History 800: US Immigration History
Fall, 2011
Weds, 7-9:40
HLT 341
Dr. Rachel Buff
Office: HLT 313
rbuff@uwm.edu
Office hours: W 5-7
& by appointment
Course Description: This course is designed to introduce you to some key themes
and issues in the contemporary, shape-shifting field of im/migration studies. It
offers nothing like full coverage of a topic! Instead, I have assembled a range of
approaches to some of the central issues in/sites of historical studies of
im/migration today. We will be reflecting throughout the course on questions of
historiography and change.
Course Work:
1. Papers. The course is organized into three units. Towards the end of
each unit, students will write an 8-10 page paper synthesizing the
different readings we have done, and making an argument about how
the particular issues of each unit bear on the study of immigration
history. I will post suggestions and questions for each paper a week
before it is due. The papers should include reflection on the readings for
each workshop.
2. Thematic Workshops: There are three thematic workshops scheduled at
the end of each unit. Students are expected to come in ready to discuss
the key issues of the workshop, based on the readings assigned, and on
their work on the unit paper due the preceding Monday.
3. Class Presentations: Each student will sign up to lead a week’s
discussion. The week you sign up for, you will come to class with a
particularly informed understanding of all the week’s readings, with
thoughtful questions for discussion, and connections to prior discussions
and readings.
4. Bibliographic Essay: Each student will develop a bibliographic essay (1015 pages)on a topic of individual interest. You should try to link this
assignment to your thesis or dissertation plans. This essay will outline
the topic and discuss its treatment in the relevant and available
literature, as well as the lacunae in this literature.
5. Class Participation: This is graduate school. I assume everyone wants to
be doing this. Attendance is requisite and expected except in cases of
personal, political and/or national emergency. Participation is equally
crucial: all students are expected to have read the assigned readings,
engaged reflectively on them, and arrive in class with questions and
comments to facilitate our collective engagement.
6. Meeting with Instructor: Every student should meet with me, in office
hours, at least once during the semester, to discuss the course & your
particular interests.
Readings: All the course books- listed under “Schedule”- are available at People’s
Bookstore on Locust Ave. However, you may want to purchase them used online. Citations for all articles are available through RefWorks; many of them are
available full-text; the rest will be available through our D2L page.
Schedule
September 7
September 14
Introduction
Historical Survey
Read: Roger Daniels, Guarding the Golden Door
 Kitty Calavita, “Collisions at the Intersection of Gender,
Race, and Class: Enforcing the Chinese Exclusion Laws”
 Mae Ngai, “The Architecture of Race in American
Immigration Law: A Reexamination of the Immigration
Act of 1924”
September 21
Read: Erika Lee, At America’s Gates
 Anna Pegler-Gordon, “Chinese Exclusion, Photography,
and the Development of U.S. Immigration Policy”
September 28
NO CLASS: ROSH HASHONA
Work on short paper #1, due Monday, October 3
October 5
Workshop #1: Nation and Transnation in Immigration
Historiography
Read:
 Eiichiro Azuma, “The Politics of Transnational History
Making: Japanese Immigrants on the Western "Frontier,"
1927-1941
 Elliot Barkan, “[Immigration, Incorporation, Assimilation,
and the Limits of Transnationalism]: Introduction”
 Matthew Frye Jacobson, “More "Trans-," Less "National"
 Donna Gabaccia, “Do We Still Need Immigration
History?”
 Kevin Kenny, “Diaspora and Comparison: The Global
Irish as a Case Study”
October 12
Read: Margot Canaday, The Straight State
Gender, Sexuality & Migration
October 19
Read: Jennifer Guglielmo, Living the Revolution
Short Paper #2 due Monday, October 14
October 26
Workshop#2: Gender and Sexuality in
Immigration Historiography
Read:
 Donna Gabaccia & Vicki Ruiz, “Migrations and
Destinations: Reflections on the Histories of U.S.
Immigrant Women”
 George Anthony Pfeffer, “From under the Sojourner's
Shadow: A Historiographical Study of Chinese Female
Immigration to America, 1852-1882”
 Jeanne Petit, “Breeders, Workers, and Mothers: Gender
and the Congressional Literacy Test Debate, 1896-1897”
 Siobhan Somerville, “Notes toward a Queer History of
Naturalization”
 Marc Stein, “All the Immigrants Are Straight, All the
Homosexuals Are Citizens, But Some of Us Are Queer
Aliens: Genealogies of Legal Strategy in Boutilier v. INS”
 Cecilia Tsu, “Sex, Lies, and Agriculture: Reconstructing
Japanese Immigrant Gender Relations in Rural California,
1900–1913”
Critical Refuge Studies Conference November 3-4
November 2
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November 9
Read:
Long T. Bui, “Refugee Bodily Orbits”
William A. Hunter, “Refugee Fox Settlements among the
Senecas”
Valur Ingimundarson,“Cold War Misperceptions: The
Communist and Western Responses to the East German
Refugee Crisis in 1953”
Isabel Kaprielian-Churchill, “Armenian Refugee Women: The
Picture Brides, 1920-1930”
Building Borders, Constructing Citizens
Read: George Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American

November 16
November 23
Natalia Molina, “"In a Race All Their Own": The Quest to
Make Mexicans Ineligible for U.S. Citizenship”
Read: John McGreevy, Parish Boundaries
THANKSGIVING
November 30
Read: Franca Iacovetta, Gatekeepers
December 7
Read: Kelly Lytle Hernandez, Migra!
 Rachel Ida Buff, “The Deportation Terror”
 Mae Ngai, “The Strange Career of the Illegal Alien:
Immigration Restriction and Deportation Policy in the
United States, 1921-1965”
Paper #3 due Monday, December 12
December 14
Workshop #3: Ethnicity and Race in Immigration History
Read:
 Ronald Bayor, “Another Look at "Whiteness": The
Persistence of Ethnicity in American Life”
 Barbara J. Fields, “Whiteness, Racism, and Identity”
 Victoria Hattam, “Whiteness: Theorizing Race, Eliding
Ethnicity”
 Mary McCune, “Immigrants, Family, and "Ellis Island
Whiteness"”
 Sarah Gualtieri, “Becoming "White": Race, Religion and
the Foundations of Syrian/Lebanese Ethnicity in the
United States”
 Monica Varsanyi, “Rescaling the ‘Alien’, Rescaling
Personhood: Neoliberalism, Immigration, and the State
December 21
Bibliographic Essays Due to D2L dropbox