History 208: Latinx in the US: A History

Spanish Americans? Hispanics? Latina/os? Latinx? For over two hundred years, the “Latino” identity in the United States has been forged, imposed, fragmented, and reclaimed. This course examines the social, cultural, and political trajectories of Latin American communities from the US-Mexico War of 1847 to the presidential election of 2020. With a combination of primary and secondary sources, we will approach different communities and their relationship to the land, the history, and the politics of the United States. For instance, how did legal policies encourage practices of exclusion or assimilation? What impact did specific waves of immigrants and exiles have at the local and national levels? How did different communities coalesce or build their own civil rights movements? What are the contrasts between Chicano nationalism and Puerto Rican nationalism? And in what ways did cultural and artistic representations shape their social and political identities? Furthermore, the course will explore the nuanced positions of the Latinx communities towards US foreign policy as well as the different modes of marginalization of indigenous and folks of African descent within the “Latino” identity frameworks. May be taken for credit toward the Indigeneity, Race, and Ethnicity Studies major or minor.