The Latino Experiences in the United States SOC 335                                                       Fall 2013 Instructor: Dr. Gonzalo Santos santos_class@csub.edu Office: DDH-AA205     Phone: 654-2191 Class: 10:00-11:15 am,  MWF,  Classroom Bld. 106 Office Hours: 11:20 am - 1:00 pm, MWF Teaching Assistant: Mr. Roberto Rodriguez rcrodriguez1976@gmail.com Office: DDH-AA204 Office Hours: by appointment only

This course explores the rich and diverse sociological - class, gender, ethnic, and migrant - experiences of the Latino peoples in the United States around four distinct and historically specific moments covered in four books. The first one is the earlier experience of the first large waves of Mexican worker migration, repatriation, and settlement in California's agricultural regions in the first four decades of the 20th century, just before the Second World War (the Guerin-Gonzales book). The second one explores the tense history of displacement, assimilation, and civil rights rebellion of the Mexican American people of the U.S. Southwest in the early and middle of the XXth. Century, from the rise of the first national Mexican American advocacy organizations up until the rise of the Chicano Movement in the 1960s/70s (the Gutierrez book). The third experience we study is the dramatic rise in Mexican immigration to the U.S., both regular and undocumented, from the mid-1960s to the present - from the perspective of the international economic causes embedded in the dynamics of globalization, and the restrictionist and draconian domestic responses to it, which sparked the modern immigrant rights movement (the Bacon book). The fourth book (Marrero) delves into the political & policy history and economic impact of the immigration regime in the United States since 1986, from the perspective of Latinos both immigrant and native born.

COURSE STRUCTURE

The course will be run in a mix-lecture/student presentations format. Students will form twelve 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 and Ms. Rafik participating. Every student group will present twice to the class during the quarter. That way each student will be asked to prepare and deliver two class presentations during the quarter, in coordination with his/her grupo.

Attendance is absolutely mandatory (please, no tardiness or early departures, as these too will be penalized). ALL students must come prepared to discuss the assigned readings for each class session - a policy that will be implemented by having every student bring to every class he/she will not be presenting, a reading assessment for each of the readings assigned.  The reading assessments must be turned in to Dr. Santos at the beginning of each class session. (No late submissions will be accepted.)

Apart from the two group class presentations and the submitted reading assessments, the students will collaborate within their groups on two research topic projects, consisting of individual research papers around a common group topic related to the Latino experience in the United States.

Class Presentations: At the beginning of the course, the students will be organized in 12 groups of two or three students each. Each group will be designated by a number. On those dates identified in the schedule below, groups will make their PowerPoint presentations on their assigned readings -- groups can expect to present twice in the quarter. Class discussion will follow the presentations, led by either Dr. Santos or Mr. Rodriguez.

Please upload your presentations in the course's Blackboard account prior to giving it or immediately afterwards, for purposes of eventual grading. Time allotted per individual presentation will be up to 10 minutes. Each presenting student will introduce, describe, highlight, and summarize his/her own portion of the assigned reading, and on the last slide raise one pertienent, interesting question for subsequent discussion. Each student should insert appropriate quotes, charts, and figures from the portion of the textbook he/she is covering, apart from his/her own text. Please avoid cluttered slides, full of tiny font text (instead, make more slides) or busy backgrounds that render the text unreadable (choose clean formats). Images are welcome, as long as they are relevant, informative, and will actually be explained by the presenter (especially charts). If you put up a picture or graph, be prepared to answer detailed questions about it.

As a precaution, please bring your presentations in a USB-type memory stick and also email it to your own email account. IMPORTANT NOTICE TO PRESENTING GROUPS: When it's your turn to present, please show up EARLY to set up & test all individual presentations. It is each group's responsibility to coordinate their presentations so that there will be minimum overlap between them.

Each presentations will be graded based on: (a) the analytical strength of the presentation (how well it was organized, the topics selected, and how well they were covered), (b) critical thinking displayed, the quality and relevance of all visuals and materials added; (c) the relevance and quality of the question posed at the end, and (d) the quality & style of the oral delivery (communication skills).

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 one-to-two pages in length, double-spaced, one-inch margins, font 12 text. Dr. Santos may randomly select a couple of students to read their assessments and/or questions in the discussion period. No late reading assessments will be accepted, unless the student has a pre-authorized absence from Dr. Santos. PLEASE DO NOT SEND YOUR READING ASSESSMENTS BY EMAIL, as they will not be accepted.

CONTENT: Please always write on top of your reading assessments, single spaced, your name, the date, and the title of the chapter/book 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 choose to 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 judgment in the choices of topics you make to analyze (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 "just 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.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Students presenting on a given day do not need to submit ANY reading assessments FOR THAT DAY.

Research Papers:  Students in each grupo will also be asked twice during the quarter to chose a pertinent sociological topic related to the varied Latino experiences in the United States, and design, organize, and carry out a written group research project on it, yielding three or four individual research papers on mutually-complementary sub-topics. Topics can range widely in historic period, ethnic group or Latino-wide, economic, social, political, or sociocultural, immigration, social movements, wars, women, work, family, education, religion, government, language, media, sports, health, youth, aging, etc.. The students must obtain approval from Dr. Santos or Mr. Rodriguez for their overall grupo topic and for each of their individual subtopics, at least three weeks prior to the project deadlines. Grupo delegates may visit Dr. Santos during his office hours posted above, or set up an appointment with Mr. Rodriguez for this purpose. The course site in Blackboard has a sample research paper to serve as a guide, as well.

Extra Points: Perfect attendance (allowing for two excused absences) 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 one-to-two-page follow-up assessment report on each of them. A third way to earn extra credit 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) they will receive extra credit:  [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/turn_it_in_help_page.shtml 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.

Office Hours & E-Mail to Dr. Santos & Mr. Roberto Rodriguez:

All students are encouraged to visit Dr. Santos and/or Mr. Rodriguez regularly during their posted office hours to plan for or go over their presentations; to ensure their grupo research project topics and subtopics; to make sure their individual research papers are well focused, or to discuss any question from the class lectures, the textbooks, or their grupo class presentations. Consultation and approval of the grupo research topics must be done in person at Dr. Santos or Mr. Rodriguez's offices by representatives of each grupo - no emails on that subject, please - at least three weeks before the research papers are due.

Dr. Santos much prefers students to come to his office during his 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 - he appreciates the ease and fun of talking face-to-face - 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. The same applies to Mr. Rodriguez.

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

My Own Research Subtopic # 1 is:___________________________________________________________

My GRUPO  Research Topic # 2 is:__________________________________________________________

My Own Research Subtopic # 2 is:___________________________________________________________

My  GRUPO members are:

___Name______________________Phone_____________________Email_________________________________

1._____________________________________________________________________________________________

2._____________________________________________________________________________________________

3._____________________________________________________________________________________________