“Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor…” Or Not
by admin - October 17th, 2014
Thanks to our guests from US-CIS‘s Lawrence Field Office last Thursday (who forged ahead with their presentation despite the power outage), we have a better sense of the current immigration and naturalization process. Over the next two weeks we will gain a historical perspective on that process, especially focusing on how in previous eras, ideas of race and preference have been encoded into law and practice for voluntary immigrants. Please note the CHANGES to the order of readings from the original syllabus!
Photo: women and children waiting at Angel Island in San Francisco, courtesy of the California Historical Society.
Tues 10/21 – Immigration Law. Reading: Ngai, "Architecture of Race" (PDF).
Soapbox presenters: Jamika, John N., Emily, Josh, Tony M., and Courtney
Useful Link: Dillingham Commission Reports (digitized from Harvard Library, on Internet Archive)
Thurs 10/23 – Petitioners at the Gates. Reading: Collins, “Aliens v. Free Born” (PDF) and Yung, “Bowlful of Tears Revisited” (PDF).
Tues 10/28 – Melting Pot…? Reading: Kallen, “Democracy Versus the Melting Pot: A Study of American Nationality” (1915, reprinted online) and Barrett, “Americanization from the Bottom Up: Immigration and the Remaking of the Working Class in the US, 1880-1930” (PDF)
Soapbox presenters: Vanessa, Christina, Haley, Zach, and John M.
Thurs 10/30 A Melting Pot? CITIZEN Draft and Bibliography due in class. – No reading, we will screen the film Citizen USA in class.