Fall 2004

HIS 350L • Education & American Empire-W

Course Description

After the Civil War, American public education and the American empire expressed stated goals to expand democracy and modernity to peoples of color, immigrants, workers, women, and U.S. colonial territories, such as Puerto Rico, Hawai`i, and the Philippines. This seminar will look at the topics of public education and empire, broadly defined, and ask students to investigate the complex processes of Americanization and assimilation from multiple historical perspectives.

The course is organized into three units: 1) historical themes of education, citizenship and diversity; 2) the various meanings of American empire, including issues of modernity, self-governance, violence, and political economy; and, lastly, 3) Americanization and U.S colonial education programs. In this course, students will gain an understanding of the internationalist frameworks of United States history, and comparative racial-ethnic studies of Asian Americans, Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, African Americans, and Latinos. Students will be invited to read primary source documents, fiction, and historical scholarship, and may opt to pursue research, or to design a research proposal, that best fits their needs.

Texts

Tentative course reading: James B. Anderson, EDUCATION OF BLACKS IN THE SOUTH (Chapel Hill, 1988) Catherine Ceniza Choy, EMPIRE OF CARE: NURSING AND MIGRATION IN FILIPINO AMERICAN HISTORY (Durham, 2003) Gilbert C. Gonzalez, CULTURE OF EMPIRE: AMERICAN WRITERS, MEXICO, AND MEXICAN IMMIGRANTS, 1880-1930 (Austin, 2004) K. Tsianina Lomawaima, THEY CALLED IT PRAIRIE LIGHT: THE STORY OF CHILOCCO INDIAN SCHOOL (Lincoln, 1994) Yoon Pak, WHEREVER I GO, I WILL ALWAYS BE A LOYAL AMERICAN: SCHOOLING SEATTLE’S JAPANESE AMERICANS DURING WORLD WAR II (New York, 2002) John Willinsky, LEARNING TO DIVIDE THE WORLD: EDUCATION AT EMPIRE’S END (Minneapolis, 2000)

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