EL FIN

You’ve reached the end of this most unusual fall semester. I’m so proud of each and every one of you. Thank you for your effort and energy this semester.

You have two more assignments to turn before you’re done with our class. Each is due by Friday, December 4 at 11:59 p.m.(Pacific).

ZINE
Upload your Zine to our class Sakai site by the due date. The file should be saved as a single PDF. Please name the file “Zine-YourName.pdf” so I can easily find it. Consult the blog post from Week 12 to review the parts of the Zine assignment. In terms of technical specifics, set the document to 5.5 inches wide by 8.5 inches tall.

After you turn in your Zine, email me at tfss@pomona.edu with your mailing address. I will have your zine printed and I will mail you a copy in early January.

FLIPGRID
Your final assignment is a reflection on our semester, one you will turn in as a video response on Flipgrid. You can access the final class Flipgrid here.

Once you turn in your Zine and complete your last Flipgrid, you will be done with our class! I wish you only the best for the long break. May it be filled with rest, time to reflect, and time spent with people who love you (and who you love in return). And, as always, do your best to be well…

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Week 14: Last class

We’ll gather together for our final class meeting on Monday, November 23. You don’t have anything to read or prepare for that class. Just bring you.

In our last class before the one-on-one meetings week, we reviewed how to use Canva (and other tools) to create your Zine. Should you need more help you can contact me or search for an online tutorial on working with Canva. I will post a final description of the assignment this week, including how you can turn it in by the Friday, December 4 due date. The key thing to do from here on out is really perfect the parts of your research proposal in as complete (and accessible) format as possible, and then leave the design work to the end.

At the end of this process you’ll have a final Flipgrid assignment that is a reflection on the semester. I’ll post the link to that in our final post, later this week.

We’ll see you all on Monday at 4:15 Pacific! Be well until then.

Week 13: Bibliographies

We won’t meet as a class this week. Instead, each of you will meet with me one-on-one as we discuss your projects and you turn in your Bibliography assignment.

The final and polished draft of your Source & Questions assignment is due no later than Friday, November 13 at 5:00 p.m. (PST). Please upload the PDF of this assignment to Sakai. Since your Sakai Drop Box is filled with wonderful goodies, be sure to name it in a way I can easily find it.

I will read and assess those assignments before our scheduled one-on-one meeting. At that meeting you will turn in your Bibliography assignment. For ease of access, just email it to me as a PDF attachment no later than the start of our scheduled meeting.

The extra time you have this week is well-spent by working on the other parts of your final project. As I said in our last class, more important than playing with the design right now, is writing out the other sections of what the assignment asks for and beginning to grapple with content, style, and the order of things.

I look forward to seeing you all soon! Be well until then–and be sure to reach out if there’s anything you need!

Week 12 (and ZINE info)

This week you’ll turn in your first part (of three) related to your semester project. The Sources & Questions assignment is due on Thursday, November 11.

On MONDAY we’ll learn a little bit more about oral histories and the ways you might use those to supplement archives or create an archive yourself. I’ll even share some audio excerpts with you from some of my own projects. We’ll learn about building a bibliography of secondary sources for your projects. Finally, we’ll get you all signed-up for your one-on-one meeting in week 13 (when you’ll turn in your bibliography).

On WEDNESDAY we’ll workshop a bit with the Sources & Questions assignments you’ve completed. We’ll also look at some samples of zines, talk a little bit more about the history of the form, and review the final format of our Zine assignment by looking at a sample.

Below is a breakdown of the Zine assignment, as we discussed in class last month.

ZINE PROJECT

In the form it takes, your Zine is a creative project. You can make it look as you please and speak to a hypothetical audience in ways that fit the tone and style you’re looking for. Whatever and however you do that, still has to do the below five things.

1. TOPIC
A statement and description of the topic being researched.
–What’s the story?
–Why is this important or significant? Why should we care?
–How are you going to do this? What’s your archive?

2. ISSUES & QUESTIONS
A more focused discussion the key issues and a presentation of the questions.
–What’s the main research question? What are supporting questions?
–How do these questions illuminate the issues at stake?
–How does the archive help address these?

3. LIT REVIEW
A discussion of the state and quality of the field.
–What are the required (“need to know”) books in the field?
–What are other useful texts? Why or how are they useful?
–How do these works set the stage for your project?

4. EVIDENCE
A sample or “taste” of what you’ve found.
–Show a primary source or two.
–Give some sample interpretation and analysis of those sources.
–Convince the reader that this is do-able.

5. BIBLIOGRAPHY
A comprehensive list of the books and articles related to the project.

Week 11

Welcome to week 11 of 14! And welcome to week 1 of the workshop phase of our class. As we discussed in class, that means our classes will be more collaborative with a focus on helping us each hone our research proposals.

Your goals for this week are to narrow down your topic by 1) IDENTIFYING some primary sources; 2) starting to READ & INTERPRET those primary documents; and 3) sharing some of your provisional interpretations by PRESENTING them on Flipgrid.

What will we do in class? On MONDAY, well take some time to learn about finding and working with government documents. There’s nothing you have to do before that, just show up at 4:15 p.m. (PST).

Before we begin our WEDNESDAY class, you should complete your goals for the week. including presenting them on Flipgrid. We’ll use your initial findings in our workshop, as we focus on questions and primary sources. We’ll see what else comes up, too.

It’s a big week in United Stats history. Breathe, pace yourself, and do your best to take care.

Week 10

Here we are in week 10 of the semester. Including this week, we have only four more weeks and one day left of our time together. That means it’s time for our class to make something of a transition in how we work. This will be the last week of where we have readings and an in-class discussion. After this, our class format will change into a workshop-style seminar where we work to build our research proposals and, ultimately, our zines.

Our last class reading & discussion session will be on MONDAY. That’s when we’ll read two very powerful pieces of work from two great historians. The first is Horacio N. Roque-Ramírez and his article “Gay Latino Histories/Dying to Be Remembered: AIDS, Obituaries, Public Memory, and the Queer Latino Archive” (14_RoqueRamirez.pdf). The second is Linda Heidenreich, author of “Learning from the Death of Gwen Arajuo?—Transphobic Racial Subordination and Queer Latina Survival in the Twenty-First Century” (15_Heidenreich.pdf). One of our classmates will be our analytical guide for the class.

On WEDNESDAY we’ll transition into our research workshop mode as we begin working on our research projects. You have a little bit of work to do before that class. Spend some time thinking about some possible research topics and conducting some initial research on them. See what kinds of archival sources you find or might have access to. You’ll share your initial thoughts and steps by responding to our latest class Flipgrid. We’ll use you these in our class on Wednesday, so be sure to post your video no later than the start of class.

Be well and see you next week!

Week 9

I hope fall is in the air wherever you are. It’s still a little warm where I am but the increasing amount of pumpkin spiced things in our house is at least a small (though annoying) sign of the seasonal change underway.

This week we’re going to learn a little bit about an under-researched topic in Latinx history–the Central American “sanctuary” movement of the 1980s. In our class on MONDAY we’ll do so by discussing two readings: a 2009 article titled “The Sanctuary Movement and Central American Activism in Los Angeles” (12_Sanctuary.pdf) and a 1986 piece written by sanctuary activist Remmy Golden titled “Sanctuary and Women” (13_Golden.pdf). One of our classmates will guide our analysis.

On WEDNESDAY we’ll learn more about this history in a collective way. Your contributions to this will come from your third (and final) Mini-Story assignment.

This one requires you to find TWO newspaper sources (one news article and one editorial or opinion piece) on any aspect of the sanctuary movement using Historical Los Angeles Times and/or the Historical New York Times databases. Use the two newspaper sources you select to write a one-page (or two, if you must) mini-story showing us how you use and interpret sources to move a story forward. As in the past, don’t worry about a formal beginning or end. Just jump right in to the demonstrate the work.

As in the past, turn in the assignment by uploading it to our Drop Box on Sakai. For ease of downloading, please save your work as a single PDF named “LastName_Mini3.pdf” (in my case “SummersSandoval_Mini3.pdf”).

The assignment is due no later than Friday, October 23 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific time.

Week 8

This week we’ll discuss Latinx politics in the 1970s through two newer publications from two younger historians.

On MONDAY one of our colective will guide us in our discussion and analysis of chapter 7 from Jimmy Patiño’s 2017 book Raza Sí, Migra No: Chicano Movement Struggles for Immigrant Rights in San Diego (10_Patino.pdf).

On WEDNESDAY another colectiva member will lead us through “Hardhats May Be Misunderstood: The Boycott of Coors Beer and the Making of Gay-Labor-Chicana/o Alliances,” a 2020 article by Allyson P. Brantley (11_Brantley.pdf).

It’s a pretty straightforward week and a chance for us to dig deeper into these two works to better understand the history they present as well as analyze the ways the authors perform their craft.

We’ll see you then…

Week 7

Welcome to the month of October and welcome to week 7! We’ll spend the next four weeks learning more about the history of Latinx people in California, and as we do we’ll pay closer attention to how historians practice their craft. We’ll begin thinking about our semester project as we prepare ourselves for the last month of the semester (November) and the work we’ll do then.

On MONDAY we’ll spend some time with a book on the Chicano movement of the 1960s and 70s. The book is “¡Mi Raza Primero!” (My People First!): Nationalism, Identity, and Insurgency in the Chicano Movement in Los Angeles, 1966-1978 (2003), written by Ernesto Chávez. We’ll read chapters 2 and 3 (09_Chavez.pdf) and be guided in our discussion and analysis by two of our classmates.

On WEDNESDAY you’ll write and turn in your next Mini-Story assignment. For this second go-around with the assignment you’ll each be working from the same primary document–an oral history with one of the founders of the Brown Beret organization. The recording of the oral history can be found here. I’m asking you to listen to and work with the interview listed as “Session 3.”

Consult the feedback I gave you on our first Mini-Story assignment before you compose this one. Remember, the assignment is a chance for us to measure two kinds of historical practice: how we build story and how we use primary sources to do so. You’re building this narrative with a little more understanding of the larger story, since the Chávez reading is on related topics. The story you choose to tell, and the parts of the interview you choose to use, will tell us a lot about how you make meaning from (analyze) this complex past.

Just like last time, the assignment is due at the start of class. You can upload it to the Drop Box on Sakai or email it to me as an attachment. Either way, save save your work as a single PDF and named “lastname_Mini2.pdf” (in my case “SummersSandoval_Mini2.pdf”).

We’ll see you next time in class. Be well until then…

Week 6

We’re switching it up again this week as we return to our small seminar format to discuss two chapters from the book Migrant Longing.

As before, each of you will only attend ONE class meeting this week. Group C will meet on MONDAY and Group D will meet on WEDNESDAY. You can learn group assignment by visiting our Flipgrid discussion topic for the week.

Our reading is the introduction and chapter 1 in Miroslava Chávez-García’s Migrant Longing: Letter Writing Across the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands, 1900-1945 (08_ChavezGarcia_Longing.pdf). It’s a creative and ambitious project from a very talented historian. It should give us a lot to discuss. Come to your seminar ready to share your thoughts on the text and with questions you’d like to ask of your classmates.

Our Flipgrid prompt is called “2 Understandings and 1 Question.” It’s fairly straightforward and is meant to prepare you for seminar. As before, you should post your response no later than Monday, September 28 at 4:15 p.m. (Claremont time). After you’ve attended seminar, go back and ENGAGE with at least three of your classmates’ by clicking the “Comment” button beneath their posts. Post your comments anytime between Wednesday, September 30 at 4:15 p.m. and Friday, October 2 at 11:59 p.m. (Claremont time).

We’ll see you soon! Be well until then.