This course provides a historical perspective on race and ethnicity in the United States. Such a perspective suggests that racial and ethnic categories are not fixed, objective, or rooted in biology. Rather, these categories are social constructs that permeate all social life, are entrenched in social structures and institutions, and shift over time and place. From this perspective, we will survey ethnic groups in America from pre-contact to the present, including Native Americans, European Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latinos, emphasizing the forces prompting emigration and immigration, their roles in shaping American society and culture, their reception by and adaptation to American society, as well as an examination of contending theoretical models of the immigrant experience in America. The course will also help you learn to read, write, and think like a historian and introduce you to methods of historical inquiry and methodology. Drawing on literary texts and primary sources, through writing, discussion, lectures, a range of media, and group work, we will investigate the ways in which the racial and ethnic legacies of the past continue to shape our present.
Note that EVERYTHING you do in this class, whether it is a low-stakes assignment, a group project, a discussion post, is aligned to the above objectives.
Upon completion of this course, YOU, the student will be able to:
Describe and discuss, orally and/or in writing, how key historical events were shaped by and had an impact on the lives of ethnic and racial groups, including colonial settlement, the American Revolution, the formation of the United States, westward expansion, industrialization, the Civil War and Reconstruction, the Spanish-American War, Progressivism, World War I, the economic, political, social, cultural, and international tensions of the 1920s and 1930s, World War II, the Cold War, the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, tensions in the Middle East and other contemporary foreign and domestic policies.
Demonstrate the ability to interpret historical information by applying analytical skills used by historians—such as synthesizing evidence from both primary and secondary sources, comparing and contrasting multiple perspectives, contextualizing information, and/or identifying causes and effects of change and continuity—to the course content
Demonstrate the value of historical knowledge for understanding more recent and/or comparable issues, events, and trends.
Please complete your work on a desktop or laptop computer. Please do not attempt to complete this course on a tablet or phone.
All Required Readings are free and posted to Canvas:
I will assign additional required readings most weeks. These will usually be short, primary sources, news articles, and/or scholarly articles to supplement the textbook. All of these are available online and in an accessible format.
Please be prepared to spend about 5 hours per week to read, write, watch, listen, and complete assignments for this course. The advantage of this asynchronous online course is that as long as you are hitting the deadlines, you can complete the work according to your schedule. Weekly modules will open one week at a time and coursework will be due on Mondays at 11:59pm.
Yes! I will accept late Reading Responses (RRs). However, this is a 6 week course, so I cannot accept anything more than one week late! I will not accept discussion posts late. That is not fair to your discussion group.
Reading Responses (RRs) - 35% of your grade
I will post a prompt most weeks that will ask you to think deeply about all or some of the week's materials. Mostly these will require a short 1-2 page written response (although there might be some alternative formats allowed. The format rquirement will be noted on the prompt). These are intended to help guide you through the reading and to engage with various materials provided throughout the week. The work you put into these reading responses is intended to provide you with an opportunity to practice the kind of historical thinking you will need to demonstrate on higher stakes assignments (like final project). To this end, I do not grade these reading responses for grammar or sentence structure. However, keep in mind that I can only evaluate something I understand, so please write as clearly as possible. I will grade these on a scale of 0 to 3.
0 = no response
1 = a very minimal response; incomplete or makes me wonder if you did the reading
2 = a good response that addresses the prompt and responds to the readings in question
3 = a thoughtful response that directly responds to the readings and prompt and either provides good examples and support when relevant and/or makes connections to other course material. I will drop your lowest score.
Discussion Boards - 35%
The discussion boards are central to this course. They help us make sense of the historical documents we will view and read and make connections to other readings, course themes, and the myriad of major developments happening in our contemporary world. Each prompt is different. These are graded on the same 0-3 scale as the Reading Responses. I will drop your lowest score.
Final Exam - 30%
Grading
Weekly Reading Responses 35%
Discussion Board posts 35%
Final Exam 30%
As your professor and a member of your campus community, I am committed to anti-racism and racial equity. Instead of focusing on “diversity” or “representation” in a classroom or on campus, we must actively uplift the voices of historically marginalized BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) and ensure that they are given equal respect and space as their non-BIPOC peers if we are to work towards racial equity. I am Chicana, and my racial identity shapes my experiences, how I am received by others, and how I interpret things. I expect everyone in this class to consider their racial identity and experiences in how they read, respond to, and discuss course materials and how they engage with other peers during class discussions.
A Few Notes in Pariculuar
We will not claim to live in a “color blind society” because this is view actively erases the
institutional disenfranchisement experienced by different groups.
We will not formulate and entertain opinions based on the denial of marginalized
peoples’ existence (i.e., racism/xenophobia). These are not provocative “conversation
starters” but are violent and impermissible products of power disparities.
Anyone outside of a marginalized group impacted by a slur will not repeat that slur. This
includes if you are referring to a piece of art or text that includes the slur. If you must
refer to the slur, reference it without saying it.
We will not expect BIPOC students to take on teaching/educating roles on these matters.
If you have any questions about these expectations, please send me an email.
*adapted from “An Antiracist CU” by Radical BIPOC Women & Femmes, July 2020
Integrity of work: It is expected that work produced in this course is original to the YOU, the author. All references in your work this semester should come from only the assigned materials and must be cited. Use this link for an easy cheat sheet of how to cite; you will need just the in-text citation samples. For example:
(Binder and Kidder 2022, 117–18)
(Yu 2020, 45)
(Dittmar and Schemske 2023, 480)
(Hebert 1925, 310)
(Kwon 2022, 1842–43)
(Lindquist 2023, 230)
(Buolamwini 2023)
(Cowan 2022, at 6:09–17)
(Ober 2022)
(Oliver 2022)
This course is designed to be welcoming to, accessible to, and usable by everyone, including students who are English-language learners, have a variety of learning styles, have disabilities, or are new to online learning. Be sure to let me know immediately if you encounter a required element or resource in the course that is not accessible to you. Also, let me know of changes I can make to the course so that it is more welcoming to, accessible to, or usable by students who take this course in the future.
I encourage students requesting disability-related accommodations to contact Disabled Student Services as soon as possible. I will work with you and the Center for Students with Disabilities to provide appropriate and reasonable accommodations. An early notification of your request for test- taking and/or other accommodations is necessary to ensure that your disability related needs are addressed appropriately; testing accommodations cannot be applied retroactively. The DSPS office is located in the Admissions/Student Services Complex, Room 101, and the phone numbers are (310) 434-4265 and (310) 434-4273 (TDD)
In our structured and unstructured discussions and dialogues, we also will have many opportunities to explore some challenging issues and increase our understandings of different perspectives. Our conversations may not always be easy; we sometimes will make mistakes in our speaking and our listening; sometimes we will need patience or courage or imagination or any number of qualities in combination to engage our texts, our classmates, and our own ideas and experiences. Always we will need respect for others.
We will not tolerate homophobia, racism, sexism, xenophobia, religious bigotry in this class.
I will gladly honor your request to address you by an alternate name or gender pronouns. Please advise me of this preference early in the semester or session so that I may make appropriate changes to my records. In our classroom community, I expect everyone to respect their peers and the use of their pronouns.
Title IX is a comprehensive federal law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity: No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.
Those interested in the details should view the Title IX Legal Manual.
Students who have experienced some form of sexual misconduct or discrimination are encouraged to talk to someone about their experience, so they can get the support they need. You can learn more about available support at the Student Services Title IX webpage.