Jose Alamillo

Introduction to Comparative Ethnic Studies

CES 101, Section 06

SPRING 2008
Mondays and Wednesdays, 10:35-11:50
TODD 404

COURSE DESCRIPTION:
This course is an introduction to Comparative Ethnic Studies that introduces students to privilege, power, and difference in American society. The course will critically examine the concepts of colonialism, slavery, capitalism, imperialism, immigration, racism, ethnicity, sexism and homophobia from an interdisciplinary perspective. We will begin by “making privilege visible” to understand how privilege works and why it is kept invisible. We will explore the ways in which race, class, and gender and sexuality intersect and interact in different situations and different times.  Then we will shift to explore the history of racial and ethnic groups in the United States by focusing on their experiences of colonization, immigration, migration, slavery, labor, nativism, racism, and ethnic identity. Here we will use a comparative approach towards five major ethnic groups (American Indians, African Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, and European Americans) that have shaped American society. We will analyze their lived experiences in relation to politics, economy and social institutions in order to understand how some became “American” and “Others” became slaves, domestic dependent nations, aliens ineligible for citizenship, and illegal aliens. It is important to pay close attention to their unique histories and structural position in U.S. society, but also their commonalities with other groups. Finally, we will move beyond “guilt” to make connections with groups and find creative solutions to all forms of social inequality and how one can take part in struggles for quality and justice in the United States and around the world.
[I] Intercultural G.E.R. Designation

COURSE OBJECTIVES:
· To understand how privilege works and why it is kept invisible.
· To understand the ways in which race, gender, class and sexuality interact and intersect in the lives of those who are privileged and those not privileged by one or more of these identities.
· To understand how American history and the process of “becoming American” was shaped by immigration, race, and ethnicity.
· To understand how social inequality is structural and systematic and to recognize that struggles against inequality require groups uniting across geography, religion, race, gender, ethnicity and sexuality.

COURSE TEXTBOOKS:
1) Michael Kimmel and Abby Ferber, Privilege: A Reader
(Westview Press, 2003)  [K&F]

2) Ronald Bayor, Race and Ethnicity in America: A Concise History
(Columbia University Press, 2003)   [BAYOR]

*Books are available at the Bookie and Crimson and Gray.
You will need both books in order to complete the assignments and pass the course.