B.A. in MAS

Migration is currently re-shaping American cities, families, urban landscapes, rural areas, politics, and altering the nation's racial and cultural make up.  In response, societal attitudes and power dynamics that structure their incorporation shift, often engendering competing perspectives about immigrants' efforts to belong and carve out a place for themselves within the United States as "A nation of Immigrants." This course will focus on the quasi-permanent presence of undocumented immigrants and other vulnerable noncitizens living in the United States, focusing in particular on those who come from Latin America.

Historical background, cultural institutions, identity problems, social relations, and expectations of people of Mexican ancestry in the United States.

A culminating experience for majors involving a substantive project that demonstrates a synthesis of learning accumulated in the major, including broadly comprehensive knowledge of the discipline and its methodologies.  Senior standing required.

* For MAS Majors & Minors

This course on Chicana women introduces students to basic concepts, categories and issues organized around the concept of gender. We examine gender and power relations within various institutions: the home, the school system, university, the church, the environment, and various human work spheres.

This course will examine the varied and evolving concerns of Chicanas as they forge new visions of feminism through the Chicano Movement of the 1960s; organizing among Chicana lesbian communities; Chicanas' entrance into academic, literary and artistic arenas; diverse community and national activist efforts in the 1980s; and current transnational initiatives.

Political problems of the poor; analysis of systematic poverty in the U.S. and theories of causation; selected policy problems: education, housing, job training, enforcement of anti-discrimination statutes; future of "power" movements.

* Enrollment Requirement: POL 201

This course offers a full panoramic view of Mexican music, using history as a point of departure and linking Mexican music across eras, styles, and performance traditions.  In doing so, students learn both the repertory and the musicians. Starting with music from the Pre-Hispanic to contemporary musical practices such as cumbia, rock, mariachi and many others.

Exploration and analysis of the origin, nature, dynamics (political, social, cultural), ideology, activities, and effects of the Chicano movement of the 1960s.

Evolution of the borderlands since the mid-nineteenth century, with emphasis on bi-national interaction and interdependence.

Struggle for political, economic and social stability; international relations, cultural patterns.

Traditional Indian Medicine, or TIM, is a concept that refers to Indigenous knowledges expressed through the varied healing systems in Indigenous communities. This course will pay particular attention to American Indian nations and healing knowledges that are intersecting and intertwined relationships with the natural world, the Indigenous body and the sacred. We will examine both how Indigenous healing systems have persisted as well as responded to social conditions, such as genocide, colonization and historical, as well as contemporary, forms of oppression. Topics include intergenerational trauma as well as how resilience is expressed in practices of wellbeing, healing and self-determination. We will also explore TIM as containing systems of healing that may/may not operate in conjunction with allopathic medicine. This course takes a transdisciplinary approach, incorporating readings from American Indian/Indigenous studies and health to explore a complex portfolio of American Indian/Indigenous wellbeing.

A public health perspective in examining health and mental health issues affecting Latinos residing in the U.S., with particular emphasis on Mexican Americans.

This a co-convened course that will include advanced 4th-year undergraduate students who along with graduate students (enrolled in MAS 570) will examine migration as a worldwide phenomenon in part due to the greater participation of women. In the Americas, in particular, there has been a steady increase in migration to the U.S. from Mexico and Latin America since the 1960s, much of which can be traced to the negative impact of structural adjustment programs (SAPs) resulting in the impoverishment of agricultural sectors and lack of employment opportunities, a combination known to produce the feminization of migration. In this class, we will explore this phenomenon and the various challenges borne by women and youths. We will consider relevant theories, such as neoliberal economics and structural violence, as well as a wide range of perspectives, combining demography, history, ethnography and public policy analysis to better understand issues of borders, transnational identities, human rights, labor rights, and responsibilities of host and sending states.