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HSTAA 105 THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED STATES Professor James Gregory Office hours: After class or Thursday 10:30-12:00 118 Smith 543-7792 e-mail: gregoryj@u.washington.edu

Snow policy: Class will be cancelled if Seattle Public Schools declares that Roosevelt High and other district schools are closed for the full day. Check here: http://www.seattleschools.org/area/main/index.dxml

This course explores the history of American diversity. Beginning with the centuries that preceded the birth on an American nation, we will examine the sequences of immigration and conquest that eventually made the United States one of the most ethnically and racially diverse societies on earth. The consequences of diversity are another theme of the course. We will explore both the contributions of various peoples and the conflicts between them, paying special attention to the historical construction of race and ethnicity and the changing understandings of American citizenship. "What is an American?" each generation has asked, usually answering in terms that are new to their era.

HSTAA 105 earns writing course w-credits. This course also fulfills requirements for the UW Diversity Minor. If you have questions about that program, please see the webpage http://depts.washington.edu/divminor or email divminor@u.washington.edu.

READINGS:

• 105 Reader (available at Ave Copy: 4141 University Ave.)
• Pauli Murray, Proud Shoes: The Story of an American Family
• Thomas Bell, Out of this Furnace
• Helen Zia, Asian American Dreams

ASSIGNMENTS: Grades will be based on four elements: a midterm, final, research paper, and participation in discussion section. All assignments are mandatory; failure to complete any one will make it impossible to pass the course. The research paper and final exam will each count for 30% of the grade; the midterm and discussion section will each contribute 20%.

Due dates and assignments are subject to change and you are responsible for any updates.

Paper prospectus: Jan 20 (Tuesday)—a 1 page description of your project
Midterm exam: Jan 27 (Tuesday)
Paper draft: Feb 13 (Friday)
Paper final: March 3 (Tuesday)
Final exam: March 19 (Thursday) 2:30-4:20

Schedule of Lectures and Readings

Week 1: Jan 5-Jan 9 reading assignment: 105 Reader, section A

       Europe, Africa, and America: first encounters
       The British imprint

Week 2: Jan 12-Jan 16 reading assignment: 105 Reader, section B

 Winners and losers among native peoples 1607-1775
      The Middle Passage: Atlantic slave trade 1520s-1870s
       Inventing Americans: the road to independence

Week 3: Jan 19-Jan 23 reading assignment: 105 Reader, section C

       Building a new nation: the paradox of founding principles
       The republic as empire: expansion 1800-1860
       The Irish and the issue of Catholicism

Week 4: Jan 26-Jan 30 reading assignment: Murray, Proud Shoes, 1-136

       The Kennedys and Irish ethnic enterprise
       Germans and Scandinavians: cultural power in 19^th century America

Week 5: Feb 2-Feb 6 reading assignment: Murray, Proud Shoes, 137-end

       Foreigners in their native land: Mexicans in the Southwest
       Civil War and the end of slavery
       The 14^th amendment and the buried promise of equal rights

Week 6: Feb 9-Feb 13 reading assignment: Bell, Out of This Furnace, 1-117

       Race and schemes of whiteness
       Surviving "Gold Mountain": Chinese in America 1848-1940
       Slaying the Dragon: Hollywood representations of Asian women

Week 7: Feb 16-Feb 20 reading assignment: Bell, Out of This Furnace, 118-258

       Third wave immigrants: Poles and Italians
       Greeks and Jews: the rewards of small business enterprise
       Immigration restriction, culture wars, cracking the culture of tribalism

Week 8: Feb 23- Feb 27 reading assignment: Bell, Out of This Furnace, 259-413

       “The folks who brought you the weekend”: unions and the American middle class 1932-72
      Unburying the 14^th “amendment: civil rights campaigns 1941-64
 Seattle’s segregation and civil rights story

Week 9: Mar 2-Mar 6 reading assignment: Zia, Asian American Dreams, 1-108; 139-165

       Fifth wave immigrants: the changing face of diversity 1965-2008
       Asians: disaggregating the 'Model Minority"
       Latinos: the search for cultural and political power

Week 10: Mar 9-Mar 12 reading assignment: Zia, Asian American Dreams, 166-319

       Middle Easterners: the new indispensable enemy?
       Indian Country in the age of pluralism
       Race, class, justice, and opportunity in today’s America

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RESEARCH PAPERS

Paper prospectus: Jan 20 (Tuesday)—a 1 page description of your project
Paper draft: Feb 13 (Friday)
Paper final: March 3 (Tuesday)

The research paper assignment accounts for 30% of the course grade. You may choose between two kinds of projects: a family history or a paper that explores Seattle during the Great Depression.

Option 1: FAMILY HISTORY PROJECT

This involves research into your family's history. Pauli Murray’s book, Proud Shoes, is an example of what family research can yield. Family documents and interviews with relatives will be the major sources for this assignment, and they must be supplemented with library research. Collecting family stories is only part of this assignment. The idea is to use your family’s history to illustrate some of the concepts developed in this course. The family stories you tell must be used to discuss one or more of the following issues and concepts that will be discussed in lectures over the coming weeks:

Identity issues: "ethnic pride," "cultural retention/change," "varieties of Americanism," "passing," "evaporating ethnicity," "compiled ethnicity," "expanding whiteness"

Citizenship issues: "struggles for equality, " "xenophobia, " "exile politics," "14^th Amendment, " "using politics," "expanding pluralism"

Economic issues: “job ghetto,” "ethnic enterprise, " "ethnic privilege, " "immigrant resources," "productive stereotypes, " "the educational divide"

Gendered ethnic issues: "gendered stereotypes," "gendered identity pathways," "gendered cultural guardians," "intermarriage"

Some family backgrounds lend themselves to discussions of immigration and Americanization. Think about the issues involved in coming to America and becoming American. Cultural conflicts and identity negotiations will probably be the focus of your analysis. Pay attention to national background, generation, gender, class, and other factors and conditions that might have affected your family's experience.

Some family backgrounds lend themselves to examinations of struggles for basic rights. There are stories to be told about battles against prejudice and discrimination and potentially also stories of ancestors who benefited from the oppression of others. In either case you will want to think about the historical context and try to understand how your family story fits into the changing patterns of pluralism and ethnocentrism that mark different eras. You may also have an opportunity to discuss the political forces that have changed the fabric of rights and opportunities.

Some of you will be intrigued by family stories about changing economic status, about struggles to attain wealth, position, or a better living. If so, you will want to pay attention to ethnic enterprises and perhaps ethnic privilege. Think beyond the purely personal aspects of these accounts. What events and conditions helped shape opportunities? How did ethnic connections and communities contribute to the family's experiences?

Some may choose to examine complicated genealogies that stretch back many generations. Here you may find opportunities to discuss issues of intermarriage, of cultural retention or ethnic evaporation, and any number of other concepts.

Library research is a required part of this assignment. You will need to set your family's stories in historical context, which means reading about the time periods and also ethnic groups you will be discussing. The class web site contains a list of books that can serve as reference works. Your paper should include at least three book citations. A good pace to start your library research is The Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (Stephan Thernstrom, editor) or the Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America. Look for them in the Reference section at either Suzzallo or Odegaard. The call numbers are E184 A1 H35 and E184 A1 G14.

The final result should be 7-10 typed pages. It should be logically organized and well written. Good ideas do not count if they are not readily understood. All quotations and specific references require citations. Brief endnotes will be fine. And be sure to edit your work. There is no excuse for sloppy grammar, spelling, or typing. Warning: be very careful about plagiarism. I enforce a zero tolerance rule when it comes to any form of cheating.

Option 2: SEATTLE DURING THE GREAT DEPRESSION PROJECT

This assignment involves reading a Seattle area newspaper during the 1930s and writing about the city during the Great Depression. It also provides an opportunity to participate in a research effort called the Seattle During the Great Depression Project. If the work produced in the class warrants it, we will create a website and publish some of the papers and primary source materials, creating a public resource that will be used by educators and the general public.

If you choose this project you will read and analyze one of the newspapers on the accompanying list. Using microfilm readers you will look through the newspaper, making digital copies of articles, editorials, photographs, and advertising that provide information about economic conditions or economic anxieties, about job and housing problems, about labor activism and unemployed demonstrations, about public morale, and about political campaigns. Your paper will be based on this research.

SEATTLE NEWSPAPERS ON MICROFILM

(Suzzallo Library Microform & Newspaper room on ground floor. Call numbers are in brackets.)

DAILY NEWSPAPERS

Seattle Post-Intelligencer [A329]

Seattle Times [A419]

Seattle Star [2202]

SPECIALIZED NEWSPAPERS

UW Daily [A3139]

Argus [4096] --weekly

Japanese-American Courier [A3902] --weekly

Northwest Enterprise [A3872] –African American weekly

Jewish Transcript [A3862] --weekly

Vanguard [A4817]—monthly published by Unemployed Citizens League

Voice of Action [A2653]—radical weekly

Washington Commonwealth Builder/Commonwealth News [A4102]

Philippine American Chronicle [A6140 and A5612 reel 1, item 7]

Topics:

· Stock Market Crash: Read and compare the coverage of the stock market and economy in the three daily newspapers from October 15 through December 31, 1929

· Year 1 (1930): Read one of the daily newspapers during the year 1930. Assess the changing conditions and mood of Seattle and also the editorial perspective of the newspaper’s editors and writers. How much worry do you see? What economic policies were advocated?

· Year 2 (1931): Read one of the daily newspapers during the year 1931, as conditions turned from bad to worse. Assess the changing conditions and mood of Seattle and also the editorial perspective of the newspaper’s editors and writers. What economic policies were advocated?

· Year 3 (1932): Read one of the daily newspapers during the Presidential election year 1932, as conditions deteriorate still further. Assess the changing conditions and mood of Seattle and also the editorial perspective of the newspaper’s editors and writers. What economic policies were advocated?

· Presidential Election Campaign: Read and compare the election campaign coverage in the four daily newspapers from July through November 1932. What does each newspaper say about Roosevelt and Hoover on their editorial pages?

· Year 4 (1933): Read one of the daily newspapers during the first year of President Roosevelt’s New Deal administration. Assess the changing conditions and mood of Seattle and also the editorial perspective of the newspaper’s editors and writers.

· Seattle’s racial and ethnic communities: Read one of the weekly newspapers serving Seattle’s ethnic and racial communities and see what they say about the declining economy and changes in opportunities and politics during the first three years of the Depression. If you choose, the Japanese-American Courier or Jewish Transcript read from October 1929 through November 1932. If you choose the NW Enterprise, read from 1931 through 1933.

· UW student life: Read the UW Daily for information about how the economic crisis affected students and campus life during 1931 and 1932.

· UW student politics: Read the UW Daily for information about student activism and political views during 1931 and 1932.

· Unemployed Citizens League: Read the Vanguard from 1931-1933 and describe the origins and operations of the Unemployed Citizens League.

· Radicalism and anti-radicalism: The Seattle Times was the most conservative local newspaper. Look for articles and editorials in 1931 about Communists and other radicals. Was the newspaper spreading fear of radicalism?

New Topics for Seattle During the Great Depression Project

Mainstream Newspapers:

• Entertainment and nightlife in 1932 (choose Seattle Star, Times, or PI)

• Local Sports in1932 (choose Seattle Star, Times, or PI)

• Gender images and women’s sections in 1932

• What happened to advertising? Compare ads in October 1929, October 1932, October 1935. (choose Seattle Star, Times, or PI)

• Nazism and Fascism 1933: coverage of Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy in Seattle (choose Seattle Star, Times, or PI)

• Communism and radicalism 1934: coverage and opinion (choose Seattle Star, Times, or PI)

• Waterfront strike May-July 1934 (compare coverage in many newspapers

• Newspaper strike, Seattle PI, July-Oct 1936 (compare coverage in many newspapers)

• Creating Olympic National Park 1936 (many newspapers)

• Political cartoons 1932-1933 (compare cartoons in Seattle Star, Times, or PI)

• Letters to Editor Jan-August 1933 (choose Seattle Times or Seattle Star)

Student life and activism 1933-1934 (UW Daily)

Student life and activism 1935-1936 (UW Daily)

Student life and activism 1937-1938 (UW Daily)

Student life and activism 1939-1940 (UW Daily)

Hot local news and politics 1934 (Seattle Argus)

Hot local news and politics 1935 (Seattle Argus)

Hot local news and politics 1936 (Seattle Argus)

Hot local news and politics 1937 (Seattle Argus)

Hot local news and politics 1938 (Seattle Argus)

Hot local news and politics 1939 (Seattle Argus)

Radical Newspapers

• Unemployment and homelessness in the Voice of Action 1933-1934
• Unemployment and homelessness in the Voice of Action 1935-1936

• Race (or race and gender) in the Voice of Action 1933-1936

• Roosevelt and New Deal policies in the Voice of Action 1933-1936

• Strikes and labor activism in the Voice of Action 1933-1934
• Strikes and labor activism in the Voice of Action 1935-1936

• Woodcuts and political cartoons in the Voice of Action 1933-1936

• Race (or race and gender) in the Washington Commonwealth Builder 1935-1936
• Unemployment and homelessness in the Washington Commonwealth Builder 1935-1936

Ethnic Newspapers:

• Civil rights advocacy and action in the NW Enterprise 1933-1935
• Civil rights advocacy and action in the NW Enterprise 1936-1938
• Civil rights advocacy and action in the NW Enterprise 1939-1941

• Civil rights advocacy and action in the Philippine American Chronicle 1934-1937

• Civil rights advocacy and action in Japanese American Courier 1933-1934
• Civil rights advocacy and action in Japanese American Courier 1935-1936

As with the family history paper, the Great Depression project will involve a rough draft. The final result should be 7-10 typed pages. It should be logically organized and well written. Good ideas don't count if they are not readily understood. All quotations and specific references require citations. And be sure to edit you work. There is no excuse for sloppy grammar, spelling, or typing. Warning: be very careful about plagiarism. I enforce a zero tolerance rule when it comes to any form of cheating.

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