01 MTH3 CAC 12259 RAMONI HH-B3
Immigration Narratives
In this course, students will read a sampling of American literature from 1900 to the present that addresses the topic of immigration. Over the course of the semester, we will read texts written by and about immigrants and their experiences. Our course selections will be diverse in both form (i.e. novels, poetry, creative nonfiction, literary theory, drama, and film) and perspective (we will read and view works written by/about immigrants of European, Asian, Latin American, and African descent). We will consider these works’ commentaries on topics like assimilation, patriotism, intergenerational trauma, loss, and the American Dream. Moreover, in exploring how and why individuals have historically come to the United States, we will additionally study other forms of migration (such as slavery and colonial settling) and contextualize our conversations about these topics, and about other issues like anti-immigrant legislation and xenophobia from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present, through critical and historical frameworks. In our discussions, we will consider a number of questions: What have immigrants contributed to American literary and cultural traditions? What kind of life has the United States promised to offer immigrants? How has this nation kept and fallen short of those promises?
Possible syllabus titles include: Willa Cather’s My Ántonia (1918); Betty Smith’s A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1943); Tony Kushner’s Angels in America (1991); Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah (2013); Lee Isaac Chung’s film Minari (2020); and excerpts from John Dos Passos’ Manhattan Transfer (1925); E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime (1975); Richard Blanco’s The Prince of Los Cocuyos (2014); Michelle Zauner’s Crying in H Mart (2021); and select poems and critical essays.