LATINOS IN BLACK AND WHITE:
RACE, ETHNICITY AND IDENTITY IN THE AMERICAS

3 points
TTh 4:10-5:25 P.M.
Hamilton 701

Professor Miriam Jimenez-Roman

Office Hours:
TH 3:00-4:00 (660 Schermerhorn Extension)

 

Course Summary
Requirements &  Texts
Class schedule and Assigned Readings


Course Summary

The U.S. is experiencing an unprecedented change in the ethnic and racial composition of its population. The increase in the numbers of Latin Americans and Latinos has been particularly dramatic and there is general consensus that their presence will have far-reaching implications at carious levels of U.S. society. A prominent concern is whether, and how, this new demographic context will affect prevailing views on "race" and ethnic identification, whether the "newcomers" will accommodate to or challenge the "traditional" paradigms. This course looks critically at those traditional models of "race relations" in the Americas, the historical development and expressions of "blackness," "brown-ness: and "whiteness" at regional, national and international levels, and their contemporary articulations and ramifications. A primary focus will be the social and political dimensions of "ethnicity" and "race" in relations between Caribbeans and African Americans in New York City.

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Requirements & Texts

Requirements

The final grade will be based on regular attendance and active participation in class discussions of assigned readings (50%); a midterm exam (25%); and a 10-15 page term paper or 30 minute class preparation prepared in consultation with the instructor (25%). There will be no final exam.

TEXTBOOKS

Richard Graham, The Idea of Race in Latin America, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990

Naomi Zack (ed) American Mixed Race: The Culture of Microdiversity, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 1995

Maria P.P. Root, The Multiracial Experience: Racial Borders as the New Frontier, London: Sage, 1996

Arthur Schlesinger, The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society

Special Issues on Race and Identity, Centro, Journal of the Centro de Estudios Puertorriquenos, Hunter College, vol. Vii, nos. 1&2, 1996

Minority Rights Group (eds), No Longer Invisible: Afro-Latino Americans Today, London: Minority Rights Publications, 1996

Minority Rights Groups (eds), No Longer Invisible: Afro-Latino Americans Today, London: Minority Rights Publications, 1996

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Course Schedule

Week 1                      Introduction: Mapping the discourse
Weeks 2 & 3            Latin America and the Caribbean: Historical and Theoretical Perspectives
Weeks 4 & 5            United States: Historical and Theoretical Perspectives

Week 6                      Sexualized Race/ Racialized Sex
Week 7                    Case Study: Mexico, Mexicans and Chicanos.
Weeks 8 & 9           Case Study: Puerto Ricans
Week 10                  Case Study: Dominicans.
Weeks 11 & 12       Blanqueamiento and "Passing"
Weeks 13 & 14       Mixed Hybrids: Democracia racial Meets Multiracialism


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Introduction: Mapping the discourse

Week 1

Richard Bernstein, "Racism is (a) Entrenched? Or (b) Fading?," The New York Times, Nov. 8, 1997, p.B7

Toni Morrison, "On the Backs of Blacks," in Time Special Issue, Fall 1993, p. 57

Mireya Navarro, "Black and Cuban-American: Bias in 2 Worlds," The New York Times, Spt. 13, 1997, p.8

Julia Alvarez, "Black Behind the Ears," in Essence, February 1993, p.42, 129, 132.

Lawrence Wright, "One Drop of Blood," in The New Yorker, July 25, 1994, p 46-55.

Adolph Reed Jr., "Skin Deep: The Fiction of Race," the village voice, date?.

Klor de Alba, Jorge, Earl Shorris and Cornel West, "Our Next Race Question: The Uneasiness Between Blacks and Latinos," in Harper's, April 1996, pp. 55-63

Raymond Williams, Keywords, Oxford University Press, 1983, Entries on "culture" "class" and "race"

 

SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS

Jack Burns, "Black vs Browns," in The Atlantic Monthly, October 1992, pp. 41-68.

Arthur Schlesinger, The Disuniting of America: Reflections on a Multicultural Society (selections)

 [schedule]


Latin America and the Caribbean: Historical and Theoretical Perspectives

Week 2

Peter Wade, "Introduction" to Blackness and Race Mixture: The Dynamics of Racial Identity in Colombia, Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1995, pp. 3-44.

Rayford W. Logan, "The Negro in Spanish America," in The Negro in the Americas, ed. Charles H. Wesley, Washington D.C.: Howard University, 1940, pp.24-35.

H.Hoetink, Slavery and Race Relations in the Americas: An Inquiry into their Nature and Nexus, NY: Harper and Row, 1973, pp 3-40; pp 89-145

 

Week 3

Richard L. Jackson, "'Mestizaje' Vs. Black Identity: The Color Crisis in Latin America, " in Black World, July 1975, pp 4-21

Anani Dzidzienyo, "Conclusions," in No Longer Invisible: Afro-Latin Americans Today, ed. Minority Rights group, 1996,pp 345-356.

SUPPLEMENTARY READING

Magnus Morner, Race Mixture in the History of Latin America, Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1967, pp 21-52; pp 53-90; pp. 91-109

Leslie B. Rout, The African Experience in Spanish America, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976, pp 162-182

 [schedule]


United States: Historical and Theoretical Perspectives

Week 4

Saxton, Alexander, The Rise and Fall of the Whiter Republic: Class Politics and Mass Culture in Nineteenth Century America, London: Verso, 1990, Introduction, pp 1-20

Reginald Horsman, Race and Manifest Destiny: The Origins of American Anglo-Saxonism, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1981, pp 208-248.

 

Week 5

Willard B. Garewood, "Origins" in Aristocrats of Color: the Black Elite, 1880-1920, Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, pp 7-29.

Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1980s, NY: Routledge, [1986], 1991, pp 211-21.

SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS

Barbara Fields, "Slavery, Race and Ideology in the United States of America," in New Left Review, no. 181, Summer 1990

 

Williamson, Joel, New People: Miscegenation and Mulattos in the United States, NY: The Free Press, 1980

 [schedule]


Sexualized Race/ Racialized Sex

Week 6

Frantz Fanon, "The Women of Color and the White Man," "The Man of Color and the White Woman" in Black Skin,, White Masks

Natasha B. Barnes, "Face of the Nation: Race, Nationalism and Identity in Jamaican Beauty Pageants," in Daughters of Caliban: Caribbean Women in the Twentieth Century, Consuelo Lopez Springfield, ed., Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997.

Lillian Comas-Diaz, "Latinegra: Mental Health Issues of African Latinas," in The Multi-Racial Experience, Maria P.P. Root, pp 167-190.

Judith Ortiz-Cofer," The Myth of the Latina Woman" and "The Story of My Body," in Boricuas: Influential Puerto Rican Writings-An Anthology, NY: Ballantine Books, 1995.

  [schedule]


Case Study: Mexico, Mexicans and Chicanos

Week 7

Film: Excerpt from "Mirrors of the Heart," part of The Americas series

Alan Knight, "Racism, Revolution, and Indigenismo: Mexico, 1910-1940," in The Idea of Race in Latin America, Richard Graham, ed., Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990, pp 71-107.

Octavio Paz, "The Pachuco and Other Extremes," in Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude, pp 9-28.

"Corky" Gonzalez, I am Joaquin/ Yo Soy Joaquin

Gloria Anzaldua, Borderlands/La Fontera: The New Mestiza Consciousness, San Francisco: Spinsters/ aunt lute, 1987, pp 77-91

SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS:

George Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture and Identity in Chicano LA, 1900-1945, Oxford University Press, 1993, (selections)

Robert C. Smith, "Mexicans in New York: Membership and Incorporation in a New Immigrant Community," in Latinos in New York: Communities in Transition, Gabriel Haslip-Viera and Sherrie L. Baver, eds., University of Notre Dame Press, 1996, pp57-103.

 [schedule]


Case Study: Puerto Ricans

Week 8

M. Jimenez Roman, "Un hombre (negro) del pueblo: Jose Celso Barbosa and the Puerto Rican 'Race' Toward Whiteness," in CENTRO, pp 8-29.

Kelvin Santiago-Valles, "Puerto Rico," in Minority Rights Group (eds), No Longer Invisible: Afro-Latin American Today, London: Minority Rights Publications, 1996

Clara Rodriguez, "Puerto Ricans: Between Black and White," in Boricuas, pp 81-90

 

Week 9

Piri Thomas, "Babylon for the Babylonians," excerpt from Down These Mean Streets in Roberto Santiago (ed) Boricuas: Influential Puerto Rican Writings-An Anthology, NY: Ballantine Books, 1995, pp 96-101

Vivian Brady, "Black Hispanics: The Ties that Bind," in CENTRO, Spring, 1988, pp 34-41

Willie Perdomo, "Nigger-Reecan Blues," in Boricuas, pp. 91-93

Juan Flores, "Pan-Latino/Trans-Latino: Puerto Ricans in the 'New Nueva York'," in CENTRO pp 170-186

SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS:

Gabriel Haslip-Viera, "The Evolution of the Latino Community in New York City: Early Nineteenth Century to the Present," in Latinos in New York: Communities in Transition, Gabriel Haslip-Viera and Sherrie L. Baver, eds., University of Notre Dame Press, 1996, p 3-29

Juan Flores, "Rappin', Writin', & Breakin'," in CENTRO, Spring, 1988, pp 34-41

 [schedule]


Case Study: Dominicans

Week 10

Film: Excerpt from "Mirrors of the Hear", part of The Americas series

Harry Hoetink, "The Dominican Republic in the Nineteenth Century: Some Notes on Stratification., Immigration, Race," in Magnus Moner (ed) Race and Class in Latin America, NY: Columbia University Press, 1970, pp. 96-121

Frank Moya Pons, "Dominican National Identity: A Historical Perspective," in PUNTO 7 Review, pp 14-25

Silvio Torres-Saillant, "The Dominican republic," in No Longer Invisible: Afro-Latin Americans Today, pp109-138

SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS

Ramona Hernandez and Silvio Torres-Sailant, "Dominicans in New York: Men , Women, and prospects,: in Latinos in New York: Communities in Transition, Gabriel Haslip-Viera and Sherrie L. Baver, eds., University of Notre Dame Press, 1996, pp 30-56

 [schedule]


Blanqueamiento and "Passing"

Week 11

McCarthy, Timothy P., "Legalizing Anxiety: Plessy, Passing and the Conundrum of Race in American Culture," in Race & Reason, Columbia University: Institute for Research in African-American Studies, vol 3, 1996-97, pp 20-25

Adrian Piper, "Passing for White, Passing for Black," Transition 58, pp 4-32

 

Week 12

Spring Redd, " Something Latino Was Up With Us," in Barbara Smith, ed. Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology, NY: Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, 1983, p 52-56

Minority Rights Group (eds.), No Longer Invisible: Afro-Latin Americans Today, London: minority Rights Publications, 1996. (selections)

 [schedule]


Mixed Hybrids: Democracia racial Meets Multiracialism

Week 13

Hall, Stuart, "Cultural Identity and Diaspora," in Identity, Culture, Difference, ed. Jonathan Rutherford, London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1990 p 222-237.

Carlos A. Fernandez, "Government Classification of Multiracial/Multiethnic People," in The Multiracial Experience, pp15-36

Deborah A. Ramirez, "Multiracial Identity in a Color-Conscious World." in the Multiracial Experience, pp 49-62.

 

Week 14

David Theo Goldberg, "Made in the USA: Mixin' and Matchin" in Naomi Zack ed., American Mixed Race: the Culture of Microdiversity, pp 237-256

Abby L. Ferber, "Exploring the Social Construction of Race: Sociology and the Study of Interracial Relationships," in Naomi Zack, ed. American Mixed Race: The Culture of Microdiversity, pp155-167

Linda Alcoff, "Mestizo Identity," in Naomi Zack (ed) American Mixed Race: The Culture of Microdiversity, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 1995, p 257-278.

Bell Hooks, "Choosing the Margin as a Space of Radical Openness," in Yearning: race, Gender and Cultural Politics, Boston: South End Press, 1990, pp 145-153.

SUPPLEMENTARY READINGS:

Joe Wood, "Escape from Blackness: Once Upon a Time in Creole America," the Village Voice, December 6, 1994, p 25

Shelley Fisher Fishkin, "Interrogating 'Whiteness,' Complicating 'Blackness': Remapping American Culture, American Culture, American Quarterly, vol 47, co. 3, September 1995, p 428-466

 [schedule]


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