Course Descriptions

The Joseph S. Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies at CUNY

Urban Studies

Latin American Migrations: Domestic Materials, Imported Hands

First Summer Session- 6:15 pm

Professor Mariana Romo-Carmona

Course Description:

For the past five centuries, the population of the Americas has figured into a workforce designed to produce outside its own economic system. Whether it is in the production of raw materials or designer clothing right in New York City sweatshops, urban Latino populations are part of the equation. Through readings and discussion of historical analysis, urban and political thought, this course will survey Latin American history and culture, as well as literature at the intersection with the urban immigrant experience. We will be reading from Cuentos: Stories by Latinas, Skidmore and Smith’s interpretive history Modern Latin America, and Chicano, Nuyorican, and Latin American poetry of protest.

Texts

Augenbraum, Harold, and Fernandez Olmos, M. The Latino Reader: An American Literary Tradition. Houghton-Mifflin

Davila, Arlene. Barrio Dreams: Puerto Ricans, Latinos, and the Neoliberal City. U. of California Press.

Galeano, Eduardo. The Open Veins of Latin America. Monthly Review Press.

Gómez, Moraga, and Romo-Carmona, Mariana, editors. Cuentos: Stories by Latinas. Kitchen Table Press.

Romo-Carmona, M. Speaking Like An Immigrant.

Rodriguez, Luis J. Troche Moche. Curbstone Press.

Skidmore, Thomas E., and Smith, P. Modern Latin America. Oxford Press.

Class Schedule

There will be 12 class sessions, from June 5th to June 29th, 2006.

Readings--

First Week: June 5, 7, 8 – Modern Latin America – The Colonial Foundations. Film excerpts: Salvador Allende, by filmmaker Miguel Littín.

2nd Week: -- June 13, 14, 15 -- The Transformation of Latin America (1880s-2000s) Guest: Dr. Victoria Quiroz-Becerra, Latin American Economic Politics, Baruch.Phase 1 and 2: Initiation and expansion of Export-Import Growth. Readings from Cuentos, and The Latino Reader

3rd Week: -- June 20, 21,22 -- Phase 3: Import Substituting Industrialization. Phase 4: Stagnation in Import Substituting Growth. Guest: Dr. Juanita Díaz-Cotto, author of Chicana Lives and Criminal Justice. Sociology, Binghamton. Readings from Speaking Like an Immigrant, and Barrio Dreams

4th Week: -- June 27, 28,29 --Phase 5: Crisis, Debt, and Democracy. Latin America, The United States, and The world – Readings from labor issues, and Troche Moche. Excerpts from Miguel Littín's film, Salvador Allende.

Research Paper—

Depending on the number of students, the class will be divided into groups of three students to share research and you will each be writing a research paper for the end of the course. The paper will be focused on the working population of one Latin American country in the U.S.: What is the relationship between the country of origin and the U.S.? How does this affect the day-to-day reality of the native population (as in the case of Chicanos) as well as immigrants and future generations? How do fiction writers attempt to portray such a reality in their work? (political/literary analysis). The first draft is due June 20, and the final paper is due on the last day of class. We will also be watching a film and inviting two guest lecturers to speak on Latin American politics.