" Go back to where you came from! ", " Where did you learn how to [drive]? " "If it weren't for all those foreigners .... "

These are all phrases we have heard, perhaps even said or had addressed to us: the angry words of those who identify themselves with a way of life, directed towards the stranger, the newcomer, the immigrant. And yet while American culture has evolved from values, beliefs, and customs that had their origins on distant shores, American society has often been deeply divided on issues of inclusion and assimilation.

Such a conflicted view of cultural "otherness" is apparent in the imaginative record of immigrant experience. American Immigrant Experience examines that experience in literature, photography and film. The syllabus ranges over the last century and includes such classics as Anzia Yezerskia's "The bread Givers" and Pietro Di Donati's "Christ in Concrete," and contemporary works such as Paule Marshall's "Brown Girl Brownstowns, " Edward Rivera's "Family Installments," and Edwidge Dandicat's "Breath, Eyes,Memory." The visual accounts of Jacob Riis and Lewis Hine will also be examined. Among the films that have been viewed in this course are Chaplin's "The Immigrant," and the film version of Mario Puzo's "The Godfather."