Labor, Land and Culture: A History of Immigration in the U.S.

Current debates surrounding immigration and immigrants in U.S. society focus largely on the recent past, while simultaneously reiterating long-standing ideas and narratives. This course will equip students to better understand the genesis of such debates, including ideological, economic, and social factors, by exploring the history of immigration to what is now the United States. Sources from popular culture will aid students' insight into the ways in which American Exceptionalism, national identity, and constructions of “otherness” are woven into discourses regarding immigration, and further considers the ways in which “immigrant” is constructed as distinct from histories of colonialism, enslavement, and refuge.