Immigrant Fam. Sep. & Reunif.

Catalog description

This course examines recent trends in the study of family separation and reunification and the U.S. immigration system. The course explores how migrant and mixed-status families approach, navigate, and experience migration in the Americas. The course begins by examining sociological and anthropological studies of families in movement, and how they respond to an immigration system ill-equipped to manage their migration. The social science studies of migration also examine the way in which migration and immigration enforcement traumatize mixed-status families. These formal scholarly studies are complemented by a rich variety of documentary films, novels, and journalistic treatments of families in movement in the Americas, with special focus on the U.S.-Mexico border region. The course also examines how journalists have covered family separation from El Paso over the past decade.