justice.

Read: Parrillo, “Prejudice and Discrimination” (Ch. 3) and “Dominant-Minority Relations (Ch. 4); Toni Morrison, Bluest Eye.

Week #3: American Ethnicities

Creation of American ethnicities.  Identities of the early European, African, and Native residents of North America.  Ideologies and justifications for expansion.  The first and second waves of immigration; racist restrictions on immigration and citizenship.  Segregation in the early 1900’s.  Gendered and sexualized bodies.  Sterotypes and popular culture.  Identity politics.

 Read: Selection from Bederman, Manliness and Civilization*; Pascoe, “Miscegenation Law, Court Cases, and Ideologies of Race in 20^th Century America”*.

Week #4: Northern/Western European Ethnicities

European immigrations.  The first wave: Northern/Western Europeans.  Causes of immigration. Creating and maintaining a hegemony, 1820-1880. Prohibition.  Recent immigrants.

Read: Parrillo, “Northern/Western Europeans” (Ch. 5).

Week #5: Eastern/Southern European Ethnicities

European immigrations.  The second wave: Eastern/Southern Europeans and Irish. The New York ghetto. The myth of the Bohunk.  Anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish movements. Assimilation and resistance. Making the Irish white.

Read: Parrillo, “Southern/Eastern Europeans” (Ch. 6)

Week #6: Subsaharan African Ethnicities

African-Americans.  The economics of slavery.  Creating a new culture.  Reconstruction; Jim Crow laws and the great Northern migration.  The color line. The first radicals.  Rise of the NAACP.  Demographic shifts of the 1920’s to 1970’s. 

Read: Parrillo, “African Americans” (Ch. 10); Grace Elizabeth Hale, “ ‘For Colored’ and ‘For White’: Segregating Consumption in the South”*. 

Week #7: African Americans

African Americans. Rise of the Civil Rights movement.  1960’s Black Power rhetoric. 1970’s-1980’s conservative reaction.  Race, crime, and poverty.

Read: “Be Like Mike: Michael Jordan and the Pedagogy of Desire”*

Week #8: Latin American Ethnicities

Latin Americans.  Europeans and Africans in Latin America.  Spanish occupation of the Southwest.  U.S. conquest of northern Mexico.  Hispanic and Mestizo identities.  Border culture, 1800-1990. 

Read: Parrillo, “Hispanic and Caribbean Americans” Selection from Chris Carger, Of Borders and Dreams: A Mexican-American Experience of Urban Education*; M. Briton Lykes and Amelia Mallona, “Surfacing Ourselves: Gringa, White, Mestiza, Brown?”*

Week #9: Hispanic America 

Latin Americans. Immigration from Central America and the Caribbean.  Demographic patterns.  Chicano culture.  Creating a Hispanic America, 1960-2000.

Read: Selection from Chavez, Out of the Barrio: Toward a New Politics of Hispanic Assimilation*; Piri Thomas, Down These Mean Streets..

Week #10: Asian Ethnicities

Asian Americans.  19^th century restrictions and violence.  Immigration through the 1930’s.  World War II and the internment camps.  Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Filipino/a groups. 

Read: Parrillo, “East Asians” (Ch. 8)

Week #11: Asian Americans

Asian Americans. Immigration since the 1970’s.  South and Southeast Asians.  Becoming “the model minority.”  Constructing an Asian American identity. 

Week #12: Native Americans

Native Americans.  Pre-invasion cultures.  Response to early traders; disease and decimation.  Later conquest and forced removal.  Reservation life.  Reform policies of the 1930’s-1970’s. Tribalism and pan-Indianism.  Urban life. Cultural restoration and social problems.  

Read: Parrillo, “Native Americans” (Ch. 7).

Week #13: Middle Eastern Ethnicities

Middle Eastern immigrants.  Early subcultures in the industrial north. Refugees and ethnic/religious minorities: Kurds, Armenians. Stereotypes and resistance.  Religious, gender, and sexual minorities.

Read: Parrillo, “Central and West Asians” (Ch. 9), “Religious Minorities” (Ch. 12), and “Women” (Ch. 13).