Acadia University Assimilation and Critical Theories of Incorporation Essays

choose among prompt questions 1-5.

You can choose as few/many questions within that range to answer, so long as you reach the word count of 800-1000 words (words in titles and works cited not included).

Write prompt question that you’re responding to as your title

Papers that don’t follow this rule automatically lose 10% of points

Your thesis is your response to the question

Avoid colloquial statements/loose language

For example: “throughout history” is a common one. How far back are we talking? Let’s stick to what can be proved
Cite facts and figures whenever you enter them in the text

Citation Format: (author last name year: page number(s))

Write in your own words

Quotes should be no more than one sentence
List all sources you cited in your Works Cited
Have at least two in-class reading sources if you only respond to one prompt, otherwise have at least three in-class reading sources for the entire paper. If you want, you can also add scholarly sources that are not on the syllabus on top of the quota for in-class reading sources.

Reference readings, not lectures. Prove that you read!

Works Cited formats:

Article format: Author last name, first name. Year. “Article Title.” Journal TitleNumber: page range of entire article
Example: Calderón-Zaks, Michael. 2022. “Technological Change before Globalization: Race and Declining Employment for Mexicans on Railroads, 1945-1970.” Journal of World-Systems Research1(Winter/Spring): 77-97.

Book format: Author last name, first name. Year. Title. Publisher home location: publisher.

Example: Ngai, Mae. 2003. Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Your TurnItIn score should be under 20%. Scores between 30%-50% is an automatic D grade, anything above 50% is an automatic F

If all of the above criteria are met and you make sound arguments, you can get the full points.

Week One: April 3-7: Introductions; Immigration, Race and Ethnicity

Jane Guskin and David Wilson. 2017. “Who are the Immigrants

Links to an external site.

?” In The Politics of Immigration: Questions and Answers. Monthly Review/NYU Press, pp. 17-27

Nancy Foner. 2013. “Immigration Past and Present

Links to an external site.

.” Daedalus3: 16-25

Michael Omi and Howard Winant. 2011. “Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s

Links to an external site.

.” David B. Grusky, Szonja Szelényi, Eds. The Inequality Reader: Contemporary and Foundational Readings in Race, Class, and Gender (Second Edition). Routledge, pp. 222-227.

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. 2021. “The United States is not ‘A Nation of Immigrants.’” Boston Review, August 16. https://bostonreview.net/race/roxanne-dunbar-not-n…

Links to an external site.

Film on Friday: Race: The Power of an Illusion, Episode 1

Links to an external site.

Prompt question: How accurate are popular notions on immigration? From whose perspectives? Do they match the social reality? Why or why not?

Week Two: April 10-14: Immigration and Race Relations Discourses in Sociology

Dorcas Davis Boles, June Gary Hopps, Obie Clayton Jr. and Shena Leverett
Brown. 2016. “The Dance Between Addams and Du Bois: Collaboration and Controversy in a Consequential 20th Century Relationship

Links to an external site.

.” Phylon2: 34-53

Stephen Steinberg. 2001. “Race Relations: The Problem with the Wrong Name

Links to an external site.

.” New Politics2
Stephen Steinberg. 2014. “The Myth of Ethnic Success: Old Wine in New Bottles

Links to an external site.

.” Oxford Handbook of American Immigration and Ethnicity. Oxford University Press, pp. 337-356.

Film on Friday:

A Legacy of Courage: W.E.B. DuBois and the Philadelphia Negro

Links to an external site.

Prompt questions: How might our understandings of “race relations” be if Sociology departments in the most endowed universities been more inclusive of race and gender at a much earlier point?

Week Three: April 17-21: Assimilation and Critical Theories of Incorporation

Richard Alba. 2018. “What Majority-minority Society? A Critical Analysis of the Census Bureau’s Projections of America’s Demographic Future

Links to an external site.

.” Socius 4: 1-10

Mary Romero. 2008. “Crossing the Immigration and Race Border: A Critical Race Theory Approach to Immigration Studies.” Contemporary Justice Review1: 23-37

Stephen Steinberg. 2014. “The Long View of the Melting Pot

Links to an external site.

.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 5: 790-794

Catherine Ramirez. 2020. “The Paradox of Assimilation

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.” In Assimilation: An Alternative History. Oakland: University of California Press, pp. 1-28

Film for Friday:

Immigration and American Identity

Links to an external site.

Prompt question: Just how ambiguous is the meaning of assimilation? Whose perspective dominated this definition and discourse and until when?

Week Four: April 24-28: Immigration, Race, Ethnicity and Labor

Bill Fletcher. 2020. “Race Is About More Than Discrimination: Racial Capitalism, the Settler State, and the Challenges Facing Organized Labor in the United States

Links to an external site.

.” Monthly Review3: 21-31

Greg LeRoy. 2008. “Race, Regionalism, and the Future of Organized Labor

Links to an external site.

.” Race, Poverty & the Environment2: 16-18

Jill Lindsey Harrison and Sarah Lloyd. 2012. “Illegality at Work: Deportability and the Productive New Era of Immigration Enforcement

Links to an external site.

.” Antipode2: 365-385

Higginbotham and Andersen, Eds:

Patricia Hill Collins. “Toward a New Vision,” pp. 155-161

Adia Harvey Wingfield. “Racializing the Glass Escalator,” pp. 167-173

Deidre Royster. “Race and the Invisible Hand,” pp. 186-195

Prompt question: What has it meant for society to have a racialized division of labor? How has the racialization of labor differentiated life chances by race?

Film on Friday: Uberland