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The Interconnectedness of Immigration and Race Relations
MELANIE SHELL-WEISS
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AS I WAS RESEARCHING and writing my first book about Miami, Florida, one of the issues that impressed me most strongly, and which continues to guide my research and teaching, is the interconnectedness of immigration and race relations throughout American history. For the groups of people whose pasts I study most closely—those from the Caribbean, Africa, and Latin America—learning one's place in the American racial order was often the very first step in their assimilation. Refusal to adapt to these cultural norms often came at a very high price. These lessons were quickly learned by lighter-skinned, European arrivals, too. By the twentieth century it was activism on the part of these newcomers and their descendants that challenged these norms, marking some of the most inspiring chapters of civil rights history. For all these reasons, I find teaching the introductory survey course around the subjects of immigration, race, and citizenship one of my favorites and an excellent way to weave together those issues that most interest me as a scholar with the core ideas students need to have a solid knowledge base in American history. |
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My university takes a much more specific approach to teaching the U.S. history survey than many other institutions. Rather than collapsing 150 years or more of history into a single semester, introductory courses are identified as part of the "Making America" series. Each class focuses on a period of thirty to fifty years, using those decades as a window onto major themes, debates, and ideas that have shaped U.S. history. History majors are required to take at least two classes in the "Making America" sequence, one in the colonial or early American period and the other from the nineteenth or twentieth century. For many nonmajors, a "Making America" course is also one of the few history classes they may take. These classes thus attract a large number of political science, international relations, public health, and regional studies majors such as those from Latin American studies and Africana studies. Textbooks are rarely used. Instead, most faculty assign a range of primary documents that students access via electronic reserves. Lectures provide the text for the class and are supplemented with weekly discussions. |
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My approach to this course hinges on the idea of citizenship. How was citizenship initially envisioned in American history? Who is eligible? Who is excluded? Why is it so important? And how have the debates over these matters and the eligibility requirements changed over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as the door to the nation has opened and closed, then opened again? Starting with an introduction to debates over citizenship and slavery in the mid-nineteenth century, I continue the course up to 1930. In the final weeks of class we also discuss the legacy of citizenship and immigration debates, focusing on the long civil rights movement and advocacy by African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, and Native Americans. This thematic focus provides an excellent way to discuss both race and ethnicity. It also highlights the importance of gender through debates over the full rights of citizenship, including voting and property ownership, as well as through family reunification, which highlights native-born fears of unattached men and significantly alters the demographic makeup of immigrant communities. Although many students take the class precisely because they are interested in the subject of immigration, the focus on citizenship also proves attractive to many who see immigration as tangential to core themes in American history. |
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