Martha Menchaca

This course seeks to develop a student's understanding of the history of Mexican immigration to the U.S. It will provide an overview of migratory patterns dating back to the late pre-historic period through contemporary times. The focius of the course, however, will be current immigration issues dealing with: 1) causes of Mexican immigration: gloabalization, Mexican politics, agribusiness, 2) U.S. Law, 3) incorporation, and 4) citizenship.

This course seeks to develop a student's understanding of American immigrant cultural experiences and the processes that stimulate immigration to the United States. Theories and case studies will be examined to explore three main topical areas: 1) Processes of immigration: globalization and U.S. Law, 2) Incorporation: social class diversity, citizenship, schooling, and 3) Cultural Identity.

An overview of immigrant groups will be reviewed, but the focus of the study will be Asians and Latinos as these populations offer distinct examples of our social class immigrant spectrum.

 This course seeks to develop a student's understanding of American immigrant cultural experiences and the processes that stimulate immigration to the United States. Theories and case studies will be examined to explore three main topical areas: 1) Processes of immigration: globalization and U.S. Law, 2) Incorporation: social class diversity, citizenship, schooling, and 3) Cultural Identity.  An overview of immigrant groups will be reviewed, but the focus of the study will be Asians and Latinos as these populations offer distinct examples of our social class immigrant spectrum.  Course Requirements 2 papers 1 presentation  Texts  Tentative Reading List: Menchaca,  Naturalizing Mexican Immigrants:  A Texas History Tehranian, White Washed:  America's Invisible Middle Eastern Minority, López, The Farmworker's Journey Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America  Course Reader

This course examines the cultural prehistory and racial history of Mexican Americans from 1519 to the present.  The purpose of the course is to examine how policies and laws enacted by the governments of Spain, Mexico, and the U.S. impacted the ethnic and racial identities of Mexican Americans.  The geographic focus of the course is Mexico and the United States Southwest.

 This course will examine oral traditions (narratives about the past) and the politics of writing history.  We will explore how ethnographers recover historical information and reconstitute community histories. Auto-ethnography and autobiography will also be explored as historical methods and theoretical approaches that attempt to change the relations between author and informant.             Central issues of analysis include: hermeneutics, oral tradition theories and methods, how people remember the past, memory, the politics of writing, and race.   Requirements:   2 essays (7 pages) and a presentation based on an oral history interview.   Textbooks/tentative;   Fabian, J:  Time and the Other:  How Anthropology Makes its Object Frye:  Indians into Mexicans:   History and Identity in a Mexican Town Bejar An Island Called Home Returning to Jewish Cuba Menchú, Rigoberta:  I, Rigoberta Menchú Hernandez, Maria.  Delirio.     Rodriguez & Fortier, Cultural Memory Singer, The Face of Social Suffering, Miles, Ties That Bind:  The Story of an Afro-Cherokee Family in Slavery and Freedom, Short Reader

This course seeks to develop a student’s theoretical and historical understanding of race and ethnicity in the United States.  We will begin by examining the different historical processes of ethnic group incorporation in the United States.  After examining the American ethnic and racial structure we will review a broad spectrum of topics dealing with American culture and identity. Topics receiving particular attention in this course include:  ethnic and racial identity formation, globalization, cultural citizenship, Latino immigration, poverty, deficit thinking in Anthropology, segregation/civil rights, and mestizaje.

This course seeks to develop a student’s understanding of American immigrant cultural experiences and the processes that stimulate immigration to the United States. Theories and case studies will be examined to explore three main topical areas:  1)  Processes of immigration:  globalization and U.S. Law, 2) Incorporation:  social class diversity, citizenship, schooling, 3)  Cultural Identity.

An overview of immigrant groups will be reviewed, but the focus of the study will be Asians and Latinos as these populations  offer distinct examples of our social class immigrant spectrum.


Tentative Reading List:

Stephen, L. Transborder Lives:  Indigenous Oaxacans in Mexico, California and Oregon (2007)

Fone, N. and G. Fredrickson.  Not Just Black and White  (2004)

Ngai, Mae, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (2004)  

Rumbaut, R. and A. Portes.  Ethnicities:  Children of Immigrants in America (2001)

Rothenberg, D., With these Hands:  The Hidden World of Migrant Farmworkers Today (2000).




A reader will also be required.


Class Requirements:

2 papers, 1 presentation

Menchaca  Fall 2009

Anth 322M / MAS 374/LAS324L                                                                          

TTH 9:30-11:00a                                                                                                   

WAG 201, UN: 30425A, 36255M, 40805L

Mexican American Indigenous Heritage

August           

27       TH            Introduction

September         

 1        T            The Chicano Movement & Racial Empowerment         

 3        TH            Film:  Chicano Civil Rights            (Prof.)                                  

 8        T                                               

 10       TH             Ancient Indians of Mexico & the American Southwest

                                                 Film:  Mesoamerica            (Prof.)

 15       T                       

 17       TH            Film:  Spirits of the Canyon (Prof.)           

 22       T            The Spanish Period                                   

 24       TH            Film:  Cabeza de Vaca (vc4607)           

 29       T                                                           

October               

1         TH                       

 6         T                                     

 8         TH                          

13        T            ReadingDay!           

15        TH            MIDTERM           

 20        T                                   

 22        TH                       

27        T                       

29        TH            The Mexican Period           

November               

3         T                                                                      

5         TH            Film:  Mexican Independence (vc7525, vol. 2)                                                                 

10        T                                                                       

12        TH            Anglo American Period                                                                                                     

 17        T                                               

 19        TH                                   

 24        T            Film:  Los Mineros  (vc2890)                       

26        TH            Holiday:  Thanksgiving!           

December             

 1         T                                                              

 3         TH            Conclusion                                                                       

11        F            Final Exam:  9-12noon  

                   (Do not make plans until you have official notification by the university).

Required Readings

            You will be expected to read parts of the following books:  Diaz,  The Conquest of New Spain, Menchaca, Recovering History, Constructing Race, and Meyer, Sherman and Deeds, The Course of Mexican History (2007 ed). The  books may be purchased at the University Co-op at Guadalupe St.   In addition, a short class reader will be required.  It may be purchased at Speedway Copying (2025 Guadalupe St., Suite 140, phone 478-3334).  You may use an earlier edition of the Meyer book, but check with professor to obtain page numbers.   The chapters we are reading did not change in the later editions.

Exams

            Students are required to take a midterm and final examination.

Grading

            Attendance is required and excessive absences will affect your grade.  Students who have a perfect attendance record will receive a 3 point credit.

             Only a doctor’s letter or a death in your family will be acceptable excuses for a make-up exam. 

            Grade distribution

            45% Midterm

            55% Final Exam

Office Hours   Dr. Menchaca’s office hours:  Anthropology Dept., E.P.S. 1.144, Tuesday 11-1:30 and by appointments.

                                          Mexican American Indigenous Heritage

                                              Reading Assignments by Topic

Location Code for Readings:                        (T)              Textbook  (Only read assigned pages)

                                                            (R)              Reader (Read in order as assigned)

                                                            (S/R)              Suggested Reading in reader

                                                            (L)              Library                        _________________________________________________________________

Introduction

            No reading

The Chicano Movement and Racial Empowerment

            (R)            Vigil, J.D.  1984.  Breakup and Transformation of the Social Order.  In                                       From Indians to Chicanos.  Pp.184-213.  Prospects Heights, Ill:                                                 Waveland Press.                                     

            (R)            Ybarra-Fausto, T.  1978.  The Chicano Movement and the Emergence                                     of a Chicano Poetic Consciousness.  In  New Directions in Chicano                                     Scholarship, Romo, R. & Paredes, R. eds. Pp. 81-109. San Diego,                                                 CA: Chicano Studies Monograph Series.

            (R)            Rendon, A.  1971.  Revolution in the Making.  In Chicano Manifesto.                                      Pp. 103-137.  New York:  The MacMillan Co.

            (R)            Rendon, A.  1971. The People of Aztl‡n  In Chicano Manifesto. 

                        Pp. 7-16.  New York:  The MacMillan Co.

Ancient Indians of Mexico and the American Southwest

            (T)            Menchaca, Martha.  2001.  Recovering History, Constructing Race:  The                                     Indian, Black, and White Roots of Mexican Americans.  Austin, TX:                                      University of Texas Press.   Read:  1-48.

            (T)            Meyer, M. C., W. L. Sherman, and S.M. Deeds.  2007.  The Course                                     of Mexican History.  Oxford:  Oxford University Press.  Read: Chapters                                     1-5.

            (R)            Newcomb, W. W. 1985.  The Beginnings.  In The Indians of Texas. 

                        Pp.3-29.  Austin, TX:  The University of Texas Press.

            (R)            Hester, T. R.  1989.  Perspectives on the Material Culture of the                                                 Mission Indians of the Texas-Northeastern Mexico Borderlands.  In                                     Columbian Consequences:  Vol. 1, Archaeological and Historical                                                 Perspectives on the Spanish Borderlands West.   D. H. Thomas,                                                                  ed. Pp. 191-229. Washington, D.C.:   Smithsonian Institution Press.           

            (R)            Hall, T. D.  1989.  The Southwest:  The Region, the Peoples and                                                 Prehistory.  In Social Change in the Southwest, 1350-1880.   Pp.                                                  33-49.  Lawrence, KS:  University Press of Kansas.

            (R)            Costello, J.G. and D. Hornbeck.  1989.  Alta California:  An Overview.                                       In Columbian Consequences:  Vol. 1, Archaeological and Historical                                     Perspectives on the Spanish Borderlands West.   D. H. Thomas,                                                 ed.  Pp. 303-331. Washington, D.C.:   Smithsonian Institution Press.           

The Spanish Period

            (T)            Diaz, B.  1963.  The Conquest of New Spain.  NY:  Penguin Books.

The following chapters may be skipped:  The Expedition of Juan de Grijalva, The Expedition of Hernando Cortes:  Preparations, Cortes Collects Fresh Strength, Expeditions Around the Lake.

            (T)            Meyer, M. C., W. L. Sherman, and S.M. Deeds. 2007. The                                                   Course of Mexican History.  Oxford:  Oxford University Press. 

Read:              Chapters 8-11.

            (T)            Menchaca, Martha.  2001.  Recovering History, Constructing Race:  The                                     Indian, Black, and White Roots of Mexican Americans.  Austin, TX:                                                  University of Texas Press.   Read:  49-160.

            (T)            Meyer, M. C., W. L. Sherman, and S. M. Deeds. 2007.  The Course of                                     Mexican History. Oxford:  Oxford University Press.  Read:  Chapter 12.                        

            (R)            Kessell, J.  1989.  Spaniards and Pueblos:  From Crusading Intolerance to                                     Pragmatic Accommodation.  In Columbian Consequences:  Vol. 1,                                                 Archaeological and Historical Perspectives on the Spanish Borderlands                                     West.   D. H. Thomas, ed.  Pp. 127-138. Washington, D.C.:   Smithsonian                                     Institution Press.           

(R)                        Dale, E.  1941.  The Indians of the Southwest.  In The Indians of the                                    Southwest.  Pp. 11-24.  Norman, OK:  University of Oklahoma Press.

The Mexican Period

            (T)            Menchaca, Martha.  2001.  Recovering History, Constructing Race:  The                                     Indian, Black, and White Roots of Mexican Americans.  Austin, TX:                                      University of Texas Press.   Read:  161-214.

            (T)            Meyer, M. C., W. L. Sherman, and S.M. Deeds. 2007.  The Course of                                     Mexican History. Oxford:  Oxford University Press.  Read:  Chapters 15,                                     16, 18.

            (R)            Mason, W. M.  1986.  Alta California During the Mission Period,                                                 1769-1835.   Masterkey 60(2/3):4-14.

            (R)            Pubols, Louise.  2004.  Fathers of the Pueblo:  Patriarchy and Power in                                     Mexican California 1800-1880.  In Continental Crossroads:  Remapping                                     U.S.-Mexico Borderlands History.  Samuel Truett and Elliott Young, eds.                                      Pp. 67-93. Durham:  Duke University Press.

            (R)            Engstrand, I. 1991.  An Enduring Legacy:  California Ranchos in                                                 Historical Perspective.  In Spanish and Mexican Land Grants and the                                     Law.  Malcom Ebright, ed.  Pp. 36-47.  Manhattan, KS:  Sunflower.

The Anglo American Period

            (T)      Menchaca, Martha.  2001.  Recovering History, Constructing Race: The 

                        Indian, Black, and White Roots of Mexican Americans.  Austin, TX:                                      University of             Texas Press.   Read:  215-276.

(R)            R’os-Bustamante, A.  1986.  The Barrioization of Nineteenth-Century Mexican Californians:  From Landowners to Laborers.   Masterkey 60(2/3):  26-35.

Racial Segregation and its Social Evolution

            (T)            Menchaca, Martha.  2001.  Recovering History, Constructing Race:  The                                     Indian, Black, and White Roots of Mexican Americans.  Austin, TX:                                      University of Texas Press.   Read:  277-309.

            (R)            Glazer, N.  1994.  The Emergence of an Ethnic Pattern.  In From                                                 Different Shores, R. Takaki (ed.).  Pp. 11-23.  Oxford:  Oxford                                                 University Press.

           (R)            Takaki, R.  1994.  Reflections of Racial Patterns in America.   In From                                     Different Shores, R. Takaki (ed.). Pp. 25-35.  Oxford:  Oxford                                                 University Press.