Ethnic Studies 102:
Transnational Migrations: Asian-, Arab-, Euro-American and Latino Identities
Spring, 2016
NWQ 6590
Professor:
Dr. Rachel Buff
office hours: W 10-12
& by appointment
MW 12:30-1:45
Office: Holton Hall 313
rbuff@uwm.edu
Course Overview:
This course is organized around the question of refugees and stateless people, both
in the present and in the past. This question will inform our investigation of transnational
migrations in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.
Course Objectives
Among the objectives of the course are the following:
1. students will gain an understanding of the meanings of race and ethnicity in
contemporary and historical perspective
2. students will become familiar with differences in the experiences of im/migrant
groups
3. students will understand the significance of transnational migration to labor,
domestic life, and national security issues.
One of the more significant learning goals of this course is that you will develop an
understanding of contemporary cultural diversity, in the United States and the world.
Additionally, you will understand the challenges of multicultural national life for public
policy, as well as the challenges of acculturation and assimilation to specific im/migrant
groups. Examinations and papers are designed to help students think these issues through
in their own words.
General Education Requirements
This course carries Humanities and Cultural Diversity GER accreditation.
Policies
Attendance: This is a smaller class and we will be doing many in-class discussion and active
learning exercises. Students who miss more than three classes will negatively impact their
grades.
Late Assignments: Late work will be graded down at the rate of ½ grade every day.
Exceptions: Of course there are always exceptions to such policies. These exceptions will
need to be documented with notes from doctors, police officers, or other institutional state
apparati.
Course Work
Preparation
A college course is made up of lectures, discussions, course readings, in-class presentations
and written work. In some courses, you are assigned a textbook, which pretty much covers
the material you are responsible for the semester. Students read the textbook, listen to the
professor explain it, and take exams that come out of the material covered by lectures and
the textbook.
This course does not work this way. It is arranged so that readings, papers, exams,
lectures, and discussions complement, rather than echo, one and other. That means that
students must engage with this class on several different fronts: by reading, discussing,
writing, and actively listening during lectures.
During lectures, you should be prepared to take notes. This means writing down
central concepts: NOT EVERYTHING! Before class starts, it’s useful to go back over your notes
from the previous class, paying special attention to things you didn’t understand or wanted
to discuss further. If you have a question about something, the overwhelming likelihood is
that someone else does, too! Active listening means that you think critically about what you
are hearing and how it fits into your understanding of what is going on. I encourage students
to ask questions or contribute to lectures with pertinent discussion. I will often call on
students in class.
Readings should be completed before the class meeting on which they are listed on
the syllabus. Completing readings means scanning the pages, as well as underlining
important and/or controversial ideas in the text. You are required to complete a reading
quiz before Wednesday’s class each week (with exceptions listed in the syllabus). You are
also required to bring an index card with a discussion question based on the readings to
class each Wednesday. These index cards (preferably brightly colored) should be handed in
at the end of class each week.
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Readings
There are three books for this course:
Eric Tang: Unsettled: Cambodian Refugees in the NYC Hyperghetto
Reyna Grande, Across a Hundred Mountains
Moustafa Bayoumi, This Muslim American Life
All other course readings are available through D2L
D2L Site
This syllabus and all assignments will be posted to the “content” component of the course
D2L website. I also post my PowerPoint presentations to D2L after each lecture.
Assignments: All assignments must be completed in order for a student to receive a
passing grade for this course. Incomplete work of any kind will result in failure, no matter
what mathematical wizardry is exhibited in calculating a final grade without it.
Discussion Preparation: Each student is expected to come to section with the week’s
readings. Electronic reserve readings may be printed out; otherwise, please bring the book
we are reading at the time.
Additionally, students should come to section with the above-mentioned index card
with discussion questions/ideas. Students may skip this assignment up to three times
without negatively affecting their participation grade.
Reading quizzes: All students are required to take a reading quiz on the week’s readings;
during the last week of class, this quiz will be a “listening quiz” on the Refugee Project
Presentations. The quiz will be available @ D2L Monday evening; it will be open until class
commences on Wednesday. You can miss up to two of the quizzes without it affecting your
grade.
Papers: There are three papers for this class. The first is media analysis paper called
Buzzwords at the Border. The second is a response paper to the novel we will read over
spring break, Across a Hundred Mountains. The third is part of the group Refugee Research
Project: each person will submit an individual paper as well as participating in the group
presentations for the last week of class.
Assignment sheets for these papers are available at our D2L site.
Two Exams: These exams will ask students to incorporate and synthesize material from
course readings and lectures. Material on exams will include: materials from discussion, inclass videos and the three films. We will be talking about the exams in class; students will
have a good sense of the direction of the questions to be asked in advance.
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Evaluation
2 Papers (@15%)
Refugee Research Project
(paper + presentation)
Two exams (@ 15%)
Reading quizzes
Attendance/participation
30%
15%
30%
15%
10%
Schedule:
(all readings not in course books available @ our D2L site)
Week 1, Jan 25-27:
Introduction to Critical Refugee Studies
 Read: Yen Le Espiritu, “About Ghost Stories: The Vietnam
War and ‘Rememoration’”
 Libby Garland, from After they Closed the Gates
 Immortal Technique “About” @ website
 Watch/Listen: “Open Your Eyes” video
Reading quiz due before class Wednesday
Week 2, Feb 1-3:
Key Words & Ideas
Read:
UNHCR website:
 “About Us”
 “History”
 “1951 Conference on the Status of Refugees”
Watch/Listen:
 “Take a Minute,”
 Knaan short biographical video
Reading quiz due before class Wednesday
Week 3, Feb 8-10:
Media Representations
Read: Lisa Flores, “Constructing Rhetorical Borders”
Buzzwords and Borders Paper due Friday, Feb 12 by noon
NO READING QUIZ
Week 4, Feb 15-17:
Read: Eric Tang, Refugee in the Hyperghetto (RH), p. 1-52
Reading quiz due before class Wednesday
Week 5, Feb 22-24:
Read: RH 52-95
Reading quiz due before class Wednesday
Week 6, Feb 29
Read: RH 95- conclusion
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-Mar 1:
Reading quiz due before class Wednesday
Week 7, Mar 7-9:
Read:
 Melissa Fleming, “The Other Refugee Crisis”
 Gabriel Shivone, “Then and Now: US Policy Towards Central
America Fuels Refugee Crisis”
Watch:
 “Behind the Scenes: How it Feels to be an Artist Dreaming”
 La Santa Cecelia: “ICE/El Hielo”
NO READING QUIZ
Take home #1 Due Friday by noon
Week 8, Mar 14-16:
Border Speculations: Sleep Dealer
Read:
 Lysa Rivera, “Future Histories and Cyborg Labor”
Reading quiz due before class Wednesday
SPRING BREAK
Read: Across a Hundred Mountains
Week 9, March 28-30:
Nativisms
Read:
 Roger Daniels, “The Golden Door Closes and Opens”
 Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR)
website
Week 10, April 4-6:
Weds: meet in small groups for Refugee Research Project
Week 11, April 11-13:
Read: This Muslim American Life, intro & part I
Reading quiz due before class Wednesday
Week 12, April 18-20:
Read: TMAL, pt 2-3
Reading quiz due before class Wednesday
Week 13, April 25-27
Finish TMAL
NO READING QUIZ
Take Home #2 due Friday by noon
Week 14, May 2-4
Refugee Research Projects
Listening quiz due Thursday @ midnight
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Week 15, May 9
Summarizing and concluding
Refugee Research Project Papers due to D2L Dropbox by Sunday, May 15 @ Midnight
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