AT SEMESTER SEA COURSE SYLLABUS Discipline: Anthropology Semester and Year: Summer 2007 Course Number and Title: Immigration in Comparative Perspective (Upper division) Faculty Name: Leo R. Chavez Please follow the layout of this syllabus as closely as possible. The specific information contained on these pages must be copied and distributed to various departments handling book orders and designing the field program. Please insure that required textbooks appear on page 4, additional readings for the library to purchase are on page 5, and articles and chapters to be scanned for the electronic course folder are on page 6. ****************************** Is any previous course work or experience indispensable for success in this course? NO Suggested Pre-requisites:
COURSE DESCRIPTION The late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have been a time of large-scale movements of people in the world. Latin Americans, in particular, are experiencing immigration and, more often, emigration to the United States and Europe. This course will provide students with an understanding of the causes and continuation of migration of people across national borders. We will examine legal migration, clandestine migration, and refugee migration by people in most of the countries on the Semester At Sea itinerary. We will explore why people migrate and the impact it has on the migrants lives, the lives of the people where they move, and the lives of those left behind. We will explore how migration introduces change in many directions, including in gender relations and community life. Transnational networks are important, as some migrants manage to maintain important connections with life back in their communities of origin, as we will explore for Mexico and Peru. Many migrants move to take advantage of labor opportunities, but the Otavalo Indian merchants of Ecuador offer an example of an entrepreneurial diaspora. Latin American countries have also been sites of immigration, as we will explore with the Nicaraguans in Costa Rica and the Japanese in Peru. Recent policy debates in the United States over immigration will also be examined in relation to Latin American immigration. Student projects will examine specific issues of transnational migration by comparing at least three of the countries on the Semester At Sea itinerary.
COURSE OBJECTIVES Students will gain an appreciation of the complex variables involved in transnational migration.
How migration impacts both the sending countries and the receiving countries will be stressed, as well as the ethnographic or experiential aspect of migration. Students will gain an understanding of national differences and similarities among various countries in Latin America that both send and receive immigrants.
PAGE 2 TOPICAL OUTLINE OF COURSE: The outline should include topics for each class meeting, questions to be addressed, a list of the readings for the course, and a list of assignments. On roundthe-world voyages there will be 75-minute class meetings every other day at sea, with approximately 23 sessions, including the final exam. On summer voyages there will be 75-minute class meetings every day at sea, totaling approximately 23 sessions, including the final exam. Class 1, June 19: Introduction to the course themes and syllabus; begin overview of immigration to U.S. Read: Chavez, Culture change and cultural reproduction: Lessons from research on transnational migration. [RESERVE] Class 2: Migration Theory Read: Douglas S. Massey, Jorge Durand, and Nolan J. Malone, Chapter 2 in Beyond Smoke and Mirrors. [RESERVE] ****MEXICO**** Class 3: Mexican Immigration Read: Chavez, Shadowed Lives Video: Pedro J. Gonzalez Class 4: Continue overview of immigration to the U.S Video: Uneasy Neighbors Class 5: Immigration policy Read: Leo Chavez, The Spectacle in the Desert. [RESERVE] Class 6: Transnational Migration Circuits Read: Peggy Levitt and Nina Glick Schiller, Conceptualizing Simultaneity: A Transnational Social Field Perspective on Society. [RESERVE] ****PANAMA**** Class 7: Migration and Ecuador Read: Anthony Hall, Globalized Lives: The Case of Ecuador. [RESERVE]
Class 8: Global Merchants Read: David Kyle, The Otavalo Trade Diaspora. [RESERVE] ****ECUADOR**** Class 9: Ecuador re-considered and REVIEW Class 10: MIDTERM Class 11: Gender Transitions
Read: Jennifer Hirsch, En el norte la mujer manda. Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, Im here and there: The meaning of transnational motherhood. [RESERVE] Class 12: READ: Ong, Cultural Citizenship. [RESERVE] Class 13: READ: Richard A. Shweder, The Moral Challenge in Cultural Migration. [RESERVE]
****CHILE**** Class 14 Peru Read: Douglas Massey and Chiara Capoferro, Salvase Quien Pueda: Structural Adjustment and Emigration from Lima. ANNALS AAPSS 60:116-127, 2006. [RESERVE] Class 15: Peru Read: Ayumi Takenaka, Transnational Community and its Ethnic The Consequences: Return Migration and Transformation of Ethnicity of Japanese Peruvians. [RESERVE] Class 16: Peru Transnational Migrants Video: Transnational Fiesta ****PERU**** Class 17: El Norte, the beginning. Class 18: READ: Sarah Mahler, Migration and Transnational Issues: Recent Trends and Prospects for 2020. [RESERVE]
Class 19: READ: Carlos Sandoval Garcia, Contested Discourses on National Identity: Representing Nicaraguan Migration to Costa Rica. [RESERVE] ****COSTA RICA**** Class 20: READ: Jennifer Lundquist and Douglas Massey, Politics or Economics? International Migration during the Nicaraguan Contra War. [RESERVE] ****NICARAGUA**** Class 21: READ: Cecilia Menjivar, Liminal legality: Salvadoran and Guatemalan immigrants' lives in the United States. [RESERVE] Read: Genevieve Gilbert and Harald Bauder, Representations of Labor Migration in Guatemalan and American Media. [RESERVE] ****GUATEMALA**** Class 22 REVIEW
Class 23 FINAL
PAGE 3 FIELD COMPONENT: Twenty percent of the contact hours for each course is provided by field work. Please describe how the field component is integrated into the course and list the kinds of course-related activities and assignments that your students will conduct while in port. What do you envision students doing in these activities and how will they be assessed? (Approximately six months prior to voyage departure, the ISE Field Office will work with you to further develop your specific field activities and detailed field requirements.) 1. Gather information on immigration and emigration. Sources: newspapers, magazines, casual conversations with local students, people they meet. More formal interviews with local university contacts. 2. Systematically observe restaurants, stores, constructions site, agricultural sites, and other places where immigrants may be employed. 3. Conduct informal interviews with local people about the impact of emigration and/or immigration on the their lives. These can be undertaken with local students and others who attend Semester-At-Sea-sponsored events. This information will be crucial for the paper assignment for the class, and for class discussions.
METHODS OF EVALUATION: Please provide details on grading, including a definition of class participation if class participation is to constitute a significant part of the course grade. Grades will be based on class participation, exams, and a paper. Reaction papers Midterm Final Comparative research paper Reaction papers Students must write one paragraph (4-8 sentences) summary/response for each reading. It is expected that these brief summaries can be folded in to the final paper. .The reaction papers will also prepare students for class discussions. Final papers Final papers will compare issues of immigration and/or emigration among three countries on the summer voyage. Papers should be a maximum of 10 pages. 20% 30% 30% 20%
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