LITR 5731: Seminar in American Multicultural Literature: Immigrant

Summer 2008 (1^st 5-wks), University of Houston-Clear Lake

Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays 3-5:59pm, Bayou 1124

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A multicultural course with a unifying theme:

the story of coming to America,

becoming American, and changing America.

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( . . . & subplots! . . . )

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  generational conflicts  *  family and nation

  * ethnicity & gender  * the shock of America *

memory of the homeland

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Course Texts

Short-Fiction Anthology

Imagining America: Stories from the Promised Land (2^nd ed., 2002)

Anglo-American non-fiction

William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation (1620-1647)

(read with selections from the Exodus of the Bible—plus other handouts)

Summary of Graded Assignments (details below)

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

·        Take-home midterm exam on immigrants and minorities (26 June; 20-25%.)

·        Research Postings (2 installments + review in final exam) (20-25%)

·        Final Examination (10 July; 35-40%).

·        Class participation, preparation, attendance, quizzes, presentations, email submissions. Dates for presentations assigned at 2nd class (15-20%).

Course webpage: http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/LITR/4333

Instructor: Craig White

Phone: 281 283 3380                                        Email: whitec@uhcl.edu

Office: 2529-8 Bayou    Office Hours: M, T, Th 12-1 & by apptmt

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

Course Objectives:

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

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. (Bible academies and home schools may differ.)

1b. Most surveys of multicultural or minority literature appear not to develop formal standards for deciding which ethnic groups are read and studied or why.

• Such choices may be based on precedent, but systematic criteria for inclusion, exclusion, or grouping of ethnicities are overlooked, perhaps to avoid sensitive discussions of identities and power relations.

• Instead, such surveys “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 unify in terms of common “victimization” or oppression by the dominant culture, whether white, male, or upper-class / corporate.

1c. The casual inclusiveness of most multicultural surveys generates potential problems or questions. 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 or desirable to move beyond “celebrating difference” and exposures of “victimization?”

• Can different ethnic groups share common cause? (This raises a sensitive question: Can anyone identify with ethnic or gender groups other than their own? If so, is such identification possible only through a shared sense of victimization?)

1d. American Immigrant Literature “celebrates difference” by surveying texts from or about a wide range of American ethnic groups. Also, though, a unified field or standard for identifying, grouping, and evaluating different ethnic groups is developed by using the immigrant narrative as a “yardstick” or norm.

Instead of only celebrating difference and leaving each ethnic group to stand by itself, that is, our course uses the immigrant narrative as a way

• to measure multicultural differences between immigrant, minority, and dominant cultures and
   

• to mediate shared or parallel experiences and identities as far as possible in a single field or continuum.

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 with variations are 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!
   

• But remember that two ethnic groups do not fit the immigrant story: African Americans and Native Americans. (obj. 4)

Essential terms: Assimilation, melting pot, and "minority"

Assimilation and the melting pot

To assimilate means to become similar. The term loosely describes a process by which immigrants "become American."

Ethnic or cultural differences disappear through intermarriage, use of a common language, and shared institutions, opportunity, or ideology.

Assimilation can work both ways: the dominant culture sometimes absorbs practices and products brought by immigrants or other ethnic groups, such as values, language, food, etc.

The primary metaphor for assimilation has been "the melting pot." That is, the American experience of public schools, intermarriage, common language and ideology mix and "melt" our differences as in a great cooking vessel. The product of the melting pot is "the new person" or "American" who bears no marks of ethnic or tribal identification.

Warnings:

Assimilation is suspect to many multicultural scholars because, instead in which as a result of shared background in “a nation of immigrants.”

The melting pot metaphor may be limited where racial minorities are considered, leading to other metaphors like “the rainbow” or “a quilt.”

The term “minority” is used loosely in popular speech and government. The label of a “Model Minority” is often applied to a new immigrant group that exemplifies or fulfills the ideals implicit in the immigrant narrative.

·        A century ago Jewish immigrants were the “model minority,” as their children became well-educated professionals. Asian Americans now fit this pattern.

·        These “ideal immigrants” take advantage of economic and educational opportunities (often associated with music, math, and medicine).

·        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 resistance to assimilation imitates a leading quality of the dominant culture (obj. 4).

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

·        Often used as an argument against affirmative action, the concept of the “model minority” may confuse race / ethnicity with class / history.

Basic stages of the Immigrant Narrative

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

·        Stage 2: Journey to the New World (here, the USA & modern culture)

·        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)

Is the immigrant narrative comparable to a conversion experience?

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)

·        first-generation as “heroic” but “clueless”

·        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)

Narrator or viewpoint: Who writes the immigrant narrative?

·        First-generation? (rare, except among English-speaking peoples)

·        Second-generation? (standard: children of immigrants learn English, usually in public schools, and use the language to explore conflicts between ethnic and mainstream identities)

Setting(s): Where does the immigrant narrative take place?

·        Homeland? Journey? America? Return to homeland?

·        "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:

Differences between immigrants and minorities:

The two least-assimilated minority groups, African Americans and Native Americans, were not immigrants.

• 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; instead of opportunity, they found slavery.

These differences between immigrant and minority histories lead to different “social contracts.”

Origins and choice:

• Since immigrants voluntarily chose to come to America, they are expected to conform to the American Dream story of freedom and opportunity.
   

• Minorities did not freely choose the American Dream and may speak of exploitation instead of opportunity.

Assimilation or resistance:

• Immigrants typically assimilate and lose their ethnic identity within 1-3 generations.
   

• Minorities remain distinct or maintain distinct communities.
   

• Immigrants sometimes measure themselves against or distance themselves from minorities as a means of assimilating to the dominant culture.
   

• For historical, cultural, or color-code reasons, however, some immigrants (especially New World immigrants) risk “downward assimilation”: instead of climbing the dominant culture's educational-economic ladder , any ethnic group (including whites) may assert difference by choosing separatism, tradition, male privilege, separate language, and other behaviors that resist assimilation and advancement.

Overlap between immigrant and minority identities:

• Immigrants may experience “minority” status in early generations.
   

• 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 few exceptions, the only immigrants who are treated as minorities are those who are not yet assimilated.

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

• “New World” or “Western Hemisphere” immigrants have dominated recent immigration to the U.S., altering the model implicit in the “model minorities / immigrants” developed by Jewish Americans and Asian Americans.
   

• In contrast to ideal immigrants’ commitment to American national identity and opportunity, New World immigrants may stay loyal to their nearby home countries and remember historical resentments or mixed feelings toward the USA.
   

• Mexican American immigrant experiences and identities relative to the USA are unique in ways that may make them more ambivalent regarding assimilation to the dominant American culture. Mexican immigration is unique in scale, so there's more of an alternative community. Assimilation proceeds, but maybe at a slower pace.
   

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

• For Afro-Caribbeans, immigrant experience may be compromised by association with the African American minority through the "Color Code." On the flip-side, Afro-Caribbeans' experiences as the majority on the islands may cultivate more assertive public identities and attitudes.
   

• See also Objective 6 regarding the “New Immigrant Identity”

“The Color Code”

• Literature represents the sensitive subject of skin color only infrequently or symbolically, but with important associations for identity and consequences  for destiny.
   

• Western civilization associates “light and dark” with traditional values of good & evil, rational / irrational; these values are transferred to people of light or dark complexions, with implications for power, validity, sexuality, etc.
   

• BUT the inevitable mixing of people and races in a mobile culture continually creates “New Americans,” whether in appearance or status.

Objective 4. To identify the United States' “dominant culture” to which immigrants assimilate.

• This objective tries to answer, “What kind of culture do immigrants assimilate to?”
   
• This subject is so vast and familiar that it resists identification and analysis. Therefore this objective concentrates on another variation of the immigrant narrative termed “National migration.”
   

·         Unlike the normal immigration pattern of individuals or families immigrating with intentions or expectations of assimilating to their new home, some groups immigrate as communities with the intention of not assimilating.
 

·         These groups may be identified by religion, but religion interwoven with all aspects of community, including economics and ethnic relations.
 

·         Some of these groups may become the dominant culture of a nation or area.

Examples of national migration and dominant culture for objective 4

• Our deep historical model for “national migration” is the ancient Jews who migrated from Egypt to Canaan in the Bible’s Exodus story.
   
• The standard immigrant story concerns families and individuals who strive to adapt to the prevailing culture. In contrast, the Jews moved to the Promised Land 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 1800s from the Midwest to Utah, where they became the dominant culture.
   
• 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.
   
• An alternative dominant culture now receiving attention is the Scots-Irish of the Appalachian region. In contrast to the elite educations and community lifestyles developed by New England Puritans, the Scots-Irish practice a rugged individualism marked by unwritten codes of family honor and armed violence. Lacking a politically correct term, the standard popular name for this group is "rednecks."
   

(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:

• family

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

• gender

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.

• community and laws

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.

• religion:

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?

• Demographics:

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.

• Finally, How do immigrants change America?

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. The Immigrant Narrative and the Teaching Profession

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

8a. To consider the significance of free secular education as a starting point for the American Dream of economic success. (first rung on the ladder available to all; instruction in common language; separation from household religious traditions)

8b. Teachers of literature and language arts must consider a variety of issues relative to immigrant and minority culture

• Should we teach multiculturalism or assimilation? What balance between “identity,” “tradition,” and “roots” on one hand, and “conformity,” “modernization,” and “mobility” on the other?
   

• How much does literature concern language instruction and formal mechanics and terminology of literature, and how much does it concern a student-friendly way to teach culture and social skills?

 8c.  How much do home-schooling and bible academies constitute a resistance to the principles of immigration and assimilation through a secular, multicultural curriculum?

Email and webpage contributions

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

http://coursesite.uhcl.edu/HSH/Whitec/LITR/4333. If convenient, install it as a “favorite” on your web browser for easy access.

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

Required email contributions:

• Presentation handout or posting
   

• Two "research postings"

Optional email contributions:

• Midterm exam
   

• final exam

Email address:

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.

Contents and attachments:

Try both of the following

·        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 2007. The only word processing program my computer appears unable to translate is Microsoft Works, though most versions of Microsoft Word will work.  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.

Descriptions of Graded Assignments

Midterm exam--Date: 26 June Relative weight: 25% of final grade

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

Schedule:

• No class meeting on 26 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, Tuesday, 24 June. The absolute deadline for email submission is 8pm, 26 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.

Two parts to midterm exam and research report proposal  

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)

For more details, see posting on course webpage: midterm assignment

Research Postings (2 installments + review in final exam) (25%)

See summer 2006's model assignments.

Write and email two “adventures or experiments in research.” These exercises must be relevant to our subject matter, but they may reflect your personal and professional interests. Try to relate your research to Literature, but not absolutely required; these postings may move into history, sociology, anthropology, etc.

• Your final exam will summarize and assess these research experiments as part of your overall learning experience.
   

• The only absolute stipulation for content is that the subject must have something to do with immigrants or immigration. You cannot write about a minority group without connecting your discussion to the larger subject of immigration.

Length: at least 4 paragraphs, plus or minus bibliographic information

Bibliographic requirements and information: At least 4 sources, at least some of which should be from reputable scholarship and not just stray internet postings. MLA style is expected. Information may be included in text or more completely in listings at end of posting.

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 with a brief reaction. This may be all the feedback the student will receive until final grade report. (See “grading” below.)

Organization, Content, etc.:

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.

These paragraph descriptions above are only guidelines, not absolute rules.

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: Grades for research postings cannot be returned until the Final Grade Report. 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.)

Final Exam (10 July 2006)

Relative weight: 50% of final grade   Format: In-class or email

Content: 2 essays of at least one hour each. Write in your preferred order.

Essay 1 assignment: Comprehensive review of course and your learning curve.

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

For further details, see web posting for final exam.

Student Presentations, Responses, & Records

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

• Poetry reader
• Text-objective discussion leader
• Dominant culture moment
• Web highlight
• Video highlight

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.

Descriptions of individual presentation assignments

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.

Examples of most of these presentations are available on the course webpage.

• Poetry reader

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.)

5. Ten-minute time limit for presentation itself. Discussion may run longer.

• Text-objective discussion leader

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.)

1. Identify the Course Objective(s) relevant to the discussion.

2. Direct the class to one or two passages in the reading assignment.

3. Read passage(s) aloud.

4. Briefly interpret passage in relation to objective.

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

• Web highlight

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.

• Dominant culture moment

This presentation focuses and prepares 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.

• Video highlight

This new presentation takes advantages of 2-3 videos of scholarly conferences on immigration issues pirated by the instructor from C-SPAN3.

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. Student introduces video subject, participants, etc.

2. Student chooses 1 or 2 passages (totaling 8-12 minutes), previews them and shows them to seminar.

3. Student asks 2-3 questions based on video selections for discussion. Student may rewind and replay, but the point is for seminar students to comment on authors and ideas witnessed.

“Silent Grade” for presentation, participation, etc.

            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.

Final Grade Report

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:

LITR 5731 2008 Seminar in American Multicultural Literature (Immigrant)

STUDENT NAME

Contact information

Absences:

Presentation / participation:

Midterm:

Research postings:

Final exam:

Course grade:

COURSE POLICIES

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 in the 2007-8 Catalog.  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.

LITR 5731 summer 2008 reading & presentation schedule

IA = Imagining America (2^nd edition)

Additional texts on web page for which student is responsible:

Jean de Crevecoeur, excerpts from Letters from an American Farmer (1782)

Anzia Yezierska, excerpt from Bread Givers (1912)

Olaudah Equiano, Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789)

Monday, 9 June 2008: course introduction; student IDs; begin immigrant narrative

Questions for first 2 classes: What are the forms and values of the immigrant narrative, especially the “model minority?”

Tuesday, 10 June 2008: Examples of the Immigrant Narrative. Anzia Yezierska, “Soap and Water” (IA 105-110) [handout]; Nicholasa Mohr, “The English Lesson” (IA 21-34)

Text-objective discussion leader: Tanya Stanley

Poetry reader: Lindsay Groth

Poem: Joseph Papaleo, “American Dream: First Report” [handout]

Thursday, 12 June 2008: Asian American Immigrant Literature

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]

Text-objective discussion leader: Cana Hauerland

Web highlight (midterms from summer 2006): Sandy Murphy

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

Monday, 16 June 2008: African American Minority vs. the immigrant narrative. James Baldwin, from No Name in the Street [handout]; Toni Cade Bambara, “The Lesson” (IA 145-152); Alice Walker, “Elethia” (IA 307-309)

Text-objective discussion leader: Rufus Foster

Web highlight (research postings): Jessi Snider

Tuesday, 17 June 2008: 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

Poetry reader: Matt Richards

Question for next three class meetings: How does New World immigrant literature (Hispanic or Caribbean) resemble or differ from the immigrant narrative and/or the minority narrative?

Thursday, 19 June 2008: 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)

Poetry reader: Connie Bares

Poem: Pat Mora, “Immigrants,” UA 119

Video highlight ("Rethinking the Melting Pot" panel discussion): Kristin Hamon

Weekend of 20-22 June 2008: 1^st research posting due by email

Monday, 23 June 2008: 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]

Video highlight ("Immigrant Writers' Impact on American Literature" panel discussion): Keith Vyvial

Tuesday, 24 June 2008: Caribbean Immigrants: Minorities or Immigrants? 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)

Text-objective discussion leader:

Web highlight (2006 midterms): Kristin Hamon

Thursday, 26 June 2008: Midterm exam

Monday, 30 June 2008: Indian & Pakistani American Literature

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)

Text-objective discussion leader: Danielle Maldonado

Video highlight ("American Dream" panel discussion): Tanya Stanley

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

Tuesday, 1 July 2008: Jewish-American: Chosen People in the New World. Bernard Malamud, “The German Refugee” (IA 35-46); 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]

Thursday, 3 July 2008: 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.
• Leviticus, chapter 18, verses 1-5
• Numbers, chapter 14, verses 1-6; chapters 33.
• Deuteronomy, chapter 7, verses 1-6; chapter 11, verses 10-17.26-28; chapter 12, verses 2-3; chapter 34.1-6
• Joshua, chapter 24
• Judges, chapter 2, verses 1-15

Text-objective discussion leader: Keith Vyvial

Web highlight (2nd research postings from 2006): Sandy Murphy

Monday, 7 July 2008: 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).

Text-objective discussion leader: Larry Stanley

Web highlight (final exams on objective 4): Instructor

Tuesday, 8 July 2008: 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. 262; XXIII, 281-283; XXXII, 351; XXXIII, 364-368; 370-1); Jonathan Raban, from Hunting Mr. Heartbreak: A Discovery of America [handout]

Text-objective discussion leader (Raban article): Jessi Snider

Web highlight (final exams): Cana Hauerland

Wednesday, 9 July 2008: 2^nd research posting due by email

Thursday, 10 July 2008: final exam