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United States Immigration History

Course Description

An introduction to the history of immigration in the United States. It will touch on many issues, including citizenship and immigrant rights, immigration policy, refugees, race, ethnicity and acculturation, U.S. borders, immigrant labor, and more.

Athena Title

U.S. Immigration History

Equivalent Courses

Not open to students with credit in HIST 3010H

Pre or Corequisite

HIST 2111 or HIST 2112 or HIST 2720 or HIST 2701 or HIST 2702 or HIST 2311H or HIST 2312H or HIST 2301 or HIST 2302 or HIST 2701H or HIST 2702H or POLS 1101 or any INTL course

Grading System

A - F (Traditional)

Student Learning Outcomes

  • By the end of this course, students will be able to arrive at conclusions about the history of immigration by gathering and weighing evidence, logical argument, and listening to counter argument.
  • By the end of this course, students will be able to write stylistically appropriate papers and essays. Students will be able to analyze ideas and evidence, organize their thoughts, and revise and edit their finished essays.
  • By the end of this course, students will be able to identify how the history of immigration has shaped social and cultural identities, encouraging them to understand diverse worldviews and experiences.
  • By the end of this course, students will be able to apply appropriate methodological approaches to their analysis of primary sources and to organize their evidence to show historical continuities and discontinuities.

Topical Outline

  • Myths and Models
  • Choice and Coercion in Early America
  • We the People
  • The Invention of Ethnicity
  • From Famine to Feast?
  • Making White Ethnics
  • Making Borders
  • Barbarians at the Gate or Inside It
  • Barring the Gates (or Not)
  • Out of This Furnace
  • The Great Wave
  • Inventing Modern Man
  • Blood and Nation
  • Mass Culture and Immigrant Culture
  • The President Wants You to Organize
  • Constructing Borders and Aliens
  • Perpetual Aliens
  • Immigration and the Cold War
  • An Immigrant Revolution?
  • Struggles in the Fields
  • Families and Cultural Borders
  • Families and International Borders
  • Lockdown
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