LITR 5731

(Percentages for final grade are only approximate. Numbers are not used in calculating final grades.)

· Class participation, preparation, attendance, quizzes, presentations, email submissions. Dates for presentations assigned at second class (15-20%).

Office: 2529-8 Bayou Office Hours: T-Th 1-2; T 7-8, Th 5:30-6:30 & by apptmt

Caveat: Data stated and contracts implied in this syllabus may change with minimal notice through fair hearings at class meetings.

Objective 1. To identify the immigrant narrative as a fundamental story-line of American culture and to recognize its relations to "the American Dream” and other essential multicultural American narratives and identities, namely those of the “minority” (objective 3) and the “dominant culture” (obj. 4).

Such applications expand this course beyond immigrant literature to the entire multicultural landscape of American literature: minority, immigrant, and dominant cultures, all of which may be defined by the immigrant narrative. Premises:

1a. Multicultural studies are part of the USA’s educational and literary landscape, and may be expected to remain so for the foreseeable future, at least in public schools and higher education. (Religious schools and home schooling differ.)

1b. Most surveys of multicultural literature do not develop formal mechanisms for deciding which ethnic groups are included or why. Such surveys may make choices by precedent, but otherwise they do not develop any systematic criterion for inclusion, exclusion, or grouping of ethnicities. Instead, such surveys tend to “promote tolerance” and “celebrate difference.” They declare or imply that “each group is unique” and “everyone gets a turn.” Different ethnic or gender identities may be unified in terms of their common exploitation by and resistance to a dominant culture, whether white, male, or upper-class / corporate.

1c. The casual inclusiveness of most multicultural surveys generates potential problems. American society comprises so many ethnic groups that no survey can cover them all. Which ethnic groups must be included? What larger categories can ethnic groups be classified within? Is it possible to move beyond “celebrating difference” and unifying by “victimization?” Can various ethnic groups share both differences and commonality? (This final question bears on the most sensitive question: Can readers identify with ethnic or gender groups other than their own through anything besides a shared sense of victimization?)

1d. This seminar’s study of American Immigrant Literature serves the existing order of multicultural difference by surveying texts by a wide range of American ethnic groups. However, it also develops a unified field or standard for grouping and evaluating different ethnic groups through immigrant narrative. This standard measures both the differences between immigrant, minority, and dominant cultures and their potential for shared experience and identity.

Objective 2. To chart the dynamics, variations, and stages of the immigrant narrative.

Background: No single text tells the whole story of immigration, but the larger narrative is always implicit. Most Americans are broadly conscious of the immigrant narrative’s prominent features and values.

Examples may be provided by any ethnic group whose people write about move and adapting to America: Irish, Italians, Chinese, Salvadorans, Puerto Ricans, Mexicans, Filipinos, Japanese, Ukrainians, modern Nigerians, Vietnamese, Germans, Hindu, Pakistani . . . a list too numerous and growing ever to complete!

Assimilation as “melting pot” in which ethnic differences disappear through intermarriage, common language, and shared opportunity or ideology as a result of shared background in “a nation of immigrants.” (But be aware of limits to the melting pot metaphor when minorities are considered).

The “Model Minority” label is often applied to an immigrant group that exemplifies or fulfills the ideals implicit in the immigrant narrative.

· These “ideal immigrants” take advantage of opportunities in economic advancement and education (often associated with music and mathematics).

· In terms of assimilation, such groups often assimilate economically and educationally while maintaining ethnic identity in religion and ethnic customs (which may contribute to family stability and low crime rates). This disinclination to assimilate imitates a leading quality of the dominant culture.

· The “model minority” may be contrasted with so-called “problem minorities,” especially the true minority groups of African and Native America.

· A century ago Jews were the “model minority,” as children of Jewish immigrants became well-educated professionals. Recently Asian Americans assume this pattern.

· Often used as an argument against affirmative action, the concept of the “model minority” may confuse ethnicity with class and historical conditions.

· Stage 1: Leave the Old World (“traditional societies” in Europe, Asia, or Latin America).

· Stage 3: Shock, resistance, exploitation, and discrimination (immigrant experience here overlaps with or resembles the minority experience)

· Stage 4: Assimilation to dominant American culture and loss of ethnic identity (departs or differs from minority experience)

· Stage 5: Rediscovery or reassertion of ethnic identity (usu. only partial)

Character by generation: What are the standard associations or identities of distinct generation? (These numbers aren’t fixed—variations occur in every family’s story)

· second-generation as “divided” between traditional identities of homeland or ethnic group and modern identity of assimilated American; bi-cultural and bi-lingual

· third generation as “assimilated” (Maria becomes Kristen, Jiang becomes Kevin)

· Second-generation? (standard: the children of immigrants learn English and explore the conflict between ethnic and mainstream identities)

· "Ethnic enclave" (e. g., ghetto, barrio) as transition or limbo between 2 worlds.

How much does the Immigrant Narrative overlap or align with the American Dream narrative? Are they one and the same, or simply co-formal? In what ways are they potentially distinct from each other? What values (such as individualism, aspiration, modernization) do they share?

Objective 3. To compare and contrast the immigrant narrative with the minority narrative—or, American Dream versus American Nightmare:

The two most persistent or least-assimilated minority groups, African Americans and Native Americans, were not immigrants, at least in any normal sense. (Native Americans were already here, and immigration was the “American Nightmare” instead of the American Dream. African Americans, unlike traditional immigrants, did not choose to come to America, but were forced; when they arrived, they found slavery instead of opportunity.)

As a result of these differences, the “social contracts” of immigrants and minorities may differ. Since immigrants voluntarily chose to come to America, they can be told to play by the rules of the American Dream. Minorities may have been denied the opportunity for the American Dream, and minorities may speak of exploitation instead of opportunity.

Immigrants typically assimilate and lose their ethnic identity within 1-3 generations. Minorities remain distinct or maintain distinct communities.

Immigrants may experience problems of “minority” cultures in the first generation(s). Immigrants may suffer discrimination and marginalization by the dominant culture on account of racial and cultural differences as long as those differences are visible or audible. With a few exceptions, the only immigrants who are treated as minorities are immigrants who are not yet assimilated.

· “New World Immigrants,” including Mexican Americans, other Latinos, and Afro-Caribbeans, may have an identity somewhere between the immigrant and minority patterns.

“New World” or “Western Hemisphere” immigrants have dominated recent immigration to the United States and have altered the immigrant model implicit in the “model minorities” or “model immigrants” like Jews and Asian Americans.

· In contrast to the commitment of model immigrants to American opportunity, New-World immigrants may remain loyal to home countries and maintain historical resentments toward the new culture and nation.

· Particularly the immigrant experiences and historic identities of Mexican Americans in relation to the United States are unique in a number of ways that may make them more ambivalent regarding assimilation to the dominant American culture.

· Other Hispanic immigrant groups like Puerto Ricans may have similarly ambivalent attitudes toward assimilation or difference.

· For Afro-Caribbeans, the immigrant experience may be compromised by genetic or color-based association with the African American minority.

Literature represents the extremely sensitive subject of skin color infrequently or indirectly. Generally western civilization transfers the values it associates with “light and dark”—e. g., good & evil, rational / irrational—to people of light or dark complexions, with enormous implications for power, validity, sexuality, etc.

Objective 4. To identify signs of the “dominant culture” to which immigrants assimilate in terms of class, ethnicity, gender or family life, and religion. In brief, this section of the course makes a provisional effort to answer, “What kind of culture do immigrants assimilate to?”

As this vast subject resists identification and analysis, the objective concentrates on a variation of the immigrant narrative termed “National migration.”

· In contrast to the normal pattern of immigration by individuals or families with intentions to assimilate to their new home, some groups immigrate as communities with the intention of not assimilating.

· These groups appear primarily religious in identification, but in some respects religion is interwoven into all aspects of community, including economics and ethnic relations.

· Under special circumstances, such groups may become the dominant culture of a nation or area.

Our deep historical model for “national migration” is the ancient Jews who migrated from Egypt to Canaan in the Bible’s Exodus story. Unlike the American model of immigrants, the Jews moved as a group and resisted assimilation and intermarriage with the Canaanites. American Jews have followed this pattern until recent generations, when intermarriage has increased.

Our American historical model for “national migration” is the “Great Migration” of English Pilgrims and Puritans to early North America, where they imitated the Jews in Canaan by refusing to intermarry or assimilate with the American Indians. This English culture became the basis for the USA’s dominant culture. In brief, this is the culture to which American immigrants assimilate.

A relatively recent internal example of “national migration” might be that of the Mormons in the 1840s-60s from the Midwest to Utah, where they became the dominant culture. Another possibility is the 1820s settlement of Texas by the "Old Three Hundred" families led by Moses and Stephen Austin. Some elements of national migration and correspondence to Exodus may also appear in the “great migration” of African Americans from the Old South to the urban North during slavery times, in the early twentieth century, and in the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s.

(The remaining objectives focus more exclusively on the immigrant narrative.)

Objective 5. To observe and analyze the effects of immigration and assimilation on cultural units or identities:

In the traditional Old World, extended families prevail. In the modern New World, assimilated people live in nuclear families (often divorced) or by themselves.

In the Old World, gender identities tend to be traditional, with divisions of power, labor and expression. In the New World, gender may be de-emphasized in favor of equality, merit, and other gender-neutral concepts.

Old World culture is often organized by traditional or family laws and a distant, autocratic state. New World culture conforms to impersonal laws and a democratic, regulated, but self-governing state.

In traditional societies of the Old World, religion and political or cultural identity are closely related. Modern cultures of the New World tend toward a secular state and private religion.

Religion is the identity factor that resists assimilation the longest—but not necessarily forever. Catholic, Islamic, or Hindu immigrants may generally conform to mainstream dominant culture while resisting conversion to the Protestant or Evangelical Christianity of the dominant culture. The future?

Immigrants often come from third-world, traditional, or subsistence societies that value high rates of childbearing in the face of high infant mortality and short life spans. In contrast, first-world cultures like blue-state America, Canada, western Europe, and Japan limit numbers of children for the sake of prolonging individual lives. The resulting differences in family dynamics and education and income levels fuel many of the conflicts between the dominant and immigrant cultures.

Objective 6. To contrast the “New Immigrant Model” with the “Old Immigrant Model.”

· “Old Immigrant Model”: Because of the danger and cost of journey by boat, past immigrants found it more difficult to return and were expected to cut ties to the Old World in order to assimilate to American culture

· “New Immigrant Model”: Improved communications and air transportation may enable recent immigrants to feel less pressure to forget the homeland and to assimilate to American culture as rapidly as earlier immigrants

· The biculturalism and bilingualism of “New Immigrants” may contribute to or reflect an emerging global identity in which human beings are less defined or restricted by nationality.

· “Vertical immigration”: as immigration has increased and trade and national barriers have fallen, societies may be becoming less identified by nationality and more by economics and technology: first world-third world, upper class-lower class, highrise-street, electronic media-manual labor.

Objective 7. To observe competing economic ideals or states exposed by immigrant literature.

7a. To identify communal or utopian elements such as Bradford’s discussion of the commonwealth and Jewish immigrants’ interests in Marxism, as well as “Old World” concepts of community, social obligations, and limits.

7b. To discuss immigrants’ shock at and adaptation to American economic models, variously identified as Social Darwinism, competitive individualism, laissez-faire, freemarket, high-growth capitalism

7c. A surprising feature in immigrant literature (and perhaps elsewhere): the identification of shopping and sexuality. (Consistent with Darwinian survival through competitive sexuality)

Objective 8. To monitor the importance of public education to the assimilation stage of the immigrant narrative.

8a. To consider the significance of free education as a starting point for the American Dream of economic success. (first rung on the ladder)

Special Literary Objective 9. To distinguish fictional and non-fictional modes of the immigrant narrative & poetic expressions of the immigrant and minority narratives.

9a. How can we tell whether we're reading fiction or nonfiction? What “markers” or signs of difference both in and outside the text alert the reader that the narrative is either fictional or non-fictional? Are these signs always accurate?

9b. How much may fiction and nonfiction cross or overlap? (Genre-bending.)

9c. How does lyric poetry, which is generally non-narrative, represent the Immigrant Narrative differently than our prose texts?

This course has a webpage featuring basic information about the course and student models of required assignments. The web address is

Each student must make at least three or four contributions to the webpage through the instructor via email or other electronic means.

Send all emails to whitec@uhcl.edu. Note the "c" at the end of "whitec." If you send the email to "white" only, it goes to the wrong professor.

· Paste the contents of the appropriate word processing file directly into the email message.

· “Attach” your word processing file to an email message. (My computer and most of its programs work off of Microsoft Word 2000. The only word processing program my computer appears unable to translate is Microsoft Works, though Microsoft Word is fine, as are most others. If in doubt, save your word processing file in "Rich Text Format" or a “text only” format.)

If you have trouble reaching me by email, save your word processing file to a 3½“ floppy disk and give it to me. If you put your name on the disk, I’ll eventually return it to you.

Student computer access: Every enrolled student at UHCL is assigned an email account on the university server. For information about your account and password, call the university help desk at 281 283 2828.

Reassurances: You are not graded on your expertise in electronic media but on your intelligence in reading literature, discussing it, and writing about it. I’ve tried similar email exercises for several semesters; a few students encounter a few problems, but, if we don’t give up, these problems always work out. Your course grade will not suffer for mistakes with email and related issues as long as I see you making a fair effort.

Format: Take-home; Open-book, open-notebook; exam must be emailed to instructor

· No class meeting on 19 June—but be aware that we have a reading assignment and meeting the next day, 20 June.

· The exam is take-home, but you are not expected to spend more than 4 hours writing the exam. Two and a half-hours of writing may be adequate.

· You may write and submit your exam any time after 6pm, Thursday, 15 June. The absolute deadline for email submission is 8pm, 19 June. If you can’t make that deadline, be in touch to explain your situation.

· Keep a log of your writing schedule so that I can have some idea of how much time students are spending. Stops, starts, and pauses are okay.

1. Web Review: Review student submissions from previous semesters (both undergraduate and undergraduate offerings), especially in the Model Assignments on course webpage. (30-40 minutes)

2. Long essay: Evaluate “immigrant / minority” distinction as organizing motif for multicultural literature (90-120 minutes)

Perform, describe, and email to the instructor (for posting) two (or more) “adventures or experiments in research.” These exercises should be relevant to our course’s subject matter, but they may reflect your personal and professional interests in immigration or other multicultural subjects. Try to relate your interests to Literature, but not absolutely required. Your final exam will summarize and assess these research experiments as part of your overall learning experience.

Bibliographic information may be included in paragraphs or more completely in listings at end of posting.

Posting to webpage: Email contents to instructor at whitec@uhcl.edu. Instructor will post to webpage and email notification of posting. This may be all the feedback the student will receive until final grade report. (See “grading” below.)

Provide a title for your entry that will serve as a web heading or link. This title should indicate the content. The title may take the form of a question.

1^st paragraph: Introduce and frame a question you want to answer or a topic you want to know more about. Explain the source or background of your interest; what you already knew on the subject, how or where you learned it or were alerted to it, etc. These backgrounds can be personal as well as educational or professional. At some point in this introductory paragraph, a statement of the question you’re trying to answer should appear.

2^nd and 3^rd paragraphs: describe your search for answers to your question or topic of interest. Locate, describe, and evaluate at least two sources. Your sources may be print, Web, or personal (as in an interview, lecture, conversation, or anecdote). If Web, provide links. If print, provide bibliographic information. (MLA style is preferred, but the main point of all documentation is to enable your reader to find the source.) If “personal,” provide as much contextual information as possible; welcome to protect privacy.

4^th paragraph: What is the answer to your question? Your “answer” may take a variety of forms, as long as you demonstrate learning. For instance, you may find a definite answer to your specific question. Or you may learn that you’ve asked the wrong question, in which case you could conclude by revising your question. In any case, summarize and evaluate what you have learned, and consider what your next step might be if you continued your research along this line.

You may write more than 4 paragraphs, but beyond 6 or 7 paragraphs may push the assignment too far.

Your two postings may be on different subjects or may continue a single subject. Remain aware that you will need to discuss your research journal as part of your final exam question on your overall learning curve.

Grading: Because this assignment hasn’t been tried out before, and because summer school moves so quickly, I can’t guarantee how much feedback will be provided during the session. However, at the end of the session you will receive an overall grade for your on-line research journal. This grade will be based on readability, interest, and quality of research. (By interest, I don’t mean whether I would have chosen the topic, but how well the report generates and sustains interest.)

Time: The exam should take at least two hours and a half to complete, but you may use the entire class period (2 hours and 50 minutes). In-class students will be given the exam at 4pm and must turn it in by 6:50. All students will be emailed the exam at approximately 3:45, when the exam will also be posted on the course webpage. Email students must mail in the exam by 8pm. The time is flexible to account for possible interruptions. However, email students should spend no more than 2 hours and 50 minutes in writing the exam, and they should keep a log indicating when they start and stop. (Pauses or interruptions are okay.)

Special requirements: For each essay, refer to previous final essays on related subjects, either graduate or undergraduate.

Texts: Refer to at least four course readings, though a few more are welcome. Welcome to refer to poetry from presentations.

Since this course attempts a comprehensive approach to American multicultural history and literature, this final essay assignment seeks a correspondingly broad and comprehensive response by the student. The essay will be evaluating on its general quality of writing and reference to our shared texts and objectives, but also according to its attempt to comprehend its interests within the broad American multicultural landscape as described by this course.

Write a reflective essay describing and evaluating your learning experience with this course in terms of your own interests, the course’s readings, and its use of the Immigrant Narrative as a model or yardstick for describing multicultural American literature and culture.

Assume the perspective of a student, educator, individual and/or citizen interested in multicultural issues. Such an interest does not predetermine expectations of your political, personal, or professional positions on such subjects.

Relate your personal and professional interests to the course’s texts, subject matter, and objectives. What did you enter the class knowing? What did you wish to learn? How far have those interests been satisfied? What might be your next move?

As part of this expression, review in one or two your research journal. Your personal and professional interests may be additionally described in terms of family background, acquaintance, political and social movement, and reading experience.

Coordinate these personal and professional interests with those of the course. Locate your preferred subjects within the course’s readings and objectives, particularly its use of the immigrant narrative as a key to the American multicultural landscape of minority, immigrant, and dominant cultures. What are the advantages and shortcomings of our approach this semester? What other possibilities for organizing multicultural literature might you propose? Is there an argument for simply “celebrating difference?”

This longish description is only to provide as many possibilities to those uncertain how to proceed. If you have your own angle, try to coordinate it with the requirements indicated above. I’ll read your essay on its merits as long as it relates to the course’s readings and objectives.

Essay 2 assignment: Identifying and criticizing America’s dominant culture—or not!

Texts: Refer to readings of the Exodus story, Of Plymouth Plantation, and elsewhere during the semester (e. g., Crevecoeur, the excerpt from Hunting Mr. Heartbreak). Review at least one of the “dominant culture moments” in the class presentations.

This course has attempted to identify an elusive subject that is unattractive if not repellent to some students of multiculturalism: the manifestations, makeup, and ideology of the USA’s dominant culture. For relevance to immigrant literature: What kind of culture do immigrants assimilate to? (Whatever the answer is, it applies to the “dominant culture.”)

What are some of the attractions and repulsions, rewards and punishment that follow such an investigation? Why does the dominant culture tend to resist or elude analysis or even the impulse to analyze?

Describe the most characteristic qualities of the dominant culture. Consider attitudes toward literacy and education, intermarriage, mobility, and the family. Also consider the combination of future-oriented capitalism and biblical nostalgia that come with evangelical protestantism.

Reading Quizzes: I dislike using reading quizzes in a graduate seminar. But the last time I taught the course (which was also a large class), it became obvious that students were showing up unprepared. The subsequent regiment of reading quizzes irritated a few people, but more students began to participate instead of waiting for class to end.

Most class meetings will feature a short, objective reading quiz based on the day’s assigned readings.

· These quizzes are given one time only. If you come in after the quiz has been given, or if you miss a class, please do not ask if you can take the quiz. I strongly appreciate your not asking me, and I very much dislike being asked. You risk losing more by asking than you do by missing the quiz.

· Even if you do not know the answers, you should turn in a quiz with your name on it, as the quizzes are used for taking attendance.

· Answer the questions as briefly and accurately as possible, as I grade them very quickly. In most cases, a few words or phrases will suffice. You do not need to answer in complete sentences.

· Grades will range from “checks” for correct answers to “X’s” for no right answers to combinations of these grades with pluses or minuses for combinations of right and wrong answers. Occasionally one or two students in the class will receive a “check-plus” for answers that are not only accurate but entertaining, insightful, or otherwise impressive.

· You are expected to make checks or check-minuses on all but one or two of your quizzes. Failure to take or turn in quizzes, or overall quiz grades noticeably lower than the class average, can result in a much lower overall course grade, beyond the declared weight of the quizzes.

Every student will participate in at least one or more class presentations. Options:

Students may indicate preferred presentations or dates on their student ID cards. These requests will be honored as far as possible. In making assignments, however, the interests of the overall class may outweigh individual preferences. At the second class meeting a printed schedule will assign students to particular presentation assignments for the rest of the semester. Students may work out changes with each other and suggest those changes to the instructor.

Most class meetings feature 2 or 3 student presentations. The purposes are to develop the seminar style and give students practice in managing high-level presentations and discussions. The purpose is not to relieve the professor of his duties. The easiest class to prepare is one in which I just talk for three hours. You’ll hear plenty from me anyway . . . .

Presentation assignments are decided partly by student choice and partly by chance; student preferences are not guaranteed. On the opening class day, students may indicate preferences for presentations on an ID card, and volunteers will be solicited for presentations on the second class day. Before the second meeting I will prepare a draft of the presentation schedule and email it to the class for review. At the second meeting everyone will receive a printed-out schedule assigning students to presentations for the rest of the session.

1. Your poem will be in the Unsettling America anthology. All students are expected to bring this anthology to every class.

2. Project an outline of your presentation on the webpage. (Email to instructor at least an hour before class.)

3. Introduce, read aloud, and briefly interpret your assigned poem relative to one or two course objectives.

4. Ask a question and lead discussion of the poem. (You may post more than one question.)

The student will lead a class discussion of the day’s reading assignment. Project an outline of your presentation on the webpage. (Email to instructor.)

5. Lead discussion by asking a question or inviting challenges to interpretation.

Student selects passages from the designated “Model Assignments” and emails them with introduction and conclusion to instructor. This presentation may lead to some discussion, but a question is not required. Project a copy of your presentation on the webpage. The purpose of this presentation is to provide another angle by reviewing previous articulations of our course’s subject matter, and to familiarize students with assignments and standards of student work.

1. Introduction: Student writes 1-3 sentences describing the assignment and how s/he went about developing it. Student reads this introduction to begin presentation. Students may also ad-lib as helpful.

2. Two or more selections from assigned models: Students will be assigned to highlight midterms or finals. Student copies sections from assigned models and sends them to the instructor for posting with introduction and conclusion. Or the student may ask for links to assigned models for wider review. Student reads or highlights selections, commenting on strengths and weaknesses.

3. Conclusion: Student writes 3-5 sentences explaining what s/he learned from the review, what about the models was either impressive or disappointing, and what kinds of “models” have been created for our own semester’s work.

This new presentation is intended to focus and prepare for study of the “dominant culture” at the end of the semester. (Objective 4)

The assigned student chooses 1 or 2 appearances in the day’s readings of characters or values that may be associated with America’s dominant culture. Since the dominant culture may be multifaceted, elusive, or repellent in appearance, the assigned student is welcome to express uncertainty and recruit help in the presentation. Sometimes the student will choose different manifestations than the instructor had in mind. Not to worry—honesty and inquiry count more than correctness.

1. Student directs class to one or more passages in the day’s readings that depict characters, values, or institutions associated with America’s dominant culture. Student reads appropriate passages.

2. Account for how the passage was selected or identified. Suggest the significance or implications of the passage in terms of the immigrant narrative, especially assimilation to the dominant culture.

3. Discussion and conclusion: Invite seminar to respond to your reading by reinforcing or differing. Invite seminar to suggest other appearances of the dominant culture in the day’s readings. Instructor may redirect to passages he had in mind.

You are graded for the quality of your work in presentations, responses, and general class participation, but this grade is not announced until the end of the semester, when it is recorded in the general grade tally that is included in your final exam. The reason for this “silent grade” is to avoid unproductive behavior from students in relation to the presentations, such as second-guessing, comparing grades, competing to each other’s detriment, or performing to the teacher. Altogether the presentations are a cooperative exercise on the part of the class, so it’s better to keep grading out of sight; however, since some students would work less otherwise, the leverage of a grade is necessary.

I will turn in final grades to the registrar according to the usual procedures. I will also email each student a tally of their grades. Though this message should be accurate, it will be “unofficial” in that none of its information aside from the final grade will be recorded or supported by the university registrar. The message will appear thus:

Attendance policy: You are expected to attend every scheduled class meeting. You may take one free cut. More than one absence jeopardizes your status in the course. If you miss more than one class (especially early in the session), you are encouraged to drop. If you miss the first class, even if you are not enrolled at that time, that absence counts as your free cut. Partial absences also count negatively. Even with medical or other emergency excuses, an excessive number of absences (full or partial) results in a lower or failing grade. More than one absence affects final grades. You are always welcome to discuss your standing in the course.

Academic Honesty Policy: Please refer to the catalog for the Academic Honesty Policy (2005-2006 Catalog, pp. 76-78). Plagiarism—that is, using research without citations or copying someone else’s work as your own—will result in a grade penalty or failure of the course. Refer to the UHCL catalogue for further details regarding expectations and potential penalties.

Disabilities: If you have a disability and need a special accommodation, consult first with the Health Center and then discuss the accommodation with me.

Incompletes: A grade of “I” is given only in cases of documented emergency late in the semester. An Incomplete Grade Contract must be completed.

Tuesday, 30 May 2006: introduction; students indicate presentation preferences; some history of immigration; selections from Crevecoeur, Yezierska, and Equiano

What are the forms and values of the immigrant narrative, especially that of the “model minority?”

Thursday, 1 June 2006: Examples of the Immigrant Narrative. Anzia Yezierska, “Soap and Water” (IA 105-110) [handout]; Nicholasa Mohr, “The English Lesson” (IA 21-34); Barbara Grizzuti Harrison, “Going Home: Brooklyn Revisited” (VA 158-169) [handout]

Sui Sin Far, "In the Land of the Free" (IA 3-11); Gish Jen, “In the American Society” (IA 158-171); Maxine Hong Kingston, from The Woman Warrior (VA 195-200) [handout]; Carlos Bulosan, from American is in the Heart [handout]

Question for next two class meetings: How does the minority narrative differ from the immigrant narrative?

Tuesday, 6 June 2006: African American Minority vs. the immigrant narrative. James Baldwin, from No Name in the Street [handout]; Jewelle Gomez, “Don’t Explain” (182-190); Toni Cade Bambara, “The Lesson” (IA 145-152); Alice Walker, “Elethia” (IA 307-309)

Thursday, 8 June 2006: American Indian Minority vs. the immigrant narrative.

Leslie Marmon Silko, “The Man to Send Rain Clouds” (IA 205-209); Louise Erdrich, "American Horse" (IA 210-220); Mei Mei Evans, “Gussuk” (IA 237-251)

Poem: Chrystos, “I Have Not Signed a Treaty with the United States Government,” UA 304

Question for next three class meetings: How does Hispanic or Caribbean literature resemble or differ from either the immigrant narrative or the minority narrative?

Monday, 12 June 2006: Mexican Americans: Immigrant / American Dream story, or Minority? Richard Rodriguez, from Hunger of Memory [handout]; Gary Soto, “Like Mexicans” [handout]; Nash Candelaria, "El Patron" (IA 221-228); Sandra Cisneros, "Barbie-Q" (IA 252-253)

Tuesday, 13 June 2006: Other Hispanic Americans: Immigrant / American Dream story, or Minority?

Junot Diaz, "How to Date a Browngirl . . . “ (IA 276-279); Oscar Hijuelos, “Visitors, 1965” (IA 310-325) Judith Ortiz Cofer, "Silent Dancing" [handout]

Thursday, 15 June 2006: Caribbean Immigrants: Minorities or Immigrants? June Jordan, “Report from the Bahamas” [handout]; Edwidge Danticat, “Children of the Sea” (IA 98-112); Paule Marshall, “The Making of a Writer: From the Poets in the Kitchen” [handout]; Paule Marshall, “To Da-Duh, in Memoriam” (IA 368-377)

Chitra Divakaruni, “Silver Pavements, Golden Roofs” (70-83); Tahira Naqvi, “Thank God for the Jews” (IA 229-236); Bharati Mukherjee, “A Wife’s Story” (IA 57-69); Bharati Mukherjee, “Love Me or Leave Me” [handout]

European-American Immigrant Literature / Prototypes of the American Dominant Culture: The Ancient Jews & New England

Thursday, 22 June 2006: Jewish-American: Chosen People in the New World. Bernard Malamud, “The German Refugee” (IA 35-46); Adrienne Rich, “Split at the Root: An Essay on Jewish Identity” (VA 90-105) [handout]; Sonia Pilcer, “2G” (VA 201-206) [handout]; Eva Hoffman, from Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language (VA 219-228) [handout]; Vivian Gornick, “To Begin With” (VA 74-81) [handout]

Monday, 26 June 2006: selections from the Exodus story in the Old Testament of the Bible (student provides; King James / Revised Standard version preferred);

Exodus, chapters 1-15; chapter 16, verses 1-4; chapter 20; chapter 31, verse 12 through chapter 32 complete.

Deuteronomy, chapter 7, verses 1-6; chapter 11, verses 10-17.26-28; chapter 12, verses 2-3; chapter 34.1-6

Tuesday, 27 June 2006: The Pilgrims and the Hebrew model of national migration; prototype of white exclusiveness and purity? William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation (introduction, esp. p. xxii; chapters I-IV).

Thursday, 29 June 2006: The Pilgrims, the Hebrew model of national migration, and late Anglo-American culture / vertical immigration. Of Plymouth Plantation (V, 29-32;VI, 45 middle paragraph; VII, 49-50, 57; VIII, 59-61; IX; X; XI, 83-89; XII, 96-100, 107 bottom paragraph; XIV, 128-129, 132-134, 143-146; XV, 160-161; XIX, 224-232; ch. 21, p. 62; XXIII, 281-283; XXXII, 351; XXXIII, 364-368; 370-1); Jonathan Raban, from Hunting Mr. Heartbreak: A Discovery of America [handout]