ANTH 407D U.S.-Mexico Border

Spring 2009

Assoc. Prof. Doug Smith

Department of Anthropology

HSS 214

503-838-8372

smithw@wou.edu

Office hours: MW 9:00-10:00, TR 2-3, or by appointment

Description

This course will examine contemporary political, economic, social, and cultural issues germane to U.S.-Mexico border and to border crossing. We will look in particular at questions of migration and immigration in the post-NAFTA context, including the experience of (primarily) Mexicans in the U.S. To background the nature of the border at the turn of the millennium, topics such as recent Mexican political and economic history, border industrialization, the drug trade, and environmental problems will receive attention, as will attitudes in the United States toward the border as a geography of uncertainty. Questions of gender, race, ethnicity, and class will be central to the course. All together, the course will explore the borderlands as a dynamic zone of contact between people from different cultural and social backgrounds. The course should be of interest to students seeking to understand U.S.-Mexico relations, the current immigration reform debate, the influences of the growing Latino demographic on culture and society in the U.S., and current worldwide social processes produced by globalization.

Course Objectives

· To learn key historic patterns of migration within Mexico and between Mexico and the United States

· To develop an awareness of the larger political and economic forces that influence patterns of migration

· To enhance understanding of the U.S.-Mexico border as a distinct economic, social, and cultural region

· To explore how representations of the border and borderlands in popular culture influence how we perceive the region

· To enhance knowledge of and sensitivity to the cultural presence of Latinos in the United States and its national implications

· To understand how recent security initiatives have impacted migration and immigration patterns and changed the meaning of border crossing itself

· To prepare us for reasoned and constructive debate on immigration reform policy

Readings

There are three required texts for the class, available in the bookstore:

Chavez, Leo. The Latino Threat. Stanford University Press, 2008.

Nevins, Joseph. Dying to Live. Open Media/City Lights Books, 2008.

Crosthwaite, Luis Humberto, et al. Puro Border. Cinco Puntos Press, 2003.

Assignments

I will ask you to complete two major assignments during the term:

1. First, a 10-12 page paper for which you may draw material over the course of the entire term. The guidelines will remain very broad in order to give you maximal freedom to pursue your own analytic interests (for example, you may wish to center more on cultural matters than economic ones; you may wish to focus mainly on security or migration issues). Course content should inform whatever approach you decide to take. A one-paragraph “abstract of first thoughts,” in which you represent your initial thinking on the project, will be due week five. A précis, or outline of your entire paper, will be due the middle of week 8. See the guidelines appended to this syllabus for details. (50% of grade)

2. Second, three short papers (about three pages each) responding to the three main texts of the course. The spirit of these assignments is for you to define for yourself—you’re writing to yourself above all—what the essential “takeaway” of that book is. For these papers, I will permit you to write a bit more informally than under usual academic circumstances. You can even write a poem or a rap if you want. And for one of these assignments, I will allow you to pursue an alternative to paper writing all together. Not all students learn or demonstrate what they’ve learned in conventional academic ways. So, if you’re not wild about writing, you can offer the class a fifteen-minute presentation on your takeaway, or you can design a classroom activity that teaches the class your takeaway. Perform, do a piece of art. Whatever, as long as you really do represent a deep engagement with the material. In other words, informality and alternatives to writing do not mean fluff or shallowness, let alone blowing the assignment off. I am quite open to your ideas, but be rigorous whatever you do. Fuller guidelines forthcoming. (30% of grade)

Other Responsibilities

Attendance/Participation/Discussion (20% of grade)

Most class meetings will contain some sort of discussion period. But on five designated days over the course of the term (see class schedule), you will lead discussions. That is, on a day marked Discussion leading day in the schedule, a team of two-three students will have prepared, in some form, a summary of significant concepts, issues, points, etc. that have come out of readings, lectures, and films explored during that section of the course. Then the team will lead the class in a corresponding discussion. The team should feel free to include whatever outside material it considers useful and interesting (e.g., a website, personal experience, or material from another course). The selection of concepts, issues, points etc. will be up to the team, as will the format of summary presentation and discussion. The team should strive, however, to be creative in engaging the class. And every member of the team must contribute substantively to the effort.

Be serious about this. It won’t do to show up with two or three vague questions and expect to carry us through the period. On the other end, because we owe it to our comrades to be there in their hour of truth, attendance will be especially expected on discussion days. And please come to class ready and willing to participate. Believe me, when it comes your time to lead discussion, you will appreciate it when students return the favor. For more information, look to the guidelines attached to this syllabus.

Schedule (subject to some change)

Module 1: Framing the Border within the “Hispanic Challenge”

Week 1: Constructing the Latino Threat

M Intro to the Course

W Reading: Chavez, Introduction; Huntington, “The Hispanic Challenge” (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1084558/posts, or Google “Hispanic Challenge”)

Lecture: “The Ancient History of Migration: Legend of the Suns, Aztlán, Chicomoztoc, and the Route South”

Week 2: Difference, National identity, Citizenship

M Reading: Chavez, Chapters 1 and 2

Video: “Salt of the Earth”

W Reading: Chavez, Chapter 3

Lecture: “U.S. Immigration Policy: A Very Brief History”

Week 3 Embodied Problems of Citizenship

M Reading: Chavez, Chapters 4 and 5

Discussion leading day

W Reading: Chavez, Chapter 6-end

Video: “Walking the Line”

Due: What I Learned Paper #1

Module 2: Border Crossing in Context

Week 4 Death in the Desert

M Reading: Nevins, Chapters 1 and 2

Lecture: Public Protest Art on the Wall

Discussion leading day

W Nevins, Chapter 3

Video: “Al Otro Lado”

Week 5 Rethinking Border Security

M Reading: Nevins, Chapter 4

Due: Abstract of First Thoughts

W Reading: Nevins, Chapter 5

Due: What I Learned Paper #2

Module 3: Border Culture and Society

Week 6 Introduction to Life on the Border

M Reading: Crossthwaite, pp. 9-56

Lecture: “On Getting by in Ladrillera”

W Reading: Crossthwaite, pp. 57-90

Presentation: “Sacred Shrines, Holy Icons, and Migrants”

Discussion Leading Day

Week 7 El Narcomundo y la Pesadilla de Juarez: Laboratory of Our Future?

M Reading: Crossthwaite, pp. 93-136

Lecture: Border Shadow Economies

Discussion Leading Day

W Reading: Crossthwaite, pp. 139-180

Video: “Voices of the Sierra Tarahumara”

Week 8 Underclass Genius on the Border

M Video: “Rancho California (Por Favor)”

Due: Final Paper Prècis

W Reading: Crossthwaite, pp. 183-218

Presentation: Introduction to Guillermo Gómez Peña

Discussion leading day

Week 9 Native American Borderlands Identities

M No Class: Memorial Day

W Reading: Crossthwaite: pp. 221-end

Lecture: A Tohono O'odham Perspective on the Border

Due: What I Learned Paper #3

Week 10 Presentations

M Presentations

W Presentations

→ Final Papers Due Wednesday, June 10, by 5 p.m.

Discussion Leading

To help you prepare for discussion leading, keep the following guidelines in mind.

Discussion sessions will have two main parts:

1. The first should be some kind of summary of the important themes, concepts, points, and arguments that present themselves in readings, lectures, and/or videos. Your group should not feel itself responsible to name all of those themes, concepts, etc. You should, however, come up with a substantial set of them.

So, this summary should present the set of themes to the class for consideration. It might be most effective to go through it theme by theme. That is, summarize one theme by stating it and making some observation(s) about it, and then let’s start a discussion about it (see point 2 below about posing questions). When we seem “finished” with it, we can move onto another theme. It would be less effective to list all themes and then say, “So, what do you think?”

2. The second part of discussion leading should involve questions correlated with the themes. A natural way to begin a discussion of a theme is precisely by asking focused questions about it. Why do I say “focused?” It is better to be concrete than vague, or too open-ended. For example, one two-part question one might correlate to the theme of “political economy” in the reading for 6/29 is, “What specific aspects of free trade agreements put Latin America at an economic disadvantage, and what does all that have to do with migration?” Please feel free to ask how the themes in the course material might be linked up to our own experience. It is always good to compare other cultures to what we see in our own lives.

Try not to worry about carrying us through the entire period. We will always have more to talk about than we have time for. Every member of the discussion leading group should participate by stating themes, making comments, and/or asking questions. And feel free to think about using visuals, breaking us up into smaller groups, encouraging interactive activities, and so on. And for those of us not in the leading group: come to class prepared to contribute. It is stressful to try to lead a discussion and not get any feedback. So help out your classmates. I repeat a comment made on the syllabus: when it comes your time to lead discussion, you will appreciate it when they return the favor.

Main Paper Guidelines

The guidelines for your final papers will remain broad in order to provide you with maximal freedom in choosing a topic that interests you. You may wish, for example, to center on the political economy of migration (i.e. the policies and structural economic circumstances that help explain its character). You may wish to focus on the border as a distinctive site for certain significant social issues, like workers’ rights or the drug trade. You may be interested in the arts and wish to write about border/migration issues as they are represented in murals or music. It’s really wide open, but here are some pointers that might give you a bit of structure.

• You will want to demonstrate your understanding of your topic by describing the historical patterns that have driven, or are driving, it. For example, how do we account for migration patterns in Mexico, past or present? Why has the border become ground zero for the “War on Drugs?” Or whatever.

• Through your topic as a lens, represent your insights into what makes the border an international space and place. That is, how is your issue of significance to both Mexico and the U.S.? What, for example, are some of the significant effects of migration on the U.S. and Mexico or Central America? If your passion is to investigate questions of culture and identity, you might go yet further and explore the U.S.-Mexico borderlands as a kind of “third nation,” a place somehow separate from the mainstreams of the U.S. and Mexico.

• Whatever topic you choose, it will be relevant to current, heated discussions about migration, border security, and national identity. Use your paper as a tool to think critically about “fixing the broken border.” For reasonable debate on that issue—which we hope we will have in the coming months—what are the crucial considerations to keep in mind?

Please refer to course material as appropriate, but feel free to integrate material from somewhere else. And remember that I encourage you to speak with me outside of class about a topic and how to go about analyzing it.

~ Ten pages, due June 10 by 5 p.m.