Immigration in U.S. History and Culture

Catalog description

This class will introduce students to U.S. immigration history, focusing on immigration flows, policies, and debates from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. We will take an interdisciplinary approach to the study of immigration in U.S. culture, using a variety of sources—including photography, film, poetry, memoir, and a board game—to examine how ideas, policies, and practices regarding immigration have been tied to key concepts such as race, gender, sexuality, disease, and empire. Students will read scholarly essays and primary sources and conclude with a short, primary-source-based independent research project.