Migrations, Race and Ethnicity in the United States 4219-AW018

This lecture will be divided into two parts: the first one will deal with the history of immigration into the North American continent before the United States were established, through the major waves of immigration to the current mosaic of ethnic and racial groups.
The second part will deal with the current situation of multicultural America as a result of the centuries of immigration and the development of policy and changes in laws that regulate the ethnic and race relations. It will focus on the politics of race and ethnicity in the USA in the XXth century including learning abort the theories of ethnic relations. Special emphasis will be placed on the tension between assimilationist and pluralist theories and the case studies of diverse ethnic groups strategies to maintain their cultural distinctiveness within the multicultural American society.

Part I History of Immigration
1. Colonial America: Overseas migrations from Europe, English immigrants; Slavery and slave trade; slave rebellions
2. The Pioneers of the Century of immigration: Irish, Germans, and Scandinavians
3. Southern and Eastern European Immigration: Italians, Greeks, Arabs, Armenians, Poles, Jews and Hungarians
4. Migrations from Asia: Chinese, Japanese; Nativism and immigration law of 1924
5. Mexican and Puerto Rican immigration
6. Changing laws 1948-80 and new Asian immigration
7. Recent immigrants: Carribean, Central American, Soviet Jews and Poles
Part II Ethnic notions and relations
8. Prejudice and Discrimination in American society, Ethnic Stratification today
9. Theories of Ethnic Relations: Pluralistic Integration as an American Model
10. The Anglo-Saxon Core and the roots of Ethnic Antagonism,
Immigration and American Mythology
11. African Americans: Resource shares and types of Discrimination
12. Ethnic Conflict: Blacks and Jews: Ethnicity in metropolitan areas NYC
13. 12. Race and Arab Americans after 9/11
14. Multiculturalism
15. Conclusions