HIST 380
Comparative American Immigration History Fall 2009
Division II Exploring Diversity Initiative
This is not the current course catalog

This course examines the underlying tension between the notion of American pluralism and the desire for homogeneity through the study of the history of immigration to the United States from Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Special attention will be paid to the condition in the sending countries and the historical ties of those countries to the United States, immigration and labor recruitment, anti-immigrant sentiments, and the development of American immigration policy. This is an EDI course because it examines how people from different countries and cultures interacted with each other and those already in the United States. Theirs is a story of immigration, exclusion, resistance, accommodation, labor and the creation of an American image of pluralism, coupled with the desire for assimilated immigrants.