History 3317
The Making of Ethnic America

Steven Mintz
548 Agnes Arnold Hall
743-3109
SMintz@UH.Edu


Course Description

America's cultural identity embraces people of diverse backgrounds: African, Asian, European, and indigenous American. Our culture has been shaped by the interaction of many different cultural and religious groups. Our art, clothing, holidays, language, literature, music, and sports reflect the commingling of diverse ethnic, racial, religious, and cultural groups within one nation.

This course examines the interaction of the country's diverse ethnic and religious communities over a period of four centuries. From earliest settlement, ethnic diversity has been one of America's defining characteristics. No other part of the world has even begun to attract as many immigrants and refugees. This course will explore the historical experience of America's ethnic groups prior to their arrival in this country; it will examine when and why these groups came to the United States, their relations with other ethnic groups, and their contributions to American culture.

Multicultural approaches to American history have recently been criticized for promoting the fragmentation of American life. Many fear that a long-held national idealof forging unity out of diversity, embodied in the phrase E Pluribus Unum that appears on the Great Seal of the United Stateswill be impossible in the face of a declining sense of community and heightened ethnic and racial consciousness. Many worry that a history that emphasizes ethnicity threatens to divide our society and disrupt a sense of common American identity. Others fear that multicultural history will simply catalog past suffering and discrimination and will therefore reinforce feelings of victimization and resentment.

In fact, a multicultural approach to American history and culture can serve many positive purposes. By correcting historical myths and misconceptions, it can help combat bigotry and ethnocentrism and teach us to value our nation's diversity. By making history more inclusive, it can broaden our perspective, allowing us to see through other peoples' eyes, and therefore temper cultural misunderstandings. Above all, it can help us understand how contemporary American culture emerged out of a complex process of interaction, blending, and adaptation among communities with diverse cultural heritages.

The question of how diverse people can live tolerantly and cooperatively with each other in multicultural societies is one of the most pressing issues in the world today. In societies as different as Canada, Rwanda, and the former Yugoslavia, ethnic antagonisms deeply divide nations. In a world in which mass migration is rapidly increasing ethnic diversity, American history can serve as a laboratory for exploring the problems of how people of differing racial, religious, and ethnic back
grounds can interact in a single nation. By looking at the way different groups interactedsometimes peacefully, sometimes violentlyat various times in America's past, students will better understand how the nation's cultural diversity has shaped the our history, culture, identity, and values.

The United States has always been a multi-ethnic society. In 1782, Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, expressed amazement at Americans' diversity, encompassing people drawn from virtually every European country and Africa. In recent years, our population has grown even more diverse. Today, the United States draws a million new immigrants to its borders each year. And as new Americans join the nation's simmering ethnic stew, America's identity and culture is redefined and reconfigured.

Unlike societies that have more rigidly-defined identities and cultures, the United States has always been engaged in an on- going process of national self-definition. This country differs from other nations in that it is possible to become an American in a way that it is not possible for an immigrant to become "English" or "German." As new groups of people add their voices to the national conversation, our national identity and culture have been repeatedly redefined. This historical process continues today.



Course Goals

This course is designed to introduce students to the experiences of the diverse ethnic communities that make up the American people and their contributions to the creation of American identity and culture. It seeks to enable students to achieve the following goals:

1. Foster an appreciation of our country's rich cultural diversity;

2. Familiarize students with the diverse historical experiences and cultural achievements of ethnic communities that have played important roles in our nation's history, including African Americans, Asian Americans, Mexican Americans, Native Americans, German Americans, Irish Americans, Italian Americans, and Jewish Americans;

3. Increase students' ability to integrate the histories of distinct ethnic communities into the narrative of American history;

4. Help students understand how contemporary American culture grew out of a complex process of cultural interaction, blending, and syncretism.

5. Develop students' critical thinking and essay-writing skills.

Course Requirements

Midterm Examination:

All students must take a proctored midterm examination, which will be given on Saturday, July 12, from 9-10:30 a.m. in the Kiva in Farish Hall (on the first floor of the College of Education). This is where the exam will take place, despite what the broadcast tape will say.

This examination will include multiple choice, identification, and essay questions covered in the lectures and readings. Students taking the course in Galveston will be able to take the exam there.

Final Examination:

All students must also take a take-home second examination due no later than 5 p.m., Tuesday, August 5, 1997, in Room 102 Continuing Education.

Required Reading

For the Midterm Examination:

Steven Mintz, ed., African American Voices: The Life Cycle of Slavery. (Revised Edition, St. James., New York: Brandywine Press, 1996)

Steven Mintz, ed., Native American Voices, 1-31, 47-129. (St. James., New York: Brandywine Press, 1995)

For the Final Examination:

Steven Mintz, ed., Native American Voices, 31-45, 131-178.(St. James., New York: Brandywine Press, 1995)

Morton & Duncan, eds., First Person Past, Vol. 2, 133-210. (St. James., New York: Brandywine Press, 1996)

Calendar of Lectures and Readings

LECTURE 1. Broadcast Wednesday, May 31, 1:00-3:35 a.m., KUHT

Ethnicity in the United States
Migration in Comparative Perspective
Conceiving of diversity: Americanization, The Melting Pot, Pluralism
Key concepts: Ethnicity, Minority, Race, Ethnocentrism, Prejudice, Discrimination, Pluralism
Native Americans
Conflicting European Images
Assimilation and Conversion
Native American responses
Two Worlds Collide
Impact of Eurasian Diseases
Cultures of Prehistoric America
Kinship and Religion

LECTURE 2. Broadcast Wednesday, June 7.

Native Americans
Indian?White Relations: Spanish, French, English
Phases of Conflict
Transformation of Native American Life
Strategies for Survival
Slavery
Color Prejudice in European Culture
Defining Slavery
Slavery in Historical Perspective
The Atlantic Slave Trade
African Origins
Emergence of an African American Culture
Slavery as a Legal Status

LECTURE 3. Broadcast Wednesday, June 14.

Colonial America as a Multicultural Society
Ancestry of the Colonists
Regional distinctiveness: Speech, Naming, Leisure, Schooling, Food and Dress
Formation of an African American Culture
Language of Acculturation: acculturation, cultural survival, syncretism
Resistance to slavery
Causes of the Revolution
Impact of the Revolution
Racial Prejudice in Early America

LECTURE 4. Broadcast Wednesday, June 21.

Irish Americans
Consolidation of English Power
Ireland to 1845
The Great Famine
Migration to the United States
Correcting Myths
Employment, Family, Religion, Politics
German Americans
Motives for Migration
Composition of the Immigrants
Germans and the Labor Movement
Divisions within the German?American Community
Family, Leisure
Immigrants and Reformers

LECTURE 5. Broadcast Wednesday, June 28.

Mexican Americans to 1910
Revising Texas History
Spain's New World Empire
Impact of the Mexican Revolution
Arrival of Anglo?Americans
U.S.?Mexico Conflicts
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
Gadsden Purchase
Immigration and Employment
Distinctive Features of Mexican Immigration
19th Century Mexican American Experience
Land Loss and Economic Decline
Resistance

LECTURE 6. Broadcast Wednesday, July 6., and Saturday, July 8.

Slavery and Its Aftermath
Plantation Legend
Image vs. Reality
Decline of Antislavery Sentiment in the South
Legal Status of Slaves
Slave Labor
Conditions of Life Under Slavery
Slave Families and Slave Children
Religion
Punishment and Resistance

MIDTERM EXAMINATION. SATURDAY, JULY 8, 9 a.m.-10:30 a.m.

117 S&R I (Science and Research I), 9?10:30 a.m.
This is where the exam will take place, despite what the broadcast tape says.

Lectures 1-6 will be covered on the mid-term examination.

LECTURE 7. Broadcast Wednesday, July 12.

Chinese Americans
Key Themes in the Asian American Experience
Asia as a Source of Labor
Chinese Migration
The Migrants
Contrasts: Chinese and Japanese Migrants
The 19th Century Experience: Migration, Reception, Labor
Legal Exclusion

LECTURE 8. Broadcast Saturday, July 15. (75 minute lecture)

The Treatment of Ethnicity in U.S. History Textbooks

LECTURE 9. Broadcast Wednesday, July 19.

Jewish Americans
Antisemitism in Historical Perspective
Jews in Early America
Strategies for Acceptance
Jewish Role in Economic, Social, and Cultural Modernization
Acceptance, Assimilation, and Cultural Identity
Conflicting Ideals: Meritocracy, Equality, Pluralism, and Americanization

LECTURE 10. Broadcast Saturday, July 22.

Native Americans
White Settlement of the Far West
Reservation Policy
Shifting Military Balance
End of a Way of Life
Ethnocide: Education, the Dawes Act
Native Americans in the 20th Century
Nadir of American Race Relations, 1880 - 1924
Scapegoats: The Corporation, The City, The Immigrant, Race
Anti?Immigrant Reaction

LECTURE 11. Broadcast Wednesday, July 26.

Italian Americans
Italy
Comparison: Italians and Irish
Birds of Passage
Immigrant Experience
Slovak Americans
Life in Homestead, Pennsylvania
Immigrants and Workers in Industrial America
Oscar Handlin and the Revisionist Historians
Thomas Bell, OUT OF THIS FURNACE
World of Work
Life Outside the Factor
Unionization

LECTURE 12. Broadcast Saturday, July 29.

Mexican Americans in the Twentieth Century
Cesar Chavez and La Causa
Mexican Immigration after 1900: Push and Pull Factors
Migrations and Deportations
Organizations and Institutions
Labor Activism
Bracero Program
Mexican Americans Since 1960

LECTURE 13. Broadcast Wednesday, August 2.

Japanese Americans
Meiji Japan
The Nisei Generation
Contrasts: Hawaii and the Mainland
Ethnic Solidarity and Mutual Support
Prejudice
Internment
Contrasts: Japanese Americans and Chinese Americans

LECTURE 14. Broadcast Saturday, August 5.

The Struggle for Racial Justice
Strategies: Accommodation, Integration, Nationalism
The Great Migration
The "Last" Immigrants?
The "Forgotten Years" of the Civil Rights Struggle
The Civil Rights Movement
The Great Society
White Backlash

LECTURE 15. Broadcast Wednesday, August 9.

The "Newest" Immigration: Immigration since 1965
The "Model" Minority: Asian Americans in the Contemporary United States
American Apartheid: Ethnicity and Caste in the Contemporary United States

FINAL EXAM DUE NO LATER THAN 3 p.m., Friday, August 12 in 523 Agnes Arnold Hall.

Review Sheet
First Examination
Lectures 1-6

Key Concepts:

Americanization
Ethnicity
Ethnocentrism
The Melting Pot
Minority
Pluralism
Prejudice
Race

Study Questions:

Native Americans

1. What myths and misconceptions do many Americans hold about Native American history?

2. What contributions have Native Americans made to diet, medicine, art, architecture, and ecology?

3. When did Native Americans arrive in the New World? Where did they come from? Did they arrive all at once?

4. Identify the major cultures of prehistoric America.

5. Describe the role of kinship in Native American societies.

6. How did Native American religions differ from European religions?

7. Describe the consequences of contact between Europeans and Native Americans--on eating habits, trade, the natural environment.

8. Why were Native Americans so susceptible to European diseases?

9. How and why did relations between Native Americans and colonists from Spain, France, and England differ?

10. Describe the strategies that Native Americans adapted to respond to declining populations and a loss of land.

11. Identify the "removal" policy and explain why it was adopted.

African Americans

1. Describe how "modern" slavery in the New World differed from slavery in the ancient and non-western world.

2. Describe the role Africans played in the settlement and development of the New World.

3. Describe how European slave traders acquired slaves.

4. Identify the "Middle Passage."

5. What was the impact of the slave trade on European economies?

6. Explain why Europeans introduced slavery into their New World colonies. Was it inevitable that Europeans would rely on a slave labor force?

7. How clearly defined was the status of slaves in the 17th century?

8. Describe the material conditions of life under slavery.

9. What was the impact of slavery on the slave family?

10. Compare and contrast slavery in Latin America and the United States.

11. How did slaves resist slavery?

12. Was slavery profitable? Was it a waning institution?

13. Describe the impact ofthe slave trade on West African society.

Colonial America as a Multicultural Society

1. Cite specific examples to show that colonial America was a multicultural society.

2. How did colonial America's multicultural character contribute to the coming of the American Revolution?

3. Why, if colonial America contained a multiplicity of ethnic groups, did English culture dominate?

Irish Americans

1. Why did Irish women and men migrate to the United States?

2. What were the distinctive characteristics of Irish immigrants?

3. Where did Irish immigrants settle and what kinds of occupations did they take?

4. Why did Irish immigrants face particularly bitter hostility?

5. Why did Irish Catholic immmigrants and their descendants take a particularly active role in American politics?

German Americans

1. What were the primary reasons why Germans migrated to the United States?

2. Where did they settle? Why?

3. What occupations were German immigrants and their descants particularly likely to take? Why?

4. Identify distinctive German contributions to American culture.

Mexican Americans

1. Why did Spain's empire north of Mexico fail to develop economically?

2. How did Mexicans in the Southwest respond to the Mexican War?

3. Why did the economic status of Mexicans and Mexican Americans in the Southwest decline after the Mexican War?

4. What is a "social bandit" and how is this figure relevant to Mexican American history?


History 3317
THE MAKING OF ETHNIC AMERICA
Final Examination

DUE DATE: No later than 3 p.m., Friday, August 12, in 523 Agnes Arnold Hall.

INSTRUCTIONS: This is an open book, open note, take?home examination. You are, however, neither to give nor receive assistance. Write essays on EACH part of this examination. Each essay must be at least 2 double-spaced type pages in length; a thorough essay will probably be 3-4 pages in length.

Part I. NATIVE AMERICANS (25 Points)

Initially, white Americans treated Native Americans with more respect than other non-white peoples (for example, by recognizing tribal government, signing treaties, and expressing admiration for many aspects of Native American cultures). And yet, by every socio-economic measure, Native Americans wound up worse off than other non-white groups. Explain why this was the case. Your essay should deal with military relations, reform activities, and the impact of specific government policies, focusing on the 19th and 20th centuries.

Part II. AFRICAN AMERICANS (25 Points)

W.E.B. DuBois called African Americans "the last of the immigrants." In an essay, assess the validity of the analogy between African Americans and foreign immigrants. Examine in detail contemporary differences between the experience of African Americans and other immigrant groups.

Part III. MEXICAN AMERICANS (25 Points)

Compare and contrast the Mexican American experience with that of African Americans and of Italian Americans during the 20th century in terms of their treatment by the surrounding culture, their sense of identity, and their political and economic success. Explain the similarities and differences.

Part IV. CONTRASTING IMMIGRANT EXPERIENCES (25 Points)

In an essay, compare and contrast the experience of THREE of the following ethnic groups -- Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, Italian Americans, and Jewish Americans -- in terms of their motives for immigration, the composition of the immigrant population, their "social" and "cultural" capital, the ways that they organized their communities, and their experience and reception in the United States.

 Steven Mintz     Copyright 2004