IDST 37

Course Description

This course will survey historical, social, political, economic and cultural processes undergone by racial and ethnic groups in the U.S. from the 19th Century to the present. It will explore how race and ethnicity have defined the experiences of all people in the U.S. and how this has ultimately served to develop a social hierarchy that shapes all other categories of social status and relationships (class, gender, sexuality, religion, disability, family structure, formal education, age/generation, citizenship and immigration status).

In addition, this course will examine inter-group (e.g. African American-Asian Pacific Islander American-Latino-Native American-European American) and intra-group challenges within today’s ethnic communities. Issues such as employment, education, housing, health, and immigration will be addressed that affect the current generation of ethnic minorities. Films and speakers will enrich the class understanding of these issues.

The course is focused on the “stories we tell” that define who we are and how others relate to and with us. The process of oral history/herstory/ourstory will enable us to research our own stories and enrich the dynamic fabric of cultural diversity in the United States. We are the ones, the experts of our own life experiences and stories, who will teach each other and future generations in the United States and the global community who we are and where we have come from and where we are going.

Recommended (Material in Chapter Presentations):

Healy, Joseph F. Diversity and Society: Race, Ethnicity, and Gender SAGE Publications (Thousand Oaks: 2014). ISBN: 1-4129-9245-9

Additionally Recommended for Future Reading:

Jordan, June. Some of Us Did Not Die. Perseus Books. (New York: 2002) ISBN: 0465-03693-7

Painter, Nell Irvin. The History of White People. WW Norton. (New York: 2010) ISBN: 978- 393-04934-3.