Crosslisted with: 01:050:253
SAS Core Goal: HST
This course offers an introduction to the political, economic, and sociocultural aspects of immigrants from Asia and their descendants in the United States (including Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos, South Asians, Southeast Asians, and Pacific Islanders), with reference to the Americas as a whole. The first half of the course traces the movement of goods and people from Asia to the New World beginning with the sixteenth century Manila Galleon trade. We examine the massive recruitment of Asian laborers for work on plantations, railroads, and gold mines in the nineteenth century; the formation of communities; nativism and immigration restrictions; the role of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the constructions of U.S. empire abroad; and Japanese incarceration during World War II. The second half of the course traces the Asian American experience from the Cold War period and landmark 1965 immigration act to the present day, including new influxes of refugees; the development of the model minority myth; Asian panethnicity and the birth of Asian American Studies; Afro-Asian solidarities; and culture and youth activism.
