Citizen Nation

Monday 4/23 – The State of Things. Applying RV Ch 9 to the Massachusetts story. Also, last soapboxes. You will get your research papers back. Continue reading →

(No class Monday 16th, Patriot’s Day)

Throughout this term, we have talked about many complex categories of people who live in the United States and call themselves Americans. Continue reading →

On Wednesday we’ll be talking about research papers, research strategy, and writing for the entire class time. There’s no assigned reading.

Some of you have asked me what to bring. Just bring what you have. It’s okay if it isn’t at full page length by this point, or if you haven’t got all your sources yet, or if you are only partway through writing/outlining. Bring whatever you have (preferably printed out, it’s easier for someone to read & mark it that way), just so you’ll have something to work with in pairs or small groups.

Monday’s class has light reading but will be a hands-on workshop with some sources and materials for understanding the internment of Americans of Japanese descent during World War II. That internment included both born-citizens and immigrants who were legally unnaturalizable. Please read the brief essay by David Goldstein-Shirley, and bring your laptops to class to use in group work.

Reading: “Enemies in their Own Land,” by David Goldstein-Shirley (PDF)

We also have more soapboxes than usual, and I probably won’t let the class discussion on them go quite as long as on past Mondays, just in the interest of time, so soapbox speakers should plan for about 5 minutes including discussion.

Link: Tule Lake, courtesy of San Francisco Chronicle

This coming week’s reading is all in PDF form. Take good notes, bring your laptop, or print/mark up to be prepared for discussions.

Monday 3/12 – Immigration Law. Reading: Ngai, “Architecture of Race” (PDF)

Useful Link: Dillingham Commission Reports (digitized from Harvard Library, on Internet Archive)

Wednesday 3/14 – Petitioners at the Gates. Reading: Collins, “Aliens v. Free Born” and Yung, “Bowlful of Tears Revisited” (PDF)

Did you vote on Super Tuesday?? Continue reading →

Thanks to all who could attend the Naturalization Ceremony in Worcester today. I know we all found it very moving! Continue reading →

Mon 2/20: No Class

Wed 2/22: Democracy in Practice II. Reading: GC Chapter 4. Due in class: Citizenship Exam Reflection paper. Download the guidelines here (Word doc).

Mon 2/27: The Disenfranchised. Reading: Jeannette Wolfley, “Jim Crow, Indian Style” (PDF) and RV Chapter 5

Wed 2/29: We attend Worcester’s Naturalization Ceremony. It is at noon in Mechanics Hall, but we need to be there at least by 11 am. Please arrange to be free to go that day if AT ALL possible; I am happy to send a note of explanation to a professor if there’s a conflict (but of course I cannot require you to attend). We will not have a class that day, the ceremony takes the place of class.

Monday 2/13, we have one soapbox presenter, and we’ll be talking about slavery, the Constitution, and citizenship up to the 1870s. Reading is GC 133-143, and RV Ch 3.

Wednesday 2/15 – in class, we’ll retake the US citizenship exam, and in our next class period on Wednesday 2/22 (no class on Monday 2/20) you’ll have a short paper due reflecting on the experience of taking this exam twice – so, depending on the time, you might begin on that in class also. Would you pass as a citizen? Do you think these are the right questions to ask? What else do you think naturalized citizens should know? Would you advocate for a test like this to be a qualification for voting even for naturally-born citizens?

To study for the citizenship exam, I’ll put the citizenship toolkit on course reserve at the library, or you can head for the US-CIS’s online resources, download a free smartphone app, or use this PDF Study Guide, which I got from the History Channel site where we took the online version on Day 1. Just remember who the current Speaker of the House is!

All women were omitted from many of the privileges of American citizenship, and some of them strenuously and articulately resisted. In addition, millions of women suffered under the double burden of being both female *and* enslaved. Even free white women used “slavery” as a way to talk about their legal predicament, and to advocate not only for abolition but for gender equality. We will read three examples of nineteenth-century women’s writings on citizenship and legal rights, plus a short overview from a women’s history textbook. Continue reading →