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WEEK 1
Thursday 1/12
* Introduction to the course and each other
* Make a friend and exchange email addresses
* Reading, Writing and Thinking Critically
What is "race"?
What is "ethnicity"?
Power and Oppression in the US
Some Terms
Stereotype:
a simplified and standardized conception or
image invested with special meaning and held
in common by members of a group: The cowboy and Indian are American
stereotypes.
an undifferentiated, simplistic attribution that
involves a judgment of habits, traits abilities, or expectations and is assigned
as a characteristic to all members of a group regardless of individual variation
and with no attention to the relation between the attributions and the social
contexts in which they have arisen.
How Stereotypes function to maintain oppression:
* they provide a rationalization for oppression. They place blame on the
victim, implying that because of these attributes they ask for and deserve what
they get.
* stereotypes dehumanize the oppressed in the eyes of the agent (power)
group, making it easier for them to deny or rationalize any pain they night
inflict.
* specific stereotypes have risen from complex social/historical
situations and are the result of adaptations and survival strategies that were
created and reinforced by the oppressive practices of the dominant cultures.
Therefore, the perpetuation of stereotypes is based on two important omissions:
they neglect to take into account the historical context within which cultures
and behaviors were created, and they apply an already shaky generalization to
arrive at conclusions about individuals.
Louise Erdrich (Anishinaabe)
"Dear John Wayne"
August and the drive-in picture is packed.
We lounge on the hood of the Pontiac
surrounded by the slow-burning spirals they sell
at the window, to vanquish the hordes of mosquitoes.
Nothing works. They break through the smoke screen for blood.
Always the lookout spots the Indian first,
spread north to south, barring progress.
The Sioux or some other Plains bunch
in spectacular columns, ICBM missiles,
feathers bristling in the meaningful sunset.
The drum breaks. There will be no parlance.
Only the arrows whining, a death-cloud of nerves
swarming down on the settlers
who die beautifully, tumbling like dust weeds
into the history that brought us all here
together: this wide screen beneath the sign of the bear.
The sky fills, acres of blue squint and eye
that the crowd cheers. His face moves over us,
a thick cloud of vengeance, pitted
like the land that was once flesh. Each rut,
each scar makes a promise: It is
not over, this fight, not as long as you resist.
Everything we see belongs to us.
A few laughing Indians fall over the hood
slipping in the hot spilled butter.
The eye sees a lot, John, but the heart is so blind.
Death makes us owners of nothing.
He smiles, a horizon of teeth
the credits reel over, and then the white fields
again blowing in the true-to-life dark.
The dark films over everything.
We get into the car
scratching our mosquito bites, speechless and small
as people are when the movie is done.
We are back in our skins.
How can we help but keep hearing his voice,
the flip side of the sound track, still playing:
Come on, boys, we got them
where we want them, drunk, running.
They'll give us what we want, what we need.
Even his disease was the idea of taking everything.
Those cells, burning, doubling, splitting out of their skins.
discuss the setting, speaker, imagery and themes
WEEK 2
T 1/17
I. American Indian Literature and the Oral Tradition
History and Native American Literature
US Indian Policy and Its Effects
The ABC's of Treaties
Discuss "Dear John Wayne"
discussing poetry and fiction
Video:
Native Voices: Resistance and Renewal in Native
American Literature
The Santa Fe Indian School Spoken Word Team
Create Groups and Sign up for Reports (see 1/26 and 2/9)
TH 1/19
WEEK 3
T 1/24
LECTURE:
* US Indian Policies and their Effects
Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Performing Indians
Great Sioux Treaty of 1868 and Black Elk
Crazy Horse and the Lakota at "Custer's Last Stand/the Greasy Grass"
* An Introduction to James Welch and The Heartsong of Charging Elk
James Welch
background
Heartsong, Chapters 1 - 4
TH 1/26
Reports:
1) The Indian Boarding School System: Kyle
2) Little Big Horn/Greasy Grass Battle: Stacey and Megan
Heartsong, Chapters 5 - 9
WEEK 4
T 1/31
Heartsong, Chapters 10 - 15
TH 2/2
Heartsong, 16-Conclusion
WEEK 5
T 2/7
discuss Charging Elk
Wednesday 2/8:
AFRICAN AMERICAN READ-IN!
ui library: 11:30 - 1:30
sign up to read a 3-5 min selection - have fun - be creative - show your style -
win books!
TH 2/9
finish discussing Charging Elk
SHADES OF BLACK SAT PM DOORS OPEN AT
5PM SUB BALLROOM FREE!! DON'T MISS IT!
WEEK 6
2. AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE
T 2/14
Reports:
3) the picaresque novel (JAN)
4) Bildungsroman literary genre (JAN)
5) Actor Sidney Poitier and an overview of selected films: Joanie and Sammy
The Defiant Ones (1958)
Lilies of the Field (1963)
In the Heat of the Night (1967)
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? (1967)
6) Ted Turner and CNN & Jane Fonda (JAN)
I Am Not Sidney Poitier, chapters 1 and 2
TH 2/16
Everett talks about Race
Everett Reads from
"Not Sidney"
I Am Not Sidney Poitier, chapters 3 and 4
CENTRAL QUESTION:
What do you do when your mother names you Not?
"In his latest marvel of a novel, I Am Not Sidney Poitier, Everett has
again created a protagonist who lives a kind of double life: on the one hand, he
is "Not Sidney Poitier," a kid with a weird name and buckets of money trying,
with some measure of success, not to avoid taking the lead role in his own life;
on the other hand, he is indeed Sidney Poitier, the glittering (if dated)
embodiment of what, according to the invidious grotesqueries of cultural
assumption and inertia, blackness can and should be."
Laird Hunt, BELIEVER Feb. 2012
Construct a chronological mapping of our narrator's episodic adventures: what
does he learn (or not [no pun intended] ), and Everett's concerns.
Provide an example of Everett's "satiric brilliance."
WEEK 7
T 2/21
I Am Not Sidney Poitier, chapters 5 - conclusion
TH 2/23
Review
WEEK 8
T 2/28
Exam 1
TH 3/1 Talk tonight SUB Gold Room at 7pm:
Langston Hughes and "Strange Fruit"
3. JAPANESE AMERICAN (internment) LITERATURE
Manzanar Relocation Camp, California
Ansel Adams, 1943
Hisaye Yamamoto
Ansel Adams' work on Japanese Internment Camps
Learning about
Japanese American History
Issei, Nisei, Kibei, and Sansei
When it was determined by the U.S. government that persons of Japanese
descent might constitute a threat to national security during World War II,
President Roosevelt followed the recommendation of his advisors and signed
Executive Order 9066, giving the Secretary of War the power to determine
"military areas" and to evacuate "any and all persons" from such areas. By this
order, the government could effectively remove all Japanese-Americans from the
Pacific coast and send them to relocation centers for eventual resettlement
elsewhere. The Japanese-Americans were classified into four groups:
1. Issei - 1st generation Japanese immigrants who by the law at the
time were denied U.S. citizenship.
2. Nisei - the children of the Issei, second-generation
Japanese-Americans who were citizens by birth and who were educated in the U.S.
3. Kibei - those who were American born, but who were educated in Japan.
4. Sansei - third-generation Japanese-Americans, children of the Nisei.
The internment affected some 116,500 people. Many families that were resettled
to other parts of the country during the war chose to remain there after the
war.
The LOYALTY OATH:
The Loyalty Oath questions:
"Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat
duty, wherever ordered?"
"Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United State of America and
faithfully defend the United States from any or all attack bys foreign or
domestic forces, and foreswear any form of allegiance to the Japanese
emperor, or any other foreign government, power, or organization?"
Reports:
8) Author H. Yamamoto
7) Evacuation Order and Internment of Japanese Americans: Kim, Rose,
Nilah
9) Overview of J-A Internment Literature: Kathy and Megan A.
Research Resources: see www.densho.org
Reading: Introduction to Seventeen Syllables (pp. ix -
xxiii) AND "About the Author" (last page)
WEEK 9
T 3/6
Read:
"A Contrast of Issei and Nisei in Yamamoto"
Seventeen Syllables
"The High-Heeled Shoes: A Memoir," "Seventeen Syllables," "The Legend of
Miss Sasagawara," "Wilshire Bus," "The Brown House," "Yoneko's
Earthquake"
TH 3/8
Seventeen Syllables
"Morning Rain," "Las Vegas
Charley," "Life Among the Oil Fields: A Memoir," "My Father Can Beat Muhammad Ali," "Death Rides the Rails to Poston," "A Fire
in Fontana"
spring break:
3/12 - 3/18
WEEK 11
T 3/20
discuss Seventeen Syllables
TH 3/22 Sapatq'ayn Cinema, UI's
Native American film festival opens: 7pm Kenworthy
No class
4. MEXICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE
Begin reading Madonnas of Echo Park
WEEK 12
T 3/27
No class; instructor at conference
Finish reading Madonnas of Echo Park: I will email you discussion questions
start thinking about final project: topics, proposal and paper
TH 3/29 No Class - Instructor at Conference: I will email
you the Take Home Exam: essay questions on Seventeen Syllables and
the Madonnas of Echo Park
WEEK 13
T 4/3
Discussion of close reading techniques, Seventeen Syllables and
Madonnas
5. Literature by a Dominican Republic American
TH 4/5
Reports
12) Where is the Dominican Republic and what is its history?
Tyler and Jason
13)
Biography of Junot Diaz, his work and its themes: Erich and Drew
14) Spanish language translation and pop cultures references: Alexandra & Katie
Exam 2 DUE
WEEK 14
T 4/10
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, pp 1 - 141
Interview with Junot
Diaz on Q TV
Junot
on the Writing Process
J. Diaz on
Arts and Immigration
TH 4/12
Discussion in preparation for Exam 3: What is ethnic lit?
"Literary Acculturation: What
Makes Ethnic Literature 'Ethnic'?
"Criticism of Ethnic
Literature: Seeing the Whole Story"
"Should We Still Be Using the Term 'Ethnic Lit'?"
Assign Exam 3
WEEK 15
T 4/17
Final Paper Proposal Due
The
Annotated Oscar Wao
TH 4/19
Conclude Oscar Wao: Readers' Theater
6. VIETNAMESE AMERICAN LITERATURE
Reports:
14)
Vietnamese/US History and Immigration: Heather and Crystal
WEEK 16
T 4/24
Exam 3 due
15)
Vietnamese American literature and author Le, Anthony, Travis and Sarai
The Gangster We are All Looking For
TH 4/26
finish discussing Gangster
significance of water
favorite image/scene
themes
WEEK 17
T 5/1
readers theatre
paper presentations
Th 5/3
paper presentations
T 5/8
Final Paper Due in Brink 200 - the english department office - by 5PM
NO FINAL
EXAM________________________________________________________________________
(From Previous Semesters):
Effects of The Treaty of Guadalupe. Hidalgo for Mexican Americans
Begin film: Salt of the Earth
ABOUT THE
FILM Salt of the Earth--the only film banned by US censors!
| Salt of the
Earth |
| In 1951, at the height
of the anti-Communist McCarthy era, a militant union in New Mexico
staged a fifteen-month strike against a zinc mining company. In 1954,
the International Union of Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers sponsored a
militantly political film version of the strike, cast with
non-professional actors. Denounced by a congressman as inspired by
Communists and "designed to inflame racial hatred," the film appeared in
just thirteen of the nation's thirteen thousand theaters. Now regarded
as a classic union strike film, Salt of the Earth is credited as
one of the first pictures to deal directly with the experience of
Mexican American workers and their families.
The film recounts wage discrimination against Mexican Americans and
their segregation in separate facilities. It shows dangerous conditions
in the mines, strikers' abused by local police, and squalid miners'
shacks. It also portrays women in a way that was uncommon at the time.
When mine owners invoked a provision of the Taft-Hartley Act during the
strike prohibiting the miners from picketing the mine, the miners' wives
took over the picket line. This action led many of these women to begin
to view their lives in new ways.
A California congressman vilified the film as a "new weapon for
Russia," and local vigilantes set fire to the union's headquarters in
Silver City, New Mexico. The lead actress, Rosaura Revueltas, who
portrayed a miner's wife, was arrested by immigration officials and
deported to Mexico--which forced filmmakers to use a double for the
remainder of the film. Once in Mexico, she was banned from acting there,
and never acted again. The film's director (Herbert J. Biberman),
producer (Paul Jarrico), and screenwriter (Michael Wilson who also wrote
"Lawrence of Arabia" and "Bridge on the River Kwai") were all
blacklisted. |
Chicanoisma
Introduction |
| In
1960, the statistics for Mexican Americans were bleak. A third
of all Mexican American families subsisted on an income of less
than $3,000 a year, the federal poverty line. The median income
of a Mexican American family was just sixty-two percent of that
of the general population. Unemployment was twice the rate of
that for non-Hispanic whites. Four-fifths of all Mexican
American workers were concentrated in unskilled or semi-skilled
jobs, a third of these in agriculture. Most were employed as
agricultural stoop laborers and unskilled household, service,
construction, or factory workers. As recently as 1970, just a
quarter of men with Spanish surnames held a white collar job,
compared to more than half of Anglo men. Educational
opportunities lagged far behind those of other Americans. Most
Mexican Americans attended predominantly Mexican-American
schools, less well staffed and supplied than other American
schools, with few Hispanic or Spanish-speaking teachers.
Three-quarters dropped out before finishing high school. In
1970, Mexican Americans averaged less than nine years of school.
Gerrymandered election districts and restrictive voting
legislation resulted in the political under-representation of
Mexican-Americans. It was not until 1957, when Raymond L. Telles
was elected mayor of El Paso, that a Mexican American was
elected mayor of a major city. Mexican Americans were
underrepresented or excluded from juries by requirements that
jurors be able to speak and understand English. Even in
religion, Mexican Americans faced unequal treatment. In 1970,
there were no Spanish-surnamed bishops in the Southwest.
During the 1960s, a new Chicano movement suddenly burst into
politics. Young activists adopted the term Chicano--previously a
term of derision that came from the Spanish word meaning "the
poorest of the poor"--to express a militant ethnic nationalism.
In 1962, César Chavez and Dolores Huerta began to organize
California farmworkers, and three years later, in Delano,
California, their union led its first strike. At the same time,
Reies López Tijerina fought to win compensation for the
descendants of families whose lands had been seized illegally.
In Denver, Rodolfo ("Corky") Gonzales formed the Crusade for
Justice in 1965 to protest school discrimination; provide legal,
medical, and financial services and jobs for Chicanos; and
foster the Mexican-American cultural heritage. In a number of
small towns with large Mexican American populations, La Raza
Unida political parties arose. Between 1967 and 1970, more than
seventy colleges and universities launched Mexican American
studies programs. In 1968, fifteen thousand students in East Los
Angeles protested against inferior schools and biased
counseling. Student organizations--including the Mexican
American Youth Organization, United Mexican American Students,
Movimiento Estudantil Chicano de Aztlan, and the Brown
Berets--emphasized cultural nationalism and self-determination.
Epic struggles arose across the Southwest to register voters,
organize farmworkers, and regain stolen land. |
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Begin reading Under the Feet of Jesus
WEEK 6
Thursday 10/09
AM: "Woman Hollering Creek," Sandra Cisneros,
596-605
1. Explain the culture Cleofilas has grown up in. How does it affect her life in
the story?
2. Examine imagery in the story for its significance: water, flowers, blood,
etc.
3. Identify borders in the story: how to they seem to function?
4. Cleofilas assumes "woman hollering" refers to pain or rage. What does she
discover it may also mean?
III. The African American Continuing Struggle for Freedom
Langston Hughes' "Theme for English B" 348-49:
How might this poem be about racial identity?
What does the speaker mean:
"you are. . ./a part of me, as I am a part of you./ That's American" (l.
31-33)?
History of Lynching
Lyrics to Strange Fruit (1939)
Billie
Holiday singing "Strange Fruit"
Hip Hop version of "Strange
Fruit"
Tuesday, 10/21
EXAM 2 DUE
Ralph Ellison, from Invisible Man,
"Battle Royal" (first chapter from Invisible Man)
Questions for Close Reading:
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According to Ellison’s story, why is selfhood contingent upon invisibility?
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Discuss your understanding of the grandfather’s dying words.
- Why
does the narrator feel guilty about his successes?
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Discuss the narrator’s beliefs with regard to the message of his valedictory
speech.
- What
clues does Ellison use to alter us to the dishonorable motives of the white
citizens?
- What
reasons does the narrator give for not wanting to fight in the battle royal?
Do they surprise you in any way?
-
Describe the youths’ reaction to the blond dancer.
- How
does the dancer respond when the white men toss her around? In what sense
does her expression echo the grandfather’s advice?
- Why
are the boxers blindfolded? How do the town’s “leading white citizens”
behave during the match and the wired money game?
- In
what sense do the narrator’s thoughts during the battle royal demonstrate
his naiveté?
- The
youths have to scramble for the electrified money before they get paid.
What’s the hidden message here?
-
Describe the audience for the narrator’s speech. If not the speech itself,
what is the audience interested in?
- Why
does the narrator deny that he used the phrase “social equality” when he’s
called on it?
- Given
the circumstances, point out the specific ironies in the narrator’s speech.
-
Consider the narrator’s dream in terms of the battle royal he has just
fought. How do you understand the admonition “Keep This Nigger-Boy Running”?
Questions for Interpretation:
-
Invisibility offers the narrator a means of survival and personal power in
this story, but it also indicates one o the tragic results of racial
oppression. Discuss this paradox in terms of the narrator’s experience.
- In
many cultures, the male initiation rite challenges a youth to perform a
variety of rigorous physical or mental talks so that he may achieve
adulthood and e3quality with other men. Assuming that the battle royal is a
mock-initiation, how to the “tasks” chosen by the white men deform the
genuine purpose of the initiation ritual?
The narrator’s white hosts exact a wage of shame, pain, and defeat in
exchange for the college scholarship. Is their wager deliberate or
unconscious? Does it matter? What political dynamics motivate their actions
in either case? Besides a night’s entertainment, what do they want to secure
or gain?
Reread the grandfather’s dying words and consider the Christian beatitude
“The meek shall inherit the earth.” In what ways can meekness or
mock-compliance operate as a subversive or “dangerous activity”?
Consider the American flag tattooed on the dancer’s belly. In what sense
does it become an ironic symbol for the difference between professed
American values and the ways the white men in Ellison’s story practice those
values?
Herded into a boxing ring with the other youths, the narrator is “shocked to
see some of the most important men of the town quite tipsy.” Why is this
observation both ironic and naïve?
Is the narrator’s act of delivering the speech more important than its
message or the social arena in which it is delivered? Discuss whether or not
you consider the content of the speech and the act of oration a living
example of the grandfather’s advice to “. Overcome ‘em with yeses,
undermine ‘em with grins, agree ‘em to death and destruction.”
Ernest Gaines, from
A Lesson Before Dying, 372-377, respond to question 3 or 4 (377)
Where is this story set?
Describe the setting and specific words that let
you see where the story is set.
How/what does the setting/location tell us about the
social/economic circumstances of the characters?
Give examples of "separate but equal".
What are the power relations in the story?
How does language reflect the power
relationship between Grant Wiggins and Dr. Joseph?
What are the children experiencing during this visit?
WEEK 12
IV. The Japanese-American Experience: Internment
and Freedom
 
Tuesday 11/11
Exploring the Japanese
American Internment through Film and the Internet
AM: Chapter 7: 482-487 plus pre-reading/writing exercise p. 487
Historical and Cultural Context
AM: Japanese Relocation Order, 488-490
AM: Monica Stone, "Pearl Harbor Echoes in Seattle," 490-501
Check out: The Densho Project
(Densho is a Japanese word meaning to pass on to the next generation or to leave a legacy)
Why does the Densho Project use the term "Japanese American Incarceration"
rather than "Japanese American Internment"
The Loyalty Oath questions:
"Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat
duty, wherever ordered?"
"Will you swear unqualified allegiance to the United State of America and
faithfully defend the United States from any or all attack bys foreign or
domestic forces, and foreswear any form of allegiance to the Japanese
emperor, or any other foreign government, power, or organization?"
AM: Hisaye Yamamoto, "The Legend of Miss Sasagawara"
1. Explain the setting and narrator of this story
2. Describe Miss Sasagawara.
3. How do you see the conflict/tension between being Japanese and being American
playing out in the story and in Miss Sasagawara?
4. How does the story reflect the two common reactions/responses to internment:
anguish and shame or "carefree"?
 Nissei
students expelled from the University of Washington in 1941 get their degrees in
May 2008
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