American Immigrant Experience Syllabus: Reading List

Readings consistof a packet of selections which students must purchase. The selections include readings in history and sociology, as well as some essays and fiction. The aim of the historical and sociological readings is to present some basic concepts which are essential to a deep understanding of immigrant experience. These readings include a selection from Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities, and from Philip Kasinitz's study of Caribbean communities in New York City, and from Nancy Foner's work on new immigrants from the third world. Among the essayists is Eva Hoffman, and among teh fiction writers is V.S. Naipaul. The contents of the packet is changed from time to time. In the past Derek Walcott maded his appearence, as well as Robert Olin Butler.

Most of the course reading is fiction which represents immigrant experience from the end of the 19th century to much more recent, late 20th and early 21st century experience. On occasion a film is shown, and other times students have been given the assignment to visit and comment on a neighborhood in the city, which is home to a significant concentration of immigrants.