Immigration and Families

50:070:485:01
Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays 11:15-12:10
Armitage 207

Professor Cati Coe

405-407 Cooper Street, Room 214
Office hours: Mondays, 3-5pm or by appointment
phone: (856) 225-6455
email: ccoe@camden.rutgers.edu

Course Description

How does migration affect families and family life, for both those who migrate and those who do not? We explore this question with a particular focus on new forms of immigration to the US since 1965, but we will draw on historical studies of immigration to help us make sense of what is currently going on. We will sometimes look at migration to other countries (such as those in the Persian Gulf) for the purposes of contrast.

Three books are available at the campus bookstore. The other readings are on electronic reserve at the library http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/lib_servs/course_reserves.shtml or are links off this syllabus webpage.

gamburd

Michele Gamburd
The Kitchen Spoon's Handle

pessar

Patricia Pessar
A Visa for a Dream

kibria

Nazli Kibria
Family Tightrope

Course Schedule

Week 1

January 17 Introduction

WHY DO PEOPLE MIGRATE?

January 19 The World Connected Economically

Alejandro Portes and Rubén G. Rumbaut, “Introduction,” Immigrant America: A Portrait (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), pp. 1-27.
Class resources: http://www.ailf.org/pubed/pe_census_index.asp

Week 2

Meetings with Professor Coe this week to discuss your migrant group. Look at:
1) "The Foreign-Born Population: 2000" by the US Census, for top immigrant groups to the US
2) "Recent Trends in Immigration to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Who Came and Where do They Live?" by the Fels Institute (Spring 2004). This is a long report (73 pages) but scan through it to get ideas about which groups to study and where they might be located within Philadelphia. See particularly Figure 9, on page 17, showing the top 16 groups that immigrate to Philadelphia.

January 22 The World Connected Economically

1) “Letter from Karl Marx to S. Meyer and A. Vogt, London, April 9, 1870.” Karl Marx and Frederick Engels on Britain (Moscow: Foreign Languages Press, 1953), pp. 504-508.
2) David Bacon, “Grapes and Green Onions,” Children of NAFTA: Labor Wars on the US/Mexico Border (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), pp. 19-41.
Film: “Bitter Cane” (1983) by Jacques Arcelin (part 1)

January 24 The World Connected Politically

Saskia Sassen, “America’s Immigrant ‘Problem’” Globalization and its Discontents (New York: New Press, 1998), pp. 31-53.
Film: “Bitter Cane” (1983) by Jacques Arcelin (part 2)

January 26 The World Connected in the Imagination

1) Arjun Appadurai, “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy,” Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), pp. 27-47.
2) Jamaica Kincaid, “On Seeing England for the First Time,” Transition no. 51: 32-40.

Week 3

January 29

Due: Which group are you going to study?
Meet at the Robeson Library to look at resources for research

January 31 Changes in the US Economy: The Informal Economy

Saskia Sassen, “The Informal Economy: Between New Developments and Old Regulations,” Globalization and its Discontents (New York: New Press, 1998), pp. 153-172.

February 2 Changes in the US Economy: Women and Work

1) Barbara Ehrenreich and Arlie Russell Hochschild, “Introduction” and
2) Arlie Russell Hochschild, “Love and Gold,” in Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2003), p. 1-30.
Film: “When Mother Comes Home for Christmas ” (1995) by Nilita Vachani (part 1)

CASE STUDY: SRI LANKAN WOMEN IN THE GULF

Week 4

February 5

Michele Gamburd, The Kitchen Spoon’s Handle: Transnationalism and Sri Lankan Migrant Households (Cornell: Cornell University Press, 2000), pp. 1-47
Film: “When Mother Comes Home for Christmas” (1995) by Nilita Vachani (part 2)

February 7

Michele Gamburd, The Kitchen Spoon’s Handle, pp. 48-98

February 9

Michele Gamburd, The Kitchen Spoon’s Handle, pp. 99-150

Week 5

February 12

Michele Gamburd, The Kitchen Spoon’s Handle, pp. 151-192
Bibliography due

February 14

Michele Gamburd, The Kitchen Spoon’s Handle, pp. 193-232

WHAT DOES FAMILY MEAN IN DIFFERENT CULTURES?

February 16 Family Traditions formed through Migration: Chinese in Southeast Asia

Donald M. Nonini, “Shifting Identities, Positioned Imaginaries: Transnational Traversals and Reversals by Malaysian Chinese,” In Ungrounded Empires: Chinese Transnationalism as an Alternative Modernity, edited by Aihwa Ong and Donald M. Nonini (New York: Routledge, 1997), pp. 203-227.

Week 6

February 19 Family Traditions formed through Migration: Ghana

Cati Coe, "The Scattered Family: How Parents and Children from Ghana Respond to Transnational Migration," manuscript submitted to Gender & Society, January 2007, pp. 1-35.

HOW DOES IMMIGRATION LAW AND POLICY IN THE US AFFECT FAMILY LIFE?

February 21 Presentation of current immigration law and policy affecting families

1) Link to: "Immigration Tuition" by the Policy Research Institute, Princeton University (Summer 2005)
2) Link to: "No Way In: US Immigration Policy Leaves Few Legal Options for Mexican Workers" by Rob Paral, at the American Immigration Law Foundation (July 2005)

February 23

Peter Kwong, “Ineffectual Enforcement of Immigration and Labor Law.” Forbidden Workers: Illegal Chinese Immigrants and American Labor (New York: The New Press, 1997), pp. 161-184
Class Resources: Overview of US Immigration Law

Week 7

February 26

Susan Bibler-Contin, “Papeles, Permisos, and Permanence.” Legalizing Moves: Salvadoran Immigrants’ Struggles for US Residency (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000), pp. 49-77

HOW ARE PEOPLE CREATING TIES ACROSS NATIONAL BORDERS?

February 28 Definition of Transnationalism

Nancy Foner, “Transnational Ties,” From Ellis Island to JFK: New York’s Two Great Waves of Immigration (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), pp. 169-187

March 2 Transnationalism Based on Family Metaphors

Nina Glick Schiller and Georges Eugen Fouron, “‘The Blood Remains Haitian’: Race, Nation, and Belonging in the Transmigrant Experience.” Georges Woke Up Laughing: Long-Distance Nationalism and the Search for Home (Durham: Duke University Press, 2001), pp. 92-129

Week 8

March 5 Political Activism Back Home

Nina Glick Schiller and Georges Eugen Fouron, “The Responsible State: Dialogues of a Transborder Citizenry,” Georges Woke Up Laughing: Long-Distance Nationalism and the Search for Home (Durham: Duke University Press, 2001), pp. 178-207.
Film: “The Sixth Section” (2003) by Alex Rivera

March 7 Political Activism in the US

Michael Jones-Correa, “Wanting In: Latin American Immigrant Women and the Turn to Electoral Politics,” Between Two Nations: The Political Predicament of Latinos in New York City, pp. 169-188.
Film: “Look Forward and Carry on the Past: Stories from Philadelphia’s Chinatown” (2001) by the Philadelphia Folklore Project (part 1)

March 9

1) “Map of a Block,”
2) “A Changing Block in Standale” by Heather Danielkiewicz, and
3) “In the Cracks” by Evan Hill, in Field Ethnography: A Manual for Doing Cultural Anthropology, by Paul Kutsche (Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 1998), pp. 14-26. (No critical response paper for these readings, but read them because they will be central to the neighborhood survey assignment)
Neighborhood Survey assignment given
Background paper due

SPRING RECESS

CASE STUDY: DOMINICAN FAMILIES IN NEW YORK CITY

Week 9

March 19

Patricia R. Pessar, A Visa for a Dream: Dominicans in the United States (Boston: Allyn & Bacon, 1996), Introduction and Chapters 1, 2 & 3, pp. xi-xv, 1-45.
Class Resources: Map of the Dominican Republic

March 21

Patricia R. Pessar, A Visa for a Dream, Chapters 4 & 5, pp. 47-91.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN PEOPLE ARRIVE IN THE US?

March 23 Encountering the American racial system

1) Matthew Frye Jacobson, “Naturalization and the Courts,” Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), pp. 223-245
2) Marie-Helene Laforest, “Homelands,” The Butterfly’s Way: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States, edited by Edwidge Danticat (New York: Soho, 2001), pp. 23-30.

Week 10

March 26

Matthew Frye Jacobson, “Becoming Caucasian, 1924-1965.” Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), pp. 90-135.
Film: “Farmingville” (2004) by Carlos Sandoval and Catherine Tambini

March 28

Film: “Farmingville” (continued)

March 31 Segmented Assimilation

Mary C. Waters, “Segregated Neighborhoods and Schools,” Black Identities: West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1998), pp. 243-284.
Class resources: Powerpoint on Neighborhood and School Segregation

Week 11

April 2 The Second Generation

Alex Stepick and Carol Dutton Stepick. “Becoming American: Immigration, Identity, Intergenerational Relations and Academic Orientation.” In American Arrivals. Edited by Nancy Foner. Sante Fe: School of American Research, 2003. pp. 129-161

April 4

Mary C. Waters, “Identities of the Second Generation,” Black Identities: West Indian Immigrant Dreams and American Realities (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1999), pp.285-325.

April 6

1) Alejandro Portes and Richard Schauffler, “Language Acquisition and Loss among Children of Immigrants,” Origins and Destinies, pp. 432-443.
2) Link to: "Children of Immigrants: Facts and Figures" by the Urban Institute (May 2006).

Week 12

April 9

Media assignment given
Neighborhood survey due

CASE STUDY: VIETNAMESE FAMILIES IN PHILADELPHIA

April 11

Nazli Kibria, Family Tightrope: The Changing Lives of Vietnamese Americans (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), pp. 1-37

April 13

No class: Professor Coe will be presenting a paper at a symposium at Stanford University on African Law and Colonialism. But continue reading Nazli Kibria, Family Tightrope, pp. 38-107 for Monday.

Week 13

April 16

Nazli Kibria, Family Tightrope, pp. 38-107

April 18

Nazli Kibria, Family Tightrope, pp. 108-143
Film: “Welcome to America: Arts of Being Khmer in Philadelphia” by the Philadelphia Folklore Project

April 20

Nazli Kibria, Family Tightrope, pp. 144-172

CULTURAL EXPRESSIONS OF IMMIGRANT TRADITION

Week 14

April 23

Roger D. Abrahams, “Shouting Match at the Border: The Folklore of Display Events,” In And Other Neighborly Names, edited by Roger Abrahams and Richard Bauman (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981), pp. 303-321
Film: “Look Forward and Carry on the Past: Stories from Philadelphia’s Chinatown” (2001) by the Philadelphia Folklore Project (part 2)

April 25

Janet S. Theophano, “‘I Gave Him a Cake’: An Interpretation of Two Italian-American Weddings,” In Creative Ethnicity. Ed. by Stephen Stone and John Allen Cicala (Logan: University of Utah Press, 1991), pp. 44-54.

April 27

Vijay Prashad, “Of Authentic Cultural Lives,” The Karma of Brown Folk (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000), pp. 109-132.

Week 15

April 30

Media assignment due