Master Syllabus U.S. History 2328 Mexican-American History II

The purpose of the History Department is threefold. First we provide excellent instruction in the discipline of history. Second, we provide each student with six semester hours of U.S. History instruction to meet the requirements of the Texas Education Code (51.303). Third, we provide history majors with fifteen semester hours of history instruction to prepare them to successfully pursue a bachelor's or higher degree in history at a four-year college or university.

Course Description: A survey of the political, economic, social, cultural, and intellectual history of Mexican Americans since U.S. Civil War and Reconstruction.

Course Rationale: This course fulfills three of the six hour legislative requirement for American history.  Students taking History 2328 can expect to improve their reading and writing competencies, critical thinking skills, research skills, etc.

SCANS Competencies: None required, but students will need good reading, writing, and study skills to succeed in this course.  Students will be required to read from a textbook and, depending on the instructor, may have outside readings and be assigned book reviews and/or research papers.  Writing assignments must observe correct English grammar and spelling.  Although students will be given specific test dates and detailed learning objectives to facilitate study, students will be expected to study the course material in detail to prepare for tests.

Instructional Methodology: Lecture and other methods, depending on the instructor and the particular format of the course.

Course Policies: Policies on attendance, withdrawals, incompletes, student discipline, and academic freedom vary by instructor.  However, the entire history department adheres to the following statements in regard to scholastic dishonesty and students with disabilities.
a) “Acts prohibited by the college for which discipline may be administered include scholastic dishonesty, including but not limited to cheating on an exam, plagiarizing, and unauthorized collaboration with another in preparing outside work.  Academic work submitted by students shall be the result of their thought, research, or self-expression.  Academic work is defined as, but not limited to tests, quizzes, whether taken electronically or on paper; projects, either individual or group; classroom presentations and home work.”
b) “Each ACC campus offers support services for students with documented physical or psychological disabilities.  Students with disabilities must request reasonable accommodations through the Office for Students with Disabilities on the campus where they expect to take the majority of their classes.  Students are encouraged to do this three weeks before the start of the semester.”

General Education Competencies: upon completion of the general education component of an associate’s degree, students will demonstrate competence in:
1. Gathering, analyzing, synthesizing, evaluating and applying information (Critical Thinking)
2. Analyzing and critiquing competing perspectives in a democratic society (Civic Awareness)
3. Comparing, contrasting, and interpreting differences and commonalities among peoples, ideas, and aesthetic traditions and cultural practices (Cultural Awareness)

Program-Level Student Learning Outcomes: upon completion of the A.A. degree in History students will be able to:

1. Use critical thinking in the analysis of historical facts
2. Demonstrate civic awareness in the appraisal of historical contexts
3. Demonstrate cultural awareness in the assessment of historical situations

Course-Level Student Learning Outcomes: upon completion of this course students will be able to:
1. Use critical thinking in the analysis of historical facts
2. Demonstrate civic awareness in the appraisal of historical contexts
3. Demonstrate cultural awareness in the assessment of historical situations

Common Course Objectives: After completing History 2328, the student should be able to:

1. Describe the forces that can be used to explain the long-standing tradition of Mexican migration to the United States

2.  Discuss what made Mexican Nationals leave Mexico and what attracted them to the United States.

3.  Trace how these forces changed throughout the history of Mexican migration, and how they have affected the type of immigrant coming to the United States.

4.  Discuss how the Americanization of the Mexican Origin community developed in the Southwest of the United States, and the role played by education and political organization in the process.

5.  Trace the development of the Mexican and Mexican American working class throughout the Midwest, the Southwest, and the West of the United States.

6.  Describe the impact of the Great Depression on the Mexican American population, why deportation was used as a solution to the so called “Mexican Problem”, and the fate of the Mexican American citizens and Mexican Nationals that were deported to Mexico.

7.  Trace the reasons behind the Zoot Suit Riots in California and the ill-treatment of Mexican Americans by the local police departments, the soldiers and sailors stationed in California, and the California courts of law.

8.  Discuss why Mexican American citizens in California were willing to give up their lives for the country during World War II despite the brutal treatment that residents of their community were receiving in the hands of members of the law enforcement offices, sailors and soldiers, and the courts of law.

9.  Review the political climate of the Kennedy and Johnson administration and  how it affected the Mexican American communities.

10. Describe the quality of life for the Chicanos in cities of the Southwest such as San Antonio, and the forces that directed the migration of Mejicanos, Mexican Americans and Chicanos from Texas to the northern cities of Chicago and Detroit among others.

11. Analyze the struggle for civil rights in the Mexican American barrios and the involvement of Chicano activists, the Brown Berets militants, and the high school and college students.

12. Describe the type of leadership that José Angel Gutiérrez, Reies Lopez Tijerina, and Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzalez brought to the Chicano Community during the years of civil rights struggle.

13. Describe the strategy of the Nixon administration regarding the civil rights struggle of the Mexican American community and analyze why the creation of the term Hispanic.

14. Review the political impact of La Raza Unida Party on mainstream national politics, on Mexican American politics, and on Chicano politics in Texas and Colorado.

15. Discuss the issue of gender in the Chicano movement.

16. Analyze how the foreign policies of the U.S. toward Mexico and Central America impacted the Mexican American Community and specifically in California with the wave of propositions passed to curtail services to the Mexican American Communities.

17. Review the leadership role played by Henry Cisneros, Bill Richardson, and Federico Peña in or for the Mexican American Community during the decade of the 1980s and 1990s.

18. Analyze the present conditions of the Mexican American Communities during the new wave of anti immigration and nativist resentment.

Syllabi requirements are found HERE.