The Latino Experiences in the United States SOC 335     Hybrid Course for College of the Canyons     Winter 2012 Instructor: Dr. Gonzalo Santos santos_class@csub.edu Dr. Santos's Phone: 661 654-2191 Teaching Assistant: Mr. Joey Williams josephwilliams488@gmail.com Mr. Williams's Phone: 661 654-2718 Class Sessions at College of the Canyon will be held on every other Thursdays, from 5:00 to 9:00pm, in room UCEN 211, on these dates: 1/12, 1/26, 2/9, 2/23, & 3/8

• Camille Guerin-Gonzales, 1994. Mexican Workers And American Dreams. Immigration, Repatriation, and California Farm Labor, 1900-1939. New York: Rutgers University Press. ISBN: 0813520487.

• Mario T. Garcia, 2011. Blowout! Sal Castro and the Chicano Struggle for Educational Justice. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN: 0807834483.

• Douglas S. Massey & Magaly Sanchez R, 2010. Brokered Boundaries: Creating Immigrant Identity in Anti-Immigrant Times. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. ISBN: 0871545799.
  

• Kim Voss & Irene Bloemraad, 2011. Rallying for Immigrant Rights: The Fight for Inclusion in 21st Century America. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN: 0520267559.

This course explores the rich and diverse sociological experiences of the Latino peoples in the United States around four distinct and historically specific topics covered in four books. The first one analyzes the experiences of migration, settlement, and repatriation of the first large waves of Mexican workers in California's agricultural regions at the end of the 19th century and the early decades of the 20th century - up to the Second World War (the Guerin-Gonzales book). The second one sharply focuses on one aspect of the Chicano Movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, namely the rise of the Chicano Student Movement in California (the Mario Garcia book). The third one takes a look at one aspect of U.S. Latino communities today -- 55 million strong, almost half of which are foreign-born -- specifically, the manner in which Latinos immigrants "broker" their ethnic & immigrant identities in the face of very hostile & economically challenging conditions in the U.S. (the Massey & Sanchez book). The fourth topic chronicles the origins and mighty mobilization of the Latino immigrants' rights movement in 2006, finally asserting, for the first time in U.S. history, their full political presence and their immediate demands for a just & comprehensive immigration reform (the Voss & Bloemraad book). Students will have an opportunity to deepen these or other topics through writing chapter reading assessments of all reading assignments, holding bi-weekly class discussions, and writing two research papers.

This course fulfills the mission, goals and objectives of the GRE General Education Requirement for a Bachelors Degree at CSUB:

COURSE STRUCTURE

Class Sessions and Blackboard Activities: The course will be run as a hybrid course, meaning mostly reading and writing online but also attending bi-weekly class sessions at College of the Canyon, on every other Thursday (1/12, 1/26, 2/9, 2/23, 3/8) from 5:00 to 9:00 pm in room UCEN 211. Attendance on these dates and times are required (absences, tardiness, leaving early will be penalized). Besides the five 4-hour class sessions, students should plan to spend a couple of hours a day on the other days reading, writing, and researching for this course.

Students will use CSUB's Blackboard for all their online activities. To gain access to the CSUB BlackBoard site click and bookmark the following URL address: https://bb.csub.edu/

Since you'll be accessing Blackboard from an off campus computer, make sure your browser is properly configured (click on Blackboard support links and read how you can ensure your browser is properly configured).

You will need to know your UserID and password. Login to Blackboard using your "myCSUB" Net ID and Password. If you don't know your UserID or password, contact the Student Help Desk at (661) 654-2307 or call Extended University at (661) 654-2441 during office hours.

Reading Assessments: To ensure that everybody reads, learns, and comes to class prepared to discuss the textbooks, students will be asked to submit a "Chapter Reading Assessment" for every chapter assigned (including the "Introduction" on the very first assignment). The textbook assignments are made on a weekly basis, and so are the chapter reading assessment deadlines: all chapter reading assessments for a given week are due on that week's Sunday, at midnight, on Blackboard. PLEASE DO NOT SEND YOUR READING ASSESSMENTS BY EMAIL, as they will not be accepted, nor attach them as Word files in Blackboard, either. Rather, compose your assessments in your own computer, using software like Word, save them, then copy/paste each of them into the appropriate field in Blackboard. There are 40 numbered chapter reading assessment columns under the link "Chapter Reading Assessments" in Blackboard -- just start with number "one" for your first assignment and keep going -- one assessment per column. The following week, continue where you left off. For example, for the first week you'll fill the chapter reading assessments # 1 (Introduction) to # 4 (chapter 3), the second week you'll fill the assessments # 5 (chapter 4) to # 7 (chapter 6), and so on. REMEMBER TO SUBMIT YOUR ASSESSMENTS IN THE RIGHT ORDER - IF YOU FAIL TO SUBMIT AN ASSESSMENT, SKIP THAT COLUMN AND SUBMIT THE NEXT ASSESSMENT IN THE NEXT COLUMN AFTER THE SKIPPED ONE.

CONTENT: The minimum length of a Chapter Reading Assessment is the equivalent of 2 pages in Word, double spaced, font 12, 1-inch margins -- but please do not go over 3 pages. These assessments must not summarize or merely 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 at least one pertinent question for possible class discussion.

Research Papers:  Students will be asked twice during the quarter to design, organize, and write a written research paper on a pertinent sociological topic related to the varied Latino experiences in the United States. Topics can range widely in historic period, ethnic group (or Latino-wide), economic, social, political, or sociocultural aspects, immigration, social movements, wars of incorporation, women, work, family, education, religion, government, language, media, sports, health, youth, aging, etc.. The students must obtain approval from Dr. Santos or Mr. Williams for their overall topic prior to the papers' deadlines, at one of the five class sessions or by email/phone. Students are encouraged to consult Mr. Joey Williams on all aspects of their research papers. The course site in Blackboard may post a sample research paper to serve as a guide, as well.

Plagiarism: To prevent students from wittingly or unwittingly engaging in plagiarism, Dr. Santos strongly recommends students create a TurnItIn account to check for possible plagiarism prior to submitting their research papers, and 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.

E-Mail & Phone Communications with Dr. Santos & Mr. Williams:

Apart from the five class sessions, students are encouraged to communicate with Dr. Santos & Mr. Williams via email and telephone -- see the top for their respective info. Whenever you email, always identify your full name in the message, please always start the subject heading of your messages with "Soc 335: YOUR NAME" and please be brief and to the point - expect very brief replies. You may request a phone appointment. If you leave a phone message, again please leave your full name, time and day you called, and CLEARLY and SLOWLY leave a number we can call you back (often students leave unintelligible numbers, too fast to recognize).