The Immigrant Experience in Everyday Life

The seminar introduces students to major themes connected to the immigrant experience, including identity, education, assimilation, transnationalism, political membership, and intergroup relations. There will also be some attention given to research methodology. The seminar addresses these themes through reading ethnographies that document the everyday experience of immigrants and immigrant communities, broadly defined, in the United States. The course readings primarily come from more contemporary ethnographic research, but it will also include a sampling of ethnographies that examine the experience of previous waves of immigrants. Student participation will include in-class discussions of readings, short written responses to readings, and a final paper in which students draw on original ethnographic research that they conduct during the quarter. By the end of the quarter, students will be able to identify the social, political, and economic forces that shape the immigrant experience. More importantly, students will understand HOW these forces enter the immigrant experience in everyday life.