Immigration and Families

070:345:01
Fall 2017

BSB 133
Tuesdays and Thursdays, 2:00-3:20pm

Professor Cati Coe
405-407 Cooper Street, Room 203
Office hours: Tuesdays, 3:30-4:30, Thursdays, 12:45-1:45pm, or by appointment
phone: (856) 225-6455
email: ccoe@camden.rutgers.edu

Course Description
How does migration affect families and family life, for both those who migrate and those who do not? We explore this question with a particular focus on new forms of immigration to the US since 1965, but we will draw briefly on historical studies of immigration to help us make sense of what is currently going on. We will examine why people migrate, how the US economy has changed due to globalization and the work immigrants find in it, how US immigration law affects immigration patterns, how people create transnational ties across countries, and the effects of immigration on the second generation and beyond.

Learning Goals

  • To understand the major reasons why people move and to analyze the reasons for a particular immigrant group’s migration (first paper)
  • To understand and apply the concept of “transnationalism” in relation to an immigrant group’s settling in a particular location (second paper)
  • To write organized, argument-driven papers based on empirical evidence (all papers)
  • To appreciate some of the ins and outs of US immigration law in relation to immigration streams and family separation
  • To understand how immigration to the US is linked to US foreign policy, the global economy, and the outsourcing of US industries and services.

General Education: US in the World
This course meets the following goals of the new general education requirement of US in the World:

  • Describe the political, diplomatic, social, economic, cultural, scientific and/or environmental interactions between the United States and the world (first paper)
  • Identify major practices, institutions, and ideas of the United States as well as how those constructions are applied and contested (ideas of race, immigration policy)
  • Evaluate evidence and create their own arguments in relation to existing arguments (all three papers, all critical response papers)

Course Readings
There is one required book, Deborah Boehm’s Intimate Migrations: Gender, Family, and Illegality among Transnational Migrants, available for purchase at the University District Bookstore and also on reserve at Robeson Library. The other readings are available electronically on reserve: https://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/course_reserves

Course Assignments
Please see the course assignments page at: https://caticoe.rutgers.edu/courses/immigration-and-families/immigration-and-families-assignments/

Course Schedule

September 5 Introduction
Personal connections to migration; how to have good discussions; what group will you study?
Class Resources: https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/index.xhtml, https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/community_facts.xhtml

To do by Thursday, September 7th at the latest:

WHY DO PEOPLE MIGRATE?

September 7
Reading: Portes, A., & Rumbaut, R. G. (1996). Introduction. In Immigrant America: A Portrait (pp. 1-27). Berkeley: University of California Press. (on reserve)

September 12
Look through these resources to help you figure out which group to study.
1) American Factfinder
2) Fels Institute of Government. (2004). Recent Trends in Immigration to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Who Came and Where do They Live? Philadelphia: Fels Institute of Government, University of Pennsylvania. (on reserve)
3) Katz, M. and M. J. Creighton. (n.d.) Philadelphia Migration Project. Powerpoint presentation. (on reserve)
Due: Which immigrant group are you going to study?
Meet at the Robeson Library to look at resources for research

September 14 The World Connected Economically: A Marxist Perspective
Readings:
1) Marx, K. (1953). Letter from Karl Marx to S. Meyer and A. Vogt, London, April 9, 1870. In Karl Marx and Frederick Engels on Britain (pp. 504-508). Moscow: Foreign Languages Press. (on reserve)
2) Lappé, F. M., & Collins, J. (1978). Why Can’t People Feed Themselves? and Isn’t Colonialism Dead? In Food First: Beyond the Myth of Scarcity (pp. 99-117). New York: Ballantine Books. (on reserve)
Film: “Harvest of Empire”: Selections on the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Mexico (2012), by Peter Getzels & Eduardo López 

September 19 The World Connected Politically
Reading: Sassen, S. (1998). America’s Immigrant ‘Problem.’ Globalization and its Discontents (pp. 31-53). New York: New Press. (on reserve)

September 21 The World Connected in the Imagination
Reading: Schielke, S. (2012). Engaging the World on the Alexandria Waterfront. In K. Graw and S. Schielke (eds), The Global Horizon: Expectations of Migration in Africa and the Middle East (pp. 175-191). Leuven: Leuven University Press (on reserve)
Class resources: A little context on Egypt powerpoint

September 26 Changes in the US Economy: The Informal Economy
Reading: Sassen, S. (1998). The Informal Economy: Between New Developments and Old Regulations. In Globalization and its Discontents (pp. 153-172). New York: New Press. (on reserve)
Due: Bibliography
Sign up for meeting with Professor Coe to discuss your migrant group.

HOW DOES IMMIGRATION LAW AND POLICY IN THE US AFFECT FAMILY LIFE?

September 28 Current immigration law and policy affecting families
Reading: Paral, R. (2005) “No Way In: US Immigration Policy Leaves Few Legal Options for Mexican Workers” American Immigration Law Foundation. (link)
Class Resources: Immigration Law powerpoint, Jason De Leon

October 3
Reading: Kwong, P. (1997). Ineffectual Enforcement of Immigration and Labor Law. In Forbidden Workers: Illegal Chinese Immigrants and American Labor (pp. 161-184). New York: The New Press. (on reserve)

October 5
Reading: Menjívar, C. and L. Abrego. (2009). Parents and Children across Borders: Legal Instability and Intergenerational Relations in Guatemalan and Salvadoran Families. In N. Foner (Ed.), Across Generations: Immigrant Families in America (pp. 160-189). New York: New York University. (on reserve)
Film: “Sin País (Without Country)” (2010) by Theo Rigby
Class resources: Executive Order on Deferred Action, Video on applying for deferred action

October 10
Class Resources: Map of Presentations, Stopwatch
Due: Background paper

October 12
Readings:
1) Kutsche, P. (1998). Map of a Block,
2) Danielkiewicz, H. (1998). A Changing Block in Standale and
3) Hill, E. (1998) In the Cracks. In P. Kutsche (Ed.), Field Ethnography: A Manual for Doing Cultural Anthropology. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 1998, pp. 14-26. (on reserve)
Neighborhood Survey assignment given
Class resources: American Factfinder

WHAT IS THE EFFECT OF TRANSNATIONALISM ON FAMILY LIFE? MEXICO AS A CASE STUDY

October 17 Definition of Transnationalism
Reading: Foner, N. (2000). Transnational Ties. In From Ellis Island to JFK: New York’s Two Great Waves of Immigration (pp. 169-187). New Haven: Yale University Press. (on reserve)

October 19 Case Study of Transnationalism: Mexicans in the United States
Reading: Boehm, D. (2012). Intimate Migrations: Gender, Family, and Illegality among Transnational Mexicans. New York: New York University Press. Introduction and Chapter 1, pp. 1-28.
Class Resources: San Luis Potosi

October 24
Reading: Intimate Migrations, Chapters 2 and 3, pp. 31-67.
Film: “Los Que Se Quedan (Those Who Remain)” by Juan Carlos Rulfo and Carlos Hagerman (2010)

October 26
Reading: Intimate Migrations, Chapters 4 and 5, pp. 71-108

October 31 Reading: Intimate Migrations, Chapters 6, 7. Conclusion and Postscript, pp. 111-152

November 2 Political Activism Back Home
Reading: Smith, R. C. (2006). The Defeat of Don Victorio: Transnationalization, Democratization, and Political Change. In Mexican New York: Transnational Lives of New Immigrants (pp. 76-93). Berkeley: University of California Press. (on reserve)
Film: “The Sixth Section/La Sexta Sección” (2003) by Alex Rivera

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN PEOPLE ARRIVE IN THE US?
Immigrants and Race

November 7 American’s Racial Classification System
Readings:
1) Jacobson, M. F. (1999). “Introduction: The Fabrication of Race.” Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race (pp. 1-12). Cambridge: Harvard University Press. (on reserve)
2) Laforest, M-H. (2001). Homelands. In E. Danticat (Ed.), The Butterfly’s Way: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States (pp. 23-30). New York: Soho. (on reserve)
Class Resources: How the Irish Became White powerpoint, AAA Race Project, American Anthropological Association’s Race Project, Mexican Census & Race

November 9 Segregated Neighborhoods and Schools
Reading: Waters, M. C. (1999). Segregated Neighborhoods and Schools. Black Identities: West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities (pp. 243-284). New York: Russell Sage. (on reserve)
Class resources: Assimilation, Race, and Social Mobility

The Second Generation

November 14 Language
Reading: Barnett, R. (2006). Language Ideology and Racial Inequality: Competing Functions of Spanish in an Anglo-Owned Mexican Restaurant. Language and Society 35: 163-204. (on reserve)

November 16
Reading: Zentella, A. C. (2007). Bilingualism en casa. In Blum, S. (ed), Making Sense of Language. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 150-162 (on reserve)
Class Resources: Language Use among Immigrants (use Portes and Stepick

November 21
Due: Neighborhood survey

November 23: Thanksgiving Break

November 28
Media assignment given
Ted Talk: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, “A Single Story” (2009)

November 30
NO CLASS: Professor Coe will be at the American Anthropological Association annual meeting in Washington DC. Use this time to begin researching the third paper.

December 5 Identities
Reading: Waters, M. C. (1999). Identities of the Second Generation. Black Identities: West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities (pp. 285-325). New York: Russell Sage. (on reserve)
Class resources: Assimilation to American Society powerpoint

Creative Ethnicity in the New World

December 7 The Uses of Culture as Communication
Reading: Theophano, J. S. (1991) “I Gave Him a Cake’: An Interpretation of Two Italian-American Weddings. In S. Stern and J. A. Cicala (eds). Creative Ethnicity (pp. 44-54). Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. (on reserve)

December 12  Public Cultural Display as Political
Reading: Cadaval, O. (1991). Making a Place Home: The Latino Festival. In S. Stern and J. A. Cicala (eds). Creative Ethnicity (pp. 204-222). Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press. (on reserve)
Film: “Look Forward and Carry On the Past: Stories from Philadelphia’s Chinatown” (2002) by the Philadelphia Folklore Project 
Class Resources: Ethnic Festivals, DC Latino Festival, FACTS charter school

December 21, 11:30-2:20 Final Exam day
Due: Media assignment. Presentations on the assignment given.