Course Outline for History 52
United States History from a Chicano Perspective I

Effective: Fall 2022
SLO Rev: 09/17/2021
Catalog Description:

HIS 52 - United States History from a Chicano Perspective I

3.00 Units

(See also ES 52 )
A survey of the social, political, economic, and cultural history of the Chicana/o experience within the context of U.S. history from Mesoamerican origins to the Reconstruction era. Students will critically analyze the struggles of Chicanas/os in the historical development of the United States with comparisons to other groups. Students will also analyze and critique race and racism, colonialism and white supremacy, while also centering movements for sovereignty, self-determination and anti-racism. Major topics include European colonization, Indigenous cultures and slavery, the formation of the American political system, structural racism and segregation, the U.S. War with Mexico, and the American Civil War. This course includes analysis of the U.S. Constitution, Supreme Court Rulings, and California State and local government issues related to the rights of Mexican and Mexican Americans. (May not receive credit if Ethnic Studies 52 has been completed successfully.)
2205.00 - History
Letter Grade Only
Type Units Inside of Class Hours Outside of Class Hours Total Student Learning Hours
Lecture 3.00 54.00 108.00 162.00
Total 3.00 54.00 108.00 162.00
Measurable Objectives:
Upon completion of this course, the student should be able to:
  1. Analyze and articulate concepts such as race and racism, racialization, ethnicity, equity, ethno-centrism, eurocentrism, white supremacy, self-determination, liberation, decolonization, sovereignty, imperialism, settler colonialism, and anti-racism as analyzed in any one or more of the following: Native American Studies, African American Studies, Asian American Studies, and Latina and Latino American Studies.
  2. Critically analyze the intersection of race and racism as they relate to class, gender, sexuality, religion, spirituality, national origin, immigration status, ability, tribal citizenship, sovereignty, language, and/or age in Native American, African American, Asian American, and/or Latina and Latino American communities.
  3. Critically review how struggle, resistance, racial and social justice, solidarity, and liberation, as experienced and enacted by Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans and/or Latina and Latino Americans are relevant to current and structural issues such as communal, national, international, and transnational politics as, for example, in immigration, reparations, settler-colonialism, multiculturalism, language policies.
  4. Explain the origins of Chicano Studies in relation to the history of the United States
  5. discuss the diverse pre-Columbian indigenous peoples and their cultures that developed in Mesoamerica and influenced Native cultures within the present borders of the United States;
  6. Identify major periods in Mexican American history including the pre-Columbian, Spanish Colonial, Mexican, and American;
  7. discuss and explain the impact of La Conquista on the economic, social, and political development of the 15th century;
  8. trace the formation of the U.S. Constitution and political processes including the political philosophies of framers; rights and obligations of citizens; majority versus minority rights; separation of powers; comparison with Spanish law; implication for the U.S. and Southwest, including indigenous people;
  9. identify the impact of religious conquest on the Americas;
  10. assess U.S. Constitution and Mexican independence including implications for the Southwest;
  11. explain the geographical, political, and economic impact of Manifest Destiny on the Southwest region;
  12. identify the contributions of Mexican American women to the economic and social development of the United States;
  13. explain the impact of Manifest Destiny and the California Constitution on Mexican Americans;
  14. identify the contributions of African Americans to the economic and social development of the United States;
  15. identify geographical and boundary changes after the U.S. War with Mexico;
  16. assess U.S. Constitution as it pertained to Mexican Americans after 1848;
  17. assess the significance of The Mexican Revolution as it relates to Mexicans and the impact that it had on the United States, economically, politically, and socially;
  18. Demonstrate how the expansion of capitalism led to enslavement of African peoples, and exploitation and depopulation of the first peoples of the continent, and the loss of territories by the nascent Mexican Republic;
  19. Demonstrate how the US gradually evolved to become a modern multiethnic and multicultural society, and the complex relations between the different racial and class groups;
  20. Demonstrate the development and evolution of the US political system and its institutions, as well as show how political life has affected European Americans, women and American racial minorities.
Course Content:
  1. Introduction to Chicano Studies Perspective of U.S. History
    1. Theories: racialization/racial formation, colorism, whiteness, whitesupremacy, imperialism, settler colonialism, and Ethnic Studies
  2. Early Mesoamerican Cultures: 
    1. Cradles of World Civilization
  3. From the Olmecs to the Mayans
  4. Evolving Mesoamerican Civilizations:
    1. Teotihuacan and Commerce
    2. The Toltecs and Territorial Expansion
  5. The Arrival and Settlement of the Aztecs in the Valley of Anahuac
    1. The Rise of the Aztec/Mexica Empire
  6.  The Spanish Conquest of the Mexica: Racial hierarchy & Patriarchy
    1.  White supremacy built into the casta system
    2. Miscegenation in Colonial Mexico
  7. European Explorations into North America: Settler Colonialism
    1. The Founding of the English Colonies in North America
    2. Middle Ground
      1. French encounters with Native Americans
    3. The Spanish Expeditions
  8. Roots of American Democracy
    1. The Subjugation of Native People and the enslavement of Africans
  9. Thomas Jefferson on Race
    1. Racial othering of Black and Indigenous people and institutional racism
  10. The America Revolution and the Forging of the United States
    1. Independence or Revolution?
  11. Roots of the American Political System
    1. From the Articles of Confederation to the US Constitution
  12. Formation of the U.S. Constitution
    1. Political philosophies of framers
    2. Rights and obligations of citizens
    3. Majority versus minority rights
    4. Separation of powers (Executive, Legislative, Judicial)
    5. Three-Fifths clause and Structural Racism
    6. legal doctrines and political philosophies in relation to race, class, gender, and sexuality
  13. Market Revolution
    1. The Rise of American Democracy
      1. Particpants & Partcipation   
    2. American Progress
    3. The Second Great Awakening
  14. Age of Jackson: Racialized violence against the southeastern tribes
    1. Indian Removal
    2. The Supreme Court and Native Americans
  15. The Movement North: The Spanish Explorations of the Northern Territories
  16.  The California Mission System: Land disposition, labor exploitation and sexual violence
    1. Junipero Serra
    2. Franciscan Missions as an early carceral state
  17. Diverging American Economic Growth
    1. The Industrializing North versus The Southern Plantation Economy
      1. Protectionists versus Free Markets
  18. Slavery in the South
    1. An American Institution
    2. Abolition and the movement for self-determination
  19. The Spirit of Continentalism: Anglo-American Westward Expansion
    1. Manifest Destiny White encroachment into indigenous and Mexican Territories
  20. The Spanish/Mexican Settlement of the Southwest
  21. The Splintering of the Emerging Mexican Nation:Intersection of race, class and gender as factors of Citizenship status
    1. The 1836 Anglo Rebellion in Tejas
    2. The US/Mexico War of 1846
    3. Conquered People: The Mexicans of the Southwest
    4. Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
  22.  Incorporation of California: Legal, political, and social disenfranchisement as related to racism and white supremacy
    1. Gold Rush and Foreign Miners Tax
      1. Racialized violence against Chinese, Mexican and Chilean Miners
    2. Political and Social foundations
  23. The Impending Crisis: The Failure of Political Compromises over Slavery
    1. The Shrinking South
  24. The American Civil War
    1. Historical Interpretations of the Civil War
    2. The General Strike: Enslaved peoples lead the struggle for self-determination
  25. Radical Reconstruction as a model for Twentieth Century Anti-Racists Struggles
  26. California State Constitution
    1. Political Discontent
    2. Second Constitutional Convention, 1878
  27.  Immigration and labor movements in the second half of the 19th Century
    1. Transnational currents
    2. Racialization of the “New” Immigrant and Nativism

 

 

Methods of Instruction:
  1. Films with discussion
  2. Lecture/Discussion
  3. Presentation
  4. Field Trips
  5. Distance Education
  6. Study Questions
Assignments and Methods of Evaluating Student Progress:
  1. Write a five-page paper on a topic such as Westward Expansion and its social, political, and economic impact on Native Americans and Mexicans in the 1800s.
  2. Take a field trip to a Spanish Mission and prepare to discuss issues of Spanish and Indian colonial relations.
  3. Write a five-page research paper using Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano studies, on any topic related to Chicano/U.S. History - the topic must be within the time frame we cover in class, beginning approximately with Indigenous Mesoamerican cultures up to the end of the American Civil War.
  4. Trace the territorial expansion of the U. S. on a map.
  1. Exams/Tests
  2. Quizzes
  3. Research Projects
  4. Papers
  5. Projects
  6. Final Examination
  7. ATI exams
Upon the completion of this course, the student should be able to:
  1. Analyze the causes and consequences of political, economic, and social change.
  2. Demonstrate a body of knowledge about and critical understanding of eras, their key events and ideas, and the process of change over time.
  3. Analyze the causes and consequences of political, economic, and social change.
  4. Critically analyze the struggles and contributions of Mexican Americans in the development of California and the United States with comparisons to other major groups like European Americans, African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, and Pacific Islanders.
Textbooks (Typical):
  1. Foner, Eric (2019). Give Me Liberty, Volume 1 (6). W.W. Norton.
  2. Foner, Eric (2019). Voices of Freedom: A Documentary History Volume 1 (6). W.W. Norton.
  3. Vargas, Zaragosa (2017). Crucible of Struggle: A History of Mexican Americans from Colonial Times to the Present Era (2nd). Oxford University Press.
  4. Gómez, Laura E. (2019). Manifest Destinies: The Making of the Mexican American Race (2). New York University Press.
  5. Mintz, Steven (2009). Mexican American Voices: A Documentary Reader (2). Wiley-Blackwell.
Abbreviated Class Schedule Description:
A survey of the social, political, economic, and cultural history of the Chicana/o experience within the context of U.S. history from Mesoamerican origins to the Reconstruction era. (May not receive credit if Ethnic Studies 52 has been completed successfully.)
Discipline:
Chicano Studies*