Course Syllabus

African American/Latina/o Histories and Communities


Community Studies, 126.01
Professor Paul Ortíz
University of California, Santa Cruz
Winter Quarter, 2008
Tuesday/Thursday, 10:00-11:45
College 8, #240
459-5583/portiz@ucsc.edu


As brothers in the fight for equality, I extend the hand of fellowship
and good will and wish continuing success to you and your members.
The fight for equality must be fought on many fronts—in the urban slums,
in the sweat shops of the factories and fields. Our separate struggles are
really one—a struggle for freedom, for dignity, and for humanity…We
are together with you in spirit and in determination that our dreams for a
better tomorrow will be realized.

Telegram From Martin Luther King, Jr. to César Chávez, 1965


In 1990, artist-poet Elliot Pinkney created a mural in Los Angeles titled “Community Heroes.” Four individuals are depicted in the mural: Dolores Huerta, Malcolm X, César Chávez, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Pinkney’s weaving together of Latina/o and African American freedom fighters is rooted in the historical experiences of oppression faced by both groups. The great intellectual/activist Ernesto Galarza wrote: As percentages of poor, brown and black hold about equal shares of not having.” The “brown and black” have shared other things. In Puerto Rico, the popular and deeply historical rhythms of Plena and Bomba are rooted in slavery and reach back to West African musical traditions. From these musical blends, Salsa was born and transmitted through the Caribbean, Latin America, and North America.

We will explore the histories, cultures, and politics of African Americans and Latinos since the Haitian Revolution and the Mexican War of Independence. Key themes include: racial oppression and popular struggle; culture and identity; citizenship; forced labor; working class organization; public policy as well as voting and contemporary electoral politics. Striking similarities between Latinos and African Americans have often been overlooked. Both populations are among the most heavily urbanized groups in North America. Latinos and African Americans are quintessentially diasporic populations and this has led to creative efforts to define and redefine identity, race, and place. Identities have been especially fluid if historically contingent: from “Negro” to “Black” to “African American.” From “Hispanic” to “Chicano” to Latina/o.”

Ongoing attempts to define identity, to re-imagine home as well as to find social justice have spawned dynamic cultures and politics that have overlapped at crucial moments. In this seminar, we will focus on both historical and contemporary social movements in African American and Latina/o history. We will examine myths of the monolithic Black or Latino “community” that hamper efforts to understand how generational differences, gender conflicts, as well as migration/immigration experiences have created moments of solidarity as well as conflict among and between Latina/o and African American populations. We will pay careful attention to labor markets, community organizing, politics, and public policy in urban and rural America.



COURSE FORMAT


Synthesis Essays: You will write three essays this quarter that compare and contrast readings across weeks. Each essay will be 4-5 pages in length. (It's fine to go over). Your first essay will analyze the readings covered during the first three weeks of class. In these essays you should reference several reading assignments but it is not necessary to list every single reading. I am looking for serious engagement with the major themes, questions, and problems covered in the readings. This means you will need to take notes on each week's readings in order to write well-organized essays. 1st Synthesis essay due: Friday, Feb 1, 5 pm; 2nd Synthesis Essay due: Friday February 29; 3rd Synthesis essay due: Friday, March, 14

Mid-Term Exam
A take-home mid-term exam will be distributed in class on Thursday, February 7. Exams will be due Friday, February 15th. The exam will be based on lectures, readings, and discussion from the first half of class.

Group Research Presentations

In lieu of a final research paper you will work collaboratively with a small group of peers to create a public presentation on a topic chosen at the beginning of the quarter. Your presentation will draw directly from library research, classroom readings, discussions, and films. In addition, you will create a written "teacher's guide" to give to your peers/students. Your group presentation may be in the form of a conventional presentation, a role play, drama, and it may also involve class participation. This is your chance express yourselves on the major questions raised by course materials. Be creative. You will write individual self-evaluations as well as group evaluations as part of this exercise.

Attendance: More than two absences will impact your grade. (Including discussion section.) If you miss a class you are responsible for getting notes and/or assignment instructions from one of your peers or instructors. There will be two mandatory film screenings: Monday, January 28, and Wednesday, February 20, 7PM. College 8/240

Grading: Class participation, including discussion section (20%); Mid-Term exam (30%) Synthesis Essays (30%); Final group project (20%).

Office Hours My office is: Oakes, 319. My regular office hours are: Tuesdays, 12:00-1:30 and Thursdays, 12:00 to 1:30 I am available for meetings outside of these times via appointment.

Sections: Mondays, 5:00-6:10//Tuesdays, 6:00-7:10//Wednesdays, 12:30-1:40//Thursdays, 7:30-8:40

Teaching Assistants
We have a group of extremely talented teaching assistants this quarter. The undergraduate teaching assistants all took this course last year and each earned an “A” in the class. Each of us will hold regular contact hours and will be available to assist you with writing, research, and exam preparation.

Email: Periodically, we will send email messages with questions on readings and class assignments. Please check your email account for these messages and make sure that I have your current email.

Required Texts:
(Available at Bay Tree Books, and at McHenry Library Reserves.) CMMU 126 Course Reader; Piri Thomas, Down These Mean Streets; Marta E. Sánchez, Shakin’ Up: Intercultural Connections in Puerto Rican, African American, and Chicano Narratives and Culture; Elizabeth Martínez, De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views For a Multi-Colored Century; August Wilson, The Piano Lesson; Martín Espada, Zapata’s Disciple; Anani Dzidzienyo and Suzanne Oboler, eds., Neither Enemies Nor Friends: Latinos, Blacks, Afro-Latinos


Syllabus & Reading List

PART I: BEYOND MESTIZAJE: INTERCULTURAL CONNECTIONS

“It is urgent that our America learn the truth about the United States”

--José Martí


WEEK OF JANUARY 8: SOUNDS OF THE STREETS

Tuesday: why teach/take this course?; syllabus overview; introductions; meet the teaching assistants


Thursday: Lecture: Syllabus review and Discussion Questions for next week. FILM: Jonathan Robinson, "Every Child Is Born A Poet," film on the life of Piri Tómas

Reading: Piri Thomas, Down These Mean Streets, intro to page 130; 333-338 (afterward to thirtieth anniversary edition)

Handout: "An Open Letter To African Americans From Latinos," The Sacramento Observer, August 25, 2003.

Listen: Piri Thomas, “Sounds of the Streets” and “No Mo' Barrio Blues”

FILM: Gordon Parks’s “The World of Piri Thomas”


WEEK OF JANUARY 15: EVERY CHILD IS BORN A POET


Tuesday: Lecture, film, continued: Jonathan Robinson, "Every Child Is Born A Poet,"

Reading discussion: Piri Thomas, Down These Mean Streets, 125-238

Piri Thomas’s web site: http://cheverote.com/piri.html

Marta E. Sánchez, Shakin’ Up: Intercultural Connections in Puerto Rican, African American, and Chicano Narratives and Culture, prelude; 2-54.

Ian F. Haney López, "Chance, Context, and Choice in the Social Construction of Race," in: The Latino Condition: A Critical Reader, 9-15 CR

Ariel E. Dulitsky, “A Region in Denial: Racial Discrimination and Racism in Latin America,” in Neither Enemies Nor Friends: Latinos, Blacks, Afro-Latinos


“To Live and Let Live in South L.A.: A Six-Part Series on Immigration, Blacks and Latinos,”
New America Media, Rene P. Ciria-Cruz, Sep 11, 2006. (Course Reader or CR)

Rene P. Ciria-Cruz, “It's Not a Zero-Sum Game Second of a Six-Part Series: TO LIVE AND LET LIVE IN SOUTH L.A.” New America Media, News Feature, Sep 12, 2006. CR (Course pack or reader) CR

Salim Muwakkil, “The Caracas Consensus,” In These Times, (Afro-Venezuela) (CR)

Earl Ofari Hutchinson, “Los Angeles School Brawls Expose Black-Latino Tension,” Pacific News Service, Apr 27, 2005 CR

Paul Ortiz, “Growing up Latino in Post-Civil Rights America, Or: A Fragmented Childhood,” CR

“Study finds bias against `Black-sounding' names on job application resumes,” Jet, February 3, 2003. CR


Thursday: Lecture: Plantations, Colonialism, Piri Thomas, Latino/a and African American Literary Traditions


WEEK OF JANUARY 22: WALKING DOWN THESE MEAN STREETS



Tuesday: Guest Lecture: Juan Meija, “Afro-Colombians, Displacement and Struggle”

Listening: Martín Espada on poetry, art, and struggle.

Slide Show: Racism and Functional Stereotypes

Reading Discussion: Piri Thomas, Down These Mean Streets, 238 through conclusion.

Marta E. Sánchez, Shakin’ Up: Intercultural Connections in Puerto Rican, African American, and Chicano Narratives and Culture, 55-70.

Elizabeth Martínez, De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views For a Multi-Colored Century, Foreword to page 20.

Juan F. Perea, “The Black/White Paradigm of Race,” in The Latino Condition: A Critical Reader, 359-368. CR

Bill Fletcher Jr., "Blacks Should Embrace Immigrant Workers," SACOBSERVER.COM WIRE SERVICES, 5.25.03, CR

Rene P. Ciria-Cruz, “Beyond Just Getting Along,” Third of Six-Part Series: TO LIVE AND LET LIVE IN SOUTH L.A.” New America Media, Sep 13, 2006. CR.

“Tainted Justice at the EPA,” Los Angeles Times, August 18, 2005. CR

Thursday: Lecture, The Haitian Revolution, Bolivar, and Latin American Independence

1st Synthesis essay due: Friday, January 25, 5 pm (box outside my office)

PART II: HISTORIES


WEEK OF JANUARY 29: THE HAITIAN REVOLUTION/LATIN AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE

Monday evening film screening: John Sayles’s “Lonestar,” 7 PM. (Location to be announced)

Tuesday: Lecture: Legacies of Wars of Independence/Mexican-American War

Listen: Susana Baca, Afro-Peruvian Music, and the Legacies of Slavery in South America

Reading Discussion: George Reid Andrews, “The Wars for Freedom 1810-1890,” and “The Politics of Freedom,” in Afro-Latin America, 1800-2000, 53-115. CR

Ted Vincent, "The Blacks Who Freed Mexico," The Journal of Negro History 79 (Summer, 1994), 257-276. (CR)

Howard Zinn, "We Take Nothing By Conquest, Thank God," in Zinn, A People's History of the United States, 1492—Present, 147-166. CR

Guadalupe T. Luna, "The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and Dred Scott v. Sandford: 'Aren't They All Illegal Anyway?" in Stokes, Meléndez, et. al., Race in 21st Century America, 297-312. CR

Elizabeth Martínez, De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views For a Multi-Colored Century,
31-54; 153-161.

Silvio Torres-Saillant, “Racism in the Americas and the Latino Scholar,” in Neither Enemies Nor Friends: Latinos, Blacks, Afro-Latinos

“Report Finds Blacks, Latinos Pay More for Home Loans,” Sacramento Business Observer, March 30, 2005. CR

Rene P. Ciria-Cruz, “A Threat Becomes a Glue. Fourth of a Six-Part Series: TO LIVE AND LET LIVE IN SOUTH L.A.” New America Media, Sep 14, 2006 CR
Rene P. Ciria-Cruz, “A Latino-Black Cinco de Mayo. Fifth of a Six-Part Series: TO LIVE AND LET LIVE IN SOUTH L.A.” New America Media, Sep 15, 2006. CR.

Handout: Essay on Afro-Venezuelan Politics past and present in the making of the new Plan Bolívar

Thursday: Lecture: The Underground Railroad—South of the Border—And the Mexican War

Look/Listen: "Casta Paintings: Inventing Race Through Art Reveals 18th-Century Attitudes on Racial Mixing," National Public Radio, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=3043790






WEEK OF FEBRUARY 5: SLAVERY, INDEPENDENCE AND THE MARCH OF EMPIRE



Tuesday: Lecture: Race and Class in the Americas, Late 19th and early 20th centuries

EXAM REVIEW

“A Jealous Regard for the Rights of Labor’: Post-Emancipation in the Americas

Reading Discussion: Eduardo Galeano, "Racism and Sexism 101," in Upside Down: A Primer for the Looking-Glass World, 43-73 (CR)

Mark Anderson, “Bad Boys and Peaceful Garifuna: Transnational Encounters Between Racial Stereotypes of Honduras and the United States (And Their Implications for the Study of Race in the Americas,” in Neither Enemies Nor Friends: Latinos, Blacks, Afro-Latinos

Nancy Raquel Mirabal, “Scripting Race, Finding Place: African Americans, Afro-Cubans, and the Diasporic Imaginary in the United States,” in Neither Enemies Nor Friends: Latinos, Blacks, Afro-Latinos

Thursday: Film, Danny Glover, "Buffalo Soldiers" (with questions)

Mid-Term Exam take-home exam given out in class (Due Friday, February 15)


WEEK OF FEBRUARY 12: RACE: THE POWER OF A BLOODY ILLUSION


Tuesday: Lecture: “Soldiering and Wealth, Power, and Race”

Meizhu Lui, Bárbara Robles, et.al., The Color of Wealth: The Story Behind the U.S. Racial Wealth Divide, 1-27. CR

Nicolas C. Vaca, The Presumed Alliance: The Unspoken Conflict Between Latinos and Blacks and What It Means for America, 2-16. CR

Melanie Payne, “Immigrant Fight Evokes Memories: Comparison to Movement of '50s, '60s irks Black Leader,” The News-Press (Fort Meyers, Florida), April 16, 2006 CR

Rene P. Ciria-Cruz, “We have to Live Together. Last of a Six-Part Series: TO LIVE AND LET LIVE IN SOUTH L.A.” New America Media, Sep 18, 2006. CR

Jonathan Kozol, Savage Inequalities: Children in America's Schools, 206-233. CR.
Color Lines essay on Contemporary Segregation in Schools CR.

Thursday: Film: "Race: The Power of an Illusion, Volume 3: 'The House we Live In” (with questions)


Friday: Mid-Term Exam Due.


FEBRUARY 19: AUGUST WILSON/MARTIN ESPADA: LITERATURE AND LIBERATION

Monday Evening, FILM SCREENING, “The Piano Lesson” 7 pm, (location TBD)

Tuesday: Guest Lecture: Professor Karlton Hester (UCSC Music)

Reading Discussion: August Wilson, The Piano Lesson

Martín Espada, Zapata’s Disciple: Essays, 3-53.

Thursday: Guest Lecture, Don Williams, UCSC Theatrical Director/Producer, Rainbow Theater

“Intersections: August Wilson, Writing to the Blues,” Interview on NPR.ORG

Continue Lecture/discussion of Wilson and Espada


WEEK OF FEBRUARY 26: SELF-EMANCIPATION AND SOCIAL MOVEMENTS


Tuesday: Lecture: “Experiences, Social Movements”

Reading Discussion: Elizabeth Martinez, De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views For a Multi-Colored Century, 82-117.

Paul Ortíz, "From Slavery To Cesar Chavez and Beyond: Farmworker Organizing in the United States," in The Human Cost of Food: Farmworkers' Lives, Labor, and Advocacy, edited by Charles D. Thompson, Jr., and Melinda F. Wiggins, 249-275 CR

John Brown Childs, Transcommunality: From the Politics of Conversion to the Ethics of Respect, 7-20 CR

Angela Glover Blackwell, Steward Kwoh, and Manuel Pastor, Searching for the Uncommon Common Ground: New Dimensions on Race in America, 47-85 (CR)

Martín Espada, Zapata’s Disciple, 57-95

Kevin R. Johnson, “African American and Latina/o Cooperation in Challenging Racial Profiling,” in Neither Enemies Nor Friends: Latinos, Blacks, Afro-Latinos

Mark Sawyer, “Racial Politics in Multiethnic America: Black and Latina/o Identities and Coalitions,” in Neither Enemies Nor Friends: Latinos, Blacks, Afro-Latinos


Thursday: Lecture: Organizing Tactics of Latino/a and African American Social Movements

2nd Synthesis Essays due: Friday, February 29


PART III: CONFLICT AND COALITION

WEEK OF MARCH 4: CULTURE CLASHES


Tuesday: start group presentations
Reading Discussion: Linda Chavez, “Out of the Barrio,” in The Latino Condition: A Critical Reader, 431-434. COURSE READER (CR)

Elizabeth Martínez, "Black And Brown Alliance Born in North Carolina: Five Organizers Speak," Z Magazine CR

Vijay Prashad, Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting: Afro-Asian Connections and the Myth of Cultural Purity, 37-69. CR

Vijay Prashad, "The Karma of Brown Folk," vii-xi; 157-183. CR

Suzanne Oboler and Anani Dzidzienyo, “Flows and Counterflows: Latinas/os, Blackness and Racialization in Hemispheric Perspective,” in Neither Enemies Nor Friends: Latinos, Blacks, Afro-Latinos

Elizabeth Martínez, De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views For a Multi-Colored Century, 118-152; 162-196; 198-255.

Martín Espada, Zapata’s Disciple, 99-135.

Mike Davis, "In L.A., Burning All Illusions: Urban America Sees Its Future," The Nation, June 1, 1992, 743-747. CR


Thursday: group presentations


WEEK OF MARCH 11: WRAPPING IT UP!


No reading assignments!

Tuesday: group presentations

Thursday: Group Presentations

(Last day of class, turn in course evaluation forms)

3rd Synthesis essay due: Friday, March, 14


FINAL GROUP AND INDIVIDUAL PROJECTS/EVALUATION PAPERWORK DUE Monday, March 17, 5:00 pm., my office.