The Latino Experiences in the United States SOC 335                                                       Fall 2008 Instructor: Dr. Gonzalo Santos santos_class@csub.edu Office: DDH-AA205     Phone: 654-2191 Class Time: 9:30 - 10:50 am, MWF   Classroom:   Edu. Bld. Room 127    Office Hours:  11:00 am - 12:00 pm, MWF

• Frances Negron-Muntaner, ed., 2007. None of the Above: Puerto Ricans in the Global Era. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN: 1403962464.

• Laura Gomez, 2008. Manifest Destinies: The Making of the Mexican American Race. New York: NUY Press. ISBN: 0814732054. [Note: This paperback book won't be released until October 1, but it is available on the web in hardback at a discount already (ISBN: 0814731740).]

• Raul Fernandez, 2003. A Century of Chicano History: Empire, Nations and Migration. New York: Routledge. ISBN: 0415943930.

• Justin Akers Chacon, Mike Davis, 2006. No One Is Illegal: Fighting Racism and State Violence on the U.S.-Mexico Border. New York: Haymarket Books. ISBN: 1931859353.

This course explores the historical sociology of Latino peoples in the United States through four distinct and dramatic - albeit incomplete - topics: First, we look at present-day Puerto Ricans, both in Puerto Rico and in the United States; their ambiguous, unresolved political status; their social and cultural hybridity; their migration experiences. Then we embark in a case study of the social construction of Latinos as a "race" in the era of the Monroe Doctrine: the racialization of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in the U.S. beginning and after the war-driven annexation of northern Mexico into the United States in the second half of the 19th. Century - an intertwined story of empire-building, nation-building, and ethnogenesis. The third topic of the course will be the profoundly inter-related experiences of Mexicans in both Mexico and the United States in the 20th. Century, from the perspective of the ever-more integrated political economies of both countries, but with the peculiarity that one, the U.S., became the global hegemonic power of the world-economy, while the other, Mexico, could not escape its increasing dependency to the U.S., despite a social revolution and decades of attempting national developmental models. This led to the world's longest-running, largest-scale, continuous, informal ("illegal") & formal ("legal") labor migration flows, with major consequences to both countries, including a deepening of Mexico's dependence and the dramatic growth of the Mexican-American community in the U.S.. The last topic will focus on the ongoing resurgence of racism  and xenophobia against Mexican undocumented immigrants, at the grassroots and state levels, having become the central racialization phenomenon in the United States in the early 21st. Century, as well as the public political emergence of a mighty immigrant rights movement since 2006, with far reaching implications.

The course will be run mostly as a seminar. Students will form ten groups ("grupos") of up to four students each, and, after the first week of class, will take turns introducing and analyzing the assigned readings for each session, followed by class discussion, with Dr. Santos participating. That way each student will make two class presentations during the quarter.

Attendance is mandatory (please, no tardiness or early departures, as these will be penalized). All students must come prepared to discuss the readings - either through their formal presentations, or, when they are not presenting, by bringing to class their reading assessments.  The reading assessments must be turned in to Dr. Santos at the beginning of each class session. (No late submissions will be accepted)

The students will also collaborate within their groups to produce a research project on topics related to the Latino experiences in the United States -- each student will therefore also write a research term paper.

Class Presentations: At the beginning of the course, the students will be organized in groups of three.  On those dates identified in the schedule below, groups will make PowerPoint presentations on the assigned readings -- groups can expect to present twice in the quarter. Class discussion will follow the presentations.  Please email Dr. Santos an electronic copy of your presentation. Time allotted per individual presentation will be 6 to 8 minutes. Each presenting student will introduce, describe, highlight, and summarize his/her own portion of the assigned readings, and raise one relevant, interesting question for subsequent discussion. As a precaution, please bring your presentations in a USB-type memory stick and also email it to your own Runner email account. When it's your turn to present, please show up early to set it up & test it. It is each group's responsibility to organize the division of labor in their presentations so that there will be minimum overlap between them.

The presentations will be graded based on: (a) the analytical strength of the presentation, including its depth & breath (how well it covers all the main aspects), (b) critical thinking and originality, (c) the relevance and thought-provoking quality of the question posed at the end, and (d) the delivery & style of the oral presentation (including the visuals displayed).

Reading Assessments: To ensure that everybody come to every class prepared to discuss the assigned readings, students who are not presenting must bring to class one written "reading assessment" per chapter assigned, each up to two pages in length, double-spaced text. Dr. Santos will randomly select a couple of students to read their assessments and/or questions in the discussion periods. No late reading assessments will be accepted, unless the student has a pre-authorized absence from Dr. Santos. DO NOT SEND YOUR READING ASSESSMENTS BY EMAIL.

CONTENT: Please always write on top of your reading assessments your name, the date, and the reading you are assessing. In contrast to the presentations, these "reading assessments" must not summarize or describe the readings, but must critically respond to them: express what the you think about them; identify the areas of strong agreement and disagreement with the author, explaining why you do, as well as the areas or topics you find most interesting to discuss, or anything in particular that impressed you greatly, caused you confusion, or surprise. Whatever you write, you should explain your specific academic and/or personal reasons for doing so. The reading assessment cannot and should not cover every issue found in the assigned readings for the day; you must be selective and demonstrate judgement in the choices you make to discuss (by the way, early topics are always suspect!). A very bad assessment will reveal the student read very little or very superficially just to do the assignment (it's called "going through the motion"). A good assessment will demonstrate the student really read the material and did a serious effort to select and critically grapple with some of the main issues raised. At the end of each reading assessment, students should always write their own question for class discussion.

Note: Students presenting on a given day do not need to submit any reading assessment.

Research Papers:  Students in each grupo will also be asked to chose a pertinent historical/sociological topic relating to the Latino experiences in the United States, and design, organize, and carry out a written group research project on it. The selected subject may be panethnic (all Latinos) or ethnic (one Latino ethnic group); it might focus on the immigrant and/or the U.S. settlement experiences; the period covered may be historic (19th., 20th. centuries), or contemporary (1990s to now); the spatial dimension may be as small as a city or local area, a state, a region of the U.S., or as large as the entire North America & Caribbean area; the topics may focus on the social, political, economic, demographic, and/or cultural conditions, trends, institutional dynamics, or social movements, or burning issues affecting Latinos or affected by them (health, education, political participation, etc.). There are literally hundreds of interesting topics - brainstorm! The students must obtain approval from Dr. Santos for both their overall grupo topic and for their individual subtopics no later than October 31. Grupo delegates may visit Dr. Santos at his office during his office hours posted above.

Extra Points: Perfect attendance will be rewarded with up to five extra points. Another way to get extra credit is to attend those campus or public events Dr. Santos announces in class and write a two-page report on each of them. Another way is this: there are two general studies courses that students are strongly encouraged to take if they wish to develop their research skills, and if they do (either or both) will receive extra credit in this course: These courses will enable students to develop the necessary competencies to navigate their way around the complexities of researching print and electronic sources.  For further information contact librarian Christy Gavin (email: <cgavin@csub.edu>, phone: 661-664-3237).

Plagiarism: To prevent students from wittingly or unwittingly engaging in plagiarism, Dr. Santos strongly recommends students to carefully read and abide by the document CSUB Classifications of Plagiarism found at: http://www.csub.edu/tlc/options/resources/plagiarism/4plagiarimclassifications.htm.
Furthermore, students are advised that all papers will be submitted to TurnItIn.com, a professional web site now routinely use to quickly detect plagiarism. Anyone found guilty of engaging in plagiarism will automatically fail the course and be reported to the Office of Student Discipline and Judicial Affairs for further disciplinary action.

Grading:

Each grupo class presentation is worth 20 points each (15 points for the individual oral presentation, 5 points for the overall group effort). The research project is worth 30 points (35 points for the individual paper, and 5 points for the quality of the conceptual and physical organization of the grupo volume as a whole). The reading assessments are worth the remaining 30 points. The extra credit students may receive for taking the suggested General Studies courses will depend on their final grade in those courses, and may range from zero to six points (up to 3 extra points per course). Perfect attendance will also be rewarded with five extra points; absences and tardiness/leaving early will be penalized with one point off per instance. The final letter grade will be assigned, on a scale of 0 to 100, as follows:

Office Hours & Private E-Mail to Dr. Santos:

All students are encouraged to visit Dr. Santos regularly during his posted office hours, just after class (see above), or by appointment, to ensure their grupo research project topics are approved and organized into well chosen subtopics, their individual research papers are well focused, or to discuss any question from the class lectures, the textbooks, or their grupo class presentations. Approval/consultation of the grupo research topics must be done in person at Dr. Santos office by representatives of each grupo - no emails on that, please.

Dr. Santos much prefers students either come to his office during office hours or to call him by phone, rather than to receive e-mail messages that require more than a very short one-line reply, due to his large email traffic - he appreciates the ease and fun of talking as opposed to typing! But if you wish to send Dr. Santos a brief, to-the-point message, you may do so at his email address above.

My GRUPO # is: _____                         We present on these dates: ___________ and ___________

My Own Research Subtopic:___________________________________________________________

My  GRUPO members are:

___Name______________________Phone_____________________Email___________________________

1._______________________________________________________________________________________

2._______________________________________________________________________________________

3._______________________________________________________________________________________

4._______________________________________________________________________________________