Citizen Nation

Worcester State is opening late today, Tues 12/9 at 10:00 am. That means no class for us. Please drop off your response papers #6 sometime today in my office mailbox, Sullivan 327D, or email them to me. Also, if you have not yet written an abstract for your CITIZEN essay, please do that and email it also. I will post your web essays between now and Thurs, so I may contact you individually if I have specific questions about your revisions. Continue reading →

Hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving! Here’s what we’re up to upon our return to campus. Continue reading →

Over the next several class periods, we are looking at what happened with citizenship and civil rights from the 1960s to the present. Remember this was a complex movement, or really – a set of overlapping movements – with different strategies, constituencies, and histories. It cannot be reduced to a few key figures or events, and it did not end with the 1960s or even in the 1970s. So it helps to think about the civil rights revolution as unresolved, unfinished, and ongoing, and as part of a shared American history no matter your background. Continue reading →

I recommend you spend at least 1 hour exploring some of these links and resources to help you understand this important episode, and considering how it relates to the history of American citizenship in the 20th century: Continue reading →

Our class for Tues 11/4 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. Continue reading →

Some web/video links for additional context. Continue reading →

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. Continue reading →

I need to make a change to the syllabus’s assigned readings Continue reading →

The next several class sessions deal with colonized nations within the jurisdiction of the United States. These nations or groups have claim to American citizenship, although that claim has been at times historically contested, hard-won, or tenuous. We will explore these different experiences and histories and compare them to one another. Continue reading →

At this point, you have taken some version of the US citizenship test twice, and studied for it using the entire set of 100 Civics, History and Geography questions. Compare your scores on the two tries. Continue reading →