HIST163

Description

Section information text: Most current political debates surrounding immigration and the role of immigrants in U.S. society have largely focused on the very recent past. This course will attempt to equip students to understand the genesis of such debates, including ideological, economic, and social factors, by exploring the history of immigration in what is now the United States. We will begin with an examination of early settler colonialism, then European immigration, and finally nineteenth and twentieth- century legislative efforts to restrict or shape immigration patterns. Alongside a clear delineation of legislative and policy efforts, the course will likewise consider the ways in which immigrants and immigration have been viewed in popular culture such as movies and music. Using these and other primary source documents, students will analyze the ways in which ideas about progress, modernity, civilization, racialized constructions of the "other," national identity, and social engineering affect and inform experiences of immigration not only for immigrants themselves but for native citizenry as well.