This course provides an introduction to the social and cultural reality of Latinos in the United States with a particular emphasis on the largest demographic group, the population of Mexican descent. The concept of the borderlands will be an analytical prism throughout the course that will allow us to look at Latino/a cultural identities within the United States as the product of complex negotiations both inside and outside the country’s geographical borders. Although we will mainly focus on the cultural production by Latinos and Latinas in 20th century and the beginnings of the 21st, the course will also examine some of the early responses in American letters to the cultural encounters between Spaniards and Native Americans, and between Spanish-speaking peoples and Anglos. Course materials will mainly consist of literary texts, autobiographies, and chronicles by major and minor authors, but music and visual arts will also be used as documents testifying to the diverse backgrounds and experiences of Latinos in the United States.

Course contents:

1. Paradigms. Gloria Anzaldúa, “The Homeland Aztlán”. Suzanne Oboler, “The politics of labeling”.
2. Early encounters. The Spanish colonial borderlands. Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and Francisco Palou.
3. Occupation and resistance. The corrido and Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton’s The Squatter and the Don.
4. Immigration and empire. Bernardo Vega.
5. Ethnic validation and consolidation. Fabiola Cabeza de Baca.
6. Cultural memory. Tomás Rivera and Richard Rodríguez. Film: John Sayles’ Lone Star.
7. The politics of language and bilingual aesthetics. Gloria Anzaldúa, Tato Laviera. Gina Valdés. Gustavo Pérez Firmat.
8. Gender and identity. Sandra Cisneros and Junot Díaz.
9. Transnational social consciousness. Helena Viramontes. Lourdes Portillo.

Required readings:

-Tomás Rivera . . . y no se lo tragó la tierra/. . . And the Earth Did Not Devour Him (1971)

- Richard Rodríguez, Hunger of Memory (1981)

- Course reader

Methodology:

The course will be taught in English and will consist of lectures, discussions, student presentations, and at least one film screening. The readings and films will be in English, although some of the texts may be bilingual or incorporate code switching.

Assessment:

The final grade will be broken down into the following components:
- student participation (20%)
- a term paper to be presented in class (25%)
- a mid-term exam (25%)
- a final exam (30%)

Bibliography:

Edna Acosta-Belen and Carlos E. Santiago, "Merging Borders: The Remapping of America. Latino Review of Books, Vol. 1 No.1 Spring 1995.

Andreu Iglesias, César, ed. Memoirs of Bernardo Vega. Trans. Juan Flores. New York: Monthly Review, 1984.

Anzaldúa, Gloria. Borderlands: La Frontera. S. Francisco: Spinsters/aunt lute, 1987.

Baron, Dennis. The English-Only Question: An Official Language for Americans. New Haven: Yale UP, 1990.

Cabeza de Baca, Fabiola. We Fed them Cactus (1954). Alburquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994.

Calderón, Héctor, and José David Saldívar, eds. Criticism in the Borderlands: Studies on Chicano Literature, Culture, and Ideology. Durham, N. C.: Duke University Press, 1991.

Cisneros, Sandra. Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories. New York: Vintage, 1991.

Cantú, Norma Elia. Canícula: Snapshots of a girlhood en la Frontera. Alburquerque: University of Mexico Press, 1995.

Elliott, Emory, Louis Freitas Caton, and Jeffrey Rhyne, eds. Aesthetics in a Multicultural Age. Oxford; New York: Oxford UP, 2002.

De la Torre Adela and Beatriz M. Pesquera eds. Building with Our Hands: New Directions in Chicana Studies, eds. Berkeley: U of California P, 1993.

Flores, Juan ed. Divided Borders:  Essays on Puerto Rican Identity. Houston: Arte Público Press, 1992.

García, Cristina. Dreaming in Cuban. New York: Ballantine, 1992.

Gómez-Peña, Guillermo. The New World Border. San Francisco: City Lights, 1996.

Gómez-Peña, Guillermo. Dangerous Border Crossers: The Artist Talks Back. London: Routledge, 2000.

González, Juan. Harvest of Empire: A History of Latinos in America. London: Penguin, 2000.

Gonzalez, Gilbert G Culture of empire American writers, Mexico, and Mexican immigrants, 1880-1930.  Austin: University of Texas Press, 2004.

Fregoso, Rosalinda. The Bronze Screen: Chicano and Chicana Film Culture. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1993.

Hall, Stuart. “Ethnicity, Identity and Difference.” Radical America 23, no. 4 (1995): 9-20.

Hall, Stuart, and Paul du Gay, eds. Questions of Cultural Identity. London: Sage, 1996.

Kanellos, Nicolás. Chronology of Hispanic-American history: from pre-Columbian times to the present. Detroit: Gale Research, 1995.

Kanellos, Nicolás. Handbook of Hispanic cultures in the United States. Houston: Arte Público, 1993-1994.

Kanellos, Nicolás. Herencia the anthology of Hispanic literature of the United States. Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press 2002.

Kanellos, Nicolás. Hispanic literature of the United States a comprehensive reference. Westport, Conn. Greenwood Press 2003

Kaplan, Amy, and Donald E. Pease, eds. Cultures of United States Imperialism. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1993.

Laviera, Tato. Amerícan. Houston: Arte Público Press, 1984.

Martínez, Rubén. The Other Side: Notes from New L.A., Mexico City, and Beyond. New York, Vintage, 1992.

Martínez, Rubén. Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2001.

Moraga, Cherríe. The Last Generation. Boston, MA: South End Press, 1992.

Moraga, Cherríe. Loving in the War Years: Lo que nunca pasó por sus labios. First ed. Boston, MA: South End Press, 1983.

Moraga, Cherríe and Gloria Anzaldúa, ed. This Bridge Called my Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color. Watertown, Massachussets: Persephone Press, 1983.

Oboler, Suzanne. Ethnic Labels, Latino Lives: Identity and the Politics of (Re)Presentation in the United States. Minneapolis: Univesity of Minnesota Press, 1995.

Paredes, Américo. "With His Pistol in His Hand:" A Border Ballad and Its Hero. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1958.

Robinson, Cecil. With the Ears of Strangers: The Mexican in American Literature. Tucson: U of Arizona P, 1963.

Rodriguez, Richard. Hunger of Memory. The Education of Richard Rodriguez. New York: Bantam Books, 1982.

Saldívar, José David. Border Matters: Remapping American Cultural Studies. Berkeley: California UP, 1997.

Saldívar-Hull, Sonia. Feminism on the Border: Chicana Gender Politics and Literature. Berkeley/ Los Angeles/ London: University of California Press, 2000.

Sánchez, George J. Becoming Mexican American ethnicity, culture, and identity in Chicano, Los Angeles, 1900-1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Virginia E. Sanchez Korrol, From Colonia to Community: The History of Puerto Ricans in New York City, 1917-1948. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.

Schlesinger, Arthur. The Disuniting of America. New York and London: W.W. Norton & Company, 1992.

Stavans, Ilan. Spanglish: The Making of a New American Language. New York: RAYO, 2003.

Suro, Roberto. Strangers Among Us: Latino Lives in a Changing America. New York:Vintage, 1998.

Thomas, Piri. Down These Mean Streets. New York: Vintage Books, 1975.

Todorov, Tzvetan. The Conquest of America. New York: Harper and Row, 1985.

Viramontes, Helena. The Moths and Other Stories. Second ed. Houston: Arte Publico Press, 1985.