Syllabus

From The Peopling of New York City

Professor Victoria Ebin vebin@ccny.cuny.edu

THE PEOPLING OF NEW YORK

Spring 2007

CUNY Honors College Seminar 2 - CHC 1201, Section D Room 6/268

Friday 12:30 to 3 pm

Course Description

In this seminar, students will investigate the role of immigration and migration in shaping the city’s identity -- past, present, and future. Topics to be considered include the factors that have drawn people to New York since the 17th century; the different ways that religion, race, gender, and ethnicity have shaped immigrant encounters with the city; the formation and social organization of immigrant communities in neighborhoods such as Harlem, Five Points, Little Italy, and Chinatown; the impact of successive waves of newcomers on urban culture and politics; and the continuing debates over assimilation and Americanization.

Reading and writing assignments will be enriched by museums visits and neighborhood walking tours. In addition to individual research projects, students will work in teams to carry out research in Harlem that will become part of the class website. In constructing and maintaining the website, they will be assisted by our Instructional Technology Fellow, Aaron Liu-Rosenbaum. All classes will come together several times during the semester to talk with distinguished faculty and others who study the city’s experience of migration and immigration.

Course Objectives

By the end of the course, students will: 1. Demonstrate an understanding of the history of migration to New York; the lives of migrants and the themes that shape their lives today, such as the legal framework, access to education and health care, the political context, and the social organization of specific communities.

3. Demonstrate an understanding of migrant populations through research and writing about immigrant groups or about an area of the city and its shifting population across time.

4. Use qualitative, quantitative, and experiential approaches to studying people in order to come to an understanding of the diversity of people’s experience in and of the city.

5. Increase their understanding of past and present issues of migration, immigration, race, and ethnicity by analyzing current and historical primary and secondary sources and by engaging in debates about those issues.

6. Learn to search literature on specific science and technology topics and to use the Internet to identify relevant data sources.

Required Books

1. Nancy Foner, From Ellis Island to JFK: New York’s Two Great Waves of Immigration. Yale University Press, 2000.

2. Nancy Foner, editor, New Immigrants in New York, Columbia University Press, 2001.

3. Frederick Binder and David Reimers, All the Nations under Heaven: an Ethnic and Racial History of New York City, Columbia University Press, 1995.

4. Stoller, Paul, Money has no Smell: The Africanization of New York City, University of Chicago Press, 2002.

There is additional required reading that is noted on the syllabus; it will be distributed in class, or will be on reserve in the library or on the class website.

Course Requirements

- In-class midterm.

- In-class final exam.

- Participation in neighborhood research project that will become part of the class website.

- Oral history assignment.

- Class presentations based on weekly reading assignment. Each week two students will be assigned to discuss the reading of that week.

- Attendance.

- Response papers on the reading will not be graded but are required in order to pass the class. Each student is expected to hand in a total of 8 response papers during the semester. These papers should be one double-spaced page with your opinion on an aspect of the reading that interested you; they should not be just a summary. All students should post their paper to the class blackboard by Thursday 9 am. This will help the weekly discussants with their presentations.

Course Policies

• You are expected to attend every class. Since this class meets just once a week, attendance is crucial. Missing one class is the equivalent of missing a week’s worth of class.

• There are no scheduled make-up exams. In case of emergency, you need to contact me before-hand. You will be expected to produce documentation.

• Academic Integrity Policy: You must cite sources for ideas, words and phrases. Those who do not will have their papers given to the Provost’s Office.

Class Outings We will have occasional class outings to museums and community visits. In addition to attending class, students are expected to attend all CHC Seminar 2 common events and fieldtrips. There will be a technology fair in mid-March.

CLASS SCHEDULE*

1. Feb. 2 Introduction/overview

Introduction to our neighborhood project.

What, and where, is “Little Senegal?”

Film excerpts—“Little Senegal” and “Baraka”

2. Feb. 9 West African migrants in New York Reading Foner, New Immigrants in New York, Chapter 1 and pages 229-238 (the first half of chapter 8).

Stoller prologue, chapter 1.

http://www.fowler.ucla.edu/passporttoparadise.htm

Optional

• Millman, Joel. 1997. “Boubous over Broadway.” In The Other Americans. New York: Penguin.[skim]

Walking Tour of Little Senegal, Harlem with Aissatou Ndao.

3. Feb. 16 West Africans living and working in NY Reading Ebin, V. 1996. “Making Room vs. Creating Space: The Construction of Spatial Categories by Itinerant Mouride Traders.” In Barbara Metcalf ed., Making Muslim Space. Berkeley: University of California press.

Foner, Ellis Island, Introduction, Chapter 1—Who are they and why have they come? .

Stoller 2, 3, 4.

Optional

• Perry, Donna. 1997. “Rural Ideologies and Urban Imaginings: Wolof Immigrants in New York City.” Africa Today 44, 2: 229-260.

Film to be shown in class, Taxi to Timbuktu, followed by a discussion with the film’s lead character, Alpha Gassama, and the filmmaker, Tony Avirgan.

4. Feb. 23 West Africans and Islam in NY

Reading Cheikh Anta Babou. 2002. Brotherhood Solidarity, Education and Migration: The role of the dahira among the Murid Muslim Community of New York. African Affairs. 101: 151-170.

Stoller, chapters 5, 6, 7

“In Motion,” on African migration, a website from the Schomberg Center; see the last section on African migration; skim texts. http://inmotionaame.org/migrations/landing.cfm?migration=13

If possible, Harlem walking tour outside class time.

Film: Harlem, 1959, CBS series.

5. March 2 Africans and African-Americans in Harlem

ASSIGNMENT DUE: PRELIMINARY LIST OF SOURCES FOR NEIGHBORHOOD PROJECT

Reading Foner, Ellis Island, chapter 2

Stoller, chapter 8

• Osofsky, Harlem: the Making of a Ghetto, Chapters 1, 2, 5, 6

Optional

• Foner, In a New Land, Immigrants and African Americans, chapter 2

6. March 9 NY Migration: 17th century to 1880s

Reading Binders and Reimers, Chapters 2, 3.

• Anbinder, Five Points, Introduction and pp. 7-13.

Jacob Riis http://www.cis.yale.edu/amstud/inforev/riis/title.html Introduction, chapters 1-3, 15, 16, 17..

Optional:

• Anbinder, Chapter 1, 2

Profile of Riis http://www.sparatcus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAriis.htm

MARCH 14, TECHNOLOGY FAIR 5-9 pm, Graduate Center Proshansky Auditorium and Concourse 365 Fifth Ave at 34th St (Subway: 6 to 33rd St or B, Q, N, M, R, 1, 2, 3 to 34th St

7. March 16 NY Migration: 1880s to 1945

ASSIGNMENT: TOPIC OUTLINE FOR NEIGHBORHOOD WEBSITE

Reading Binder and Reimers Chapters 5, 6

Foner, Ellis Island, p. 79-89 ; 108-123.

Riis, http://www.cis.yale.edu/amstud/inforev/riis/title.html Riis, chapters 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 13

Levenstein, Harvey. “The American Response to Italian Food.” In Carole Counihan (ed.) Food in the USA, Routledge 2002.

Visit Tenement Museum

8. March 23 1945 onwards

ASSIGNMENT: REPORT ON NEIGHBORHOOD VISIT

Reading Binder and Reimers, Chapter 8, 9.

• Glazer, Nathan and Daniel Moynihan. 1970 (2nd ed.). Beyond the Melting Pot. Cambridge: MIT Press. Introduction, conclusion.

9. March 30 Mid-term exam

NO CLASS April 6 Spring vacation

10. April 13 Chinese Migrations to NY

ASSIGNMENT: FIRST DRAFT FOR NEIGHBORHOOD PROJECT

Reading Foner, New Immigrants, Chapter 2, 5, Foner, Ellis Island, chapters 3

• Chapter, Peter Kwong, The New Chinatown, Chapter 1.

Visit to Chinatown

11. April 20 Latinos in NYC Reading Foner, New Immigrants, Chapters 3, 10

• Haslip-Viera, Gabriel. "The Evolution of the Latino Community in New York City: Early

Nineteenth Century to the Present." In Gabriel Haslip- Viera and Sherrie L. Baver, eds. Latinos in New York: Communities in Transition, pp. 3-29. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1996.

• Dávila, Arlene. 2004. Barrio Dreams: Puerto Ricans, Latinos, and the Neoliberal City. Berkeley: University of California Press. Chapters 1..

Guest speaker

12. April 27 Transnationalism

ORAL HISTORY PROJECT DUE

Reading Foner, New Immigrants, Chapter 9 Foner, Ellis Island, Chapter 6

• Glick Schiller, Nina and Georges Fouron.1998. “Transnational Lives and National Identities: The Identity Politics of Haitian Immigrants.” In Michael Smith and Luis Garnizo (eds.) Transnationalism from Below. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction.

13. May 4 Migration, race and ethnicity in New York City

ASSIGNMENT: FINAL VERSION FOR NEIGHBORHOOD PROJECT

Reading Foner, Ellis Island Chapter 5 Foner, New Immigrants, Chapter 7

• Introduction and chapter, Ignatiev, Noel. 1995. How the Irish Became White. London: Routledge.

• American Anthropological Association statement on race. http://www.aaanet.org//stmts/racepp.htm

MID-MAY COMMON EVENT (date to be determined) Presentation of neighborhood projects

14. May 11 Beyond the Melting Pot, Assimilation, and Multiculturalism Reading Foner, Ellis Island, chapter 8

• Chapter 6. Glazer, Nathan. We are all Multiculturalists Now.

• Chapter 3. Gordon, Milton. 1964. Assimilation in American Life: The

Role of Race, Religion, and National Origins. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

15. May 18 Final exam

This syllabus is NOT written in stone.