Chicana/o Experience in the Borderlands, HIST350

Purpose: to help other instructors teaching the same course

Common Course ID:  Chicana/o Experience in the Borderlands, HIST 350
CSU Instructor Open Textbook Adoption Portrait

Abstract: This open textbook is being utilized in a History course for undergraduate or graduate students by Miriam Riggs at California State University, San Marcos. The open textbook provides and overview of the history of people of Mexican descent in the U.S, including a focus on precolonial Indigenous populations, the colonial period under Spanish rule, transition to Mexican rule and then U.S. control. The main motivation to adopt an open textbook was to save students money and to provide additional historical perspectives through the use of primary and scholarly sources. Most students access the open textbook through the CSUSM Kellogg Library website and supplemental materials through Canvas learning management system.

Chicana/o Experience in the Borderlands, HIST 350 
Brief Description of course highlights:  Examines the experience of people of Mexican descent (1840s-1980s) in the “borderlands” including territory in Mexico and the southwestern United States. Emphasizes the Chicano Movement as socio-political process that generated a distinctive interdisciplinary interpretation of history, “Chicano Studies.” A Chicano Studies approach will be used to examine three borderlands topics: labor, migration, and gender relations. Students will use historical methods to analyze a variety of historical sources. https://www.csusm.edu/history/degreerequirements/courses.html

Student population: History majors, but also general education upper division students—a range of preparations and history knowledge. No prerequisites.

Learning or student outcomes:  Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

1. Demonstrate their comprehension of the historical experience of people of Mexican descent in the borderlands, particularly with regard to labor, migration, and gender relations.
2. Demonstrate a variety of skills in the discipline of history (historical methods) appropriate for the upper-division level of university studies, such as close reading and analysis of primary and secondary sources, research and evaluation, contextualization, comparison, and interpretation.
3. Construct clear and effective written analyses of historical sources by using preliminary organization techniques, receiving and processing feedback, and improving written work over the course of the semester.

Key challenges faced and how resolved: It was sometimes difficult to find free online resources that do not violate copyright restrictions. I used online digitized collections of sources wherever possible and relied heavily on what was available online through our CSUSM Kellogg Library databases.

Syllabus and/or Sample assignment from the course or the adoption: Students had weekly Reading Responses in which they had to combine textbook and primary source readings with information from lecture to answer specific questions.
Example: Students read:

Excerpts from the Pueblo War of Independence
And, from the CSUSM Kellogg Library databases:
GONZALES, MANUEL G. “THE SPANISH FRONTIER: 1521–1821.” In Mexicanos, Third Edition: A History of Mexicans in the United States, 33–65. Indiana University Press, 2019.

POWELL, ERIC A. “The First American Revolution.” Archaeology 70, no. 2 (March 2017): 42–47.
Romero, Simon. "After 340 Years, Pueblo Revolt is Echoing in New Mexico: [National Desk]." New York Times, Sep 28, 2020, Late Edition (East Coast).

They answered these questions, using these materials and lecture/discussion:

• Assess the credibility of the primary sources from the Pueblo Revolt, discussing their strengths and limitations as source of information. Consider the authors' background, audience, context of their original creation, comparison of the accounts, and/or anything else you find relevant to their credibility.
• Present your own summary of the Revolt and its historical significance. What were the causes of the Revolt, and how was it organized? What actions did the rebels take and why? What were the consequences or outcomes of this Revolt? Make sure you use at least ONE primary source in your description of events, in addition to either class lecture/discussion or this week's readings.
• Explain how the event continues to resonate in the present. How have specific scholars and community members presented the significance of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 in the present? In particular: how have new archaeological studies challenged (or complicated) previous assumptions about the Revolt and colonial history in general? And how did protests in 2020 mobilize the Pueblo Revolt to demonstrate a need for specific changes in the present? Use evidence from the two secondary articles to support your claims.

Miriam Riggs Name 
I am a lecturer in the History Department at California State University, San Marcos.  I teach History of Brazil, Culture & Identity in Latin America, Mexico: Past and Present, Chicana/o Experience in the Borderlands, U.S. History (survey), and World History (survey).

Please provide a link to your university page.
https://www.csusm.edu/history

Please describe the courses you teach.  I teach courses in Latin American, World, and U.S. history. I tend to focus on social and cultural patterns and changes as well as how historical themes continue to resonate in the present.

Describe your teaching philosophy and any research interests
related to your discipline or teaching.  I have consistently emphasized the need for students to improve their research, writing, and communication skills as a more general element of their education. In every class, I try to achieve balance between teaching content and form—between discussing the historical concepts, continuities, and changes within the subject matter at hand and helping students hone the skills necessary for research and communicating their understanding to others. I believe that it is important for students to receive a range of readings on a topic, and I regularly assign work from a variety of disciplines in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Knowing the limits of my own subject position, I include articles and videos by scholars from different backgrounds and world regions as well as primary sources (speeches, photos, paintings, music, and political and literary writings) in course readings and lecture as much as possible. I have found that classroom discussions of primary sources have been particularly robust and that showing examples of different artistic and cultural movements helps bring to life the underlying social contexts in which these works have been produced. I stress the importance of historiography and interpretation: I note changing ideas about historical patterns and point out contemporary uses of history in popular culture, places where history continues to resonate in the present. I want students to see the complexity of historical study as well as how that complexity has often been flattened or erased in the public sphere to serve a particular agenda or status quo. I endorse an attitude of healthy skepticism, suggesting that students look at what authors (and their teachers) argue as well as at the kinds of evidence, methods, sources, and assumptions they make use of in their arguments. I likewise emphasize the continuity of the classroom with the wider world, asking students to apply their analytic and reasoning skills to all aspects of their lives, especially regarding representations of history and their own community and environment that they come across on a daily basis. My own research studies representations of history in the present, and so I like to bring in contemporary representations of history like memes and contemporary popular culture references to have students analyze the way we as a society remember history in comparison and contrast to supposed formal historical research and learning.

Provide an explanation or what motivated you to use this textbook or OER/Low Cost option. I wanted to save students money, and I wanted to put together a list of readings to focus on primary sources from a variety of perspectives, some of which I felt have been absent from published materials.

How did you find and select the open textbook for this course? I put together readings based on the weekly course topics, based on what resources I could find online and through the CSUSM Kellogg Library databases.

Sharing Best Practices: There are many websites from museums and institutions of higher learning that offer digitized materials for free. Scholarly articles about specific cultural or artistic movements often have images of important primary sources that can prompt strong in-class discussions. Play!

Describe any challenges you experienced, and lessons learned.  Sometimes it’s not easy to find free English-language sources about specific topics, which means that I either have to provide a translation or a different work around.

GONZALES, MANUEL G. Mexicanos, Third Edition: A History of Mexicans in the United States, Indiana University Press, 2019.

Brief Description:  This work provides an overview of the history of people of Mexican descent in the U.S. from precolonial times to the relative present. I chose this book because it is available free to students through the CSUSM Kellogg Library databases. In addition, it provides an excellent focus on social and cultural trends within the community, giving students many historical people and events to research further. It presents an up-to-date understanding of historiographical debates and how this history has been shared and interpreted by different scholars (from different backgrounds) over the years. In addition to the textbook, I provided weekly readings, based on free online resources and articles available through the CSUSM Kellogg Library databases.
Please provide a link to the resource  Mexicanos: A History of Mexicans in the United States

Authors:  Various Authors

Student access:  Students access the readings and assignments through Canvas LMS. The textbook and may of the readings come through database access through the CSU San Marcos Kellogg Library.

Additional Online Readings:

• Ruben Salazar, “Who Is A Chicano? And What Is It The Chicanos Want?” Los Angeles Times, February 6, 1970.
• Mirta Vidal, “Women: New Voice of La Raza,” 1971, In Chicana Feminist Thought : The Basic Historical Writings, edited by Alma M. Garcia, Taylor & Francis Group, 1997. 
• Cheech Marin, “What Is A Chicano?” Huffington Post, May 3, 2012.
• Roberto Rodriguez, “The Origins and History of the Chicano Movement,” JSRI Occasional Paper #7. The Julian Samora Research Institute, Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, 1996.
• Field, Margaret, and Jon Meza Cuero. "Kumeyaay Oral Tradition, Cultural Identity, and Language Revitalization." Oral Tradition 27, no. 2 (2012) https://doi:10.1353/ort.2012.0013.  
• Excerpts from the Pueblo War of Independence
• POWELL, ERIC A. “The First American Revolution.” Archaeology 70, no. 2 (March 2017): 42–47.
• Romero, Simon. "After 340 Years, Pueblo Revolt is Echoing in New Mexico: [National Desk]." New York Times, Sep 28, 2020, Late Edition (East Coast).
• Loren, Diana DiPaolo. “Corporeal Concerns: Eighteenth-Century Casta Paintings and Colonial Bodies in Spanish Texas.” Historical archaeology 41, no. 1 (2007): 23–36. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03376991. 
• Castañeda, Antonia I. “Sexual Violence in the Politics and Policies of Conquest: Amerindian Women and the Spanish Conquest of Alta California.” In Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones: From the Ancient World to the Era of Human Rights, edited by Elizabeth D. Heineman, 39–55. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011.
• Miguel Ramos de Arizpe, "A Glimpse of Texas During the Early 19th Century," 1812
• José María Sánchez, "More Glimpses of Early 19th Century Texas," 1828
• Manuel Mier y Terán, "Warnings about the Future of Texas," 1828
• Anonymous, "A Tejano Favors Anglo Immigration," 1832
• The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 1848
• Pablo de la Guerra, "On Seizing Land from Native Californians," 1855
• John Rollin Ridge, Excerpt from The Life of Joaquín Murrieta, 1859
• Antonio María Pico, "A Loss of Land and Power," 1859
• Corridos (songs) from the second half of the nineteenth century (Look at the Kiansis, Cortina, and Murrieta tabs at least)
• Optional: versions of the corrido "Kiansis," and some analysis of the song
• Comisión Pesquisadora de la Frontera del Norte (Mexican Government Commission of the Northern Frontier): Report on the Fate of Tejanos, 1873
• Correia, David. “‘Retribution Will Be Their Reward’: New Mexico’s Las Gorras Blancas and the Fight for the Las Vegas Land Grant Commons.” Radical history review 2010, no. 108 (2010): 49–72. https://doi.org/10.1215/01636545-2010-003
• Harper's Weekly, Reaction to Senate Passage of a Statehood Bill for New Mexico, 1876
• Las Gorras Blancas Announce Their Platform, 1890
• Hispano Commercial Club of Las Vegas (New Mexico), Land Loss in New Mexico, 1890
• Sánchez, Aaron E. “Of Patriots and Pochos: Ethnic Mexicans and the Politics and Poetics of Changing Nationalisms, Texas 1910-1940.” Journal of the West 54, no. 1 (2015): 29–
• League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), “Community Institutions,” 1929
• Pagán, Eduardo Obregón. “Los Angeles Geopolitics and the Zoot Suit Riot, 1943.” Social Science History 24, no. 1 (2000): 223–56.
• Escobedo, Elizabeth R. “The Pachuca Panic: Sexual and Cultural Battlegrounds in World War II Los Angeles.” Western Historical Quarterly 38, no. 2 (2007): 133–56.
• Frederick P. Aguirre, Kristi L. Bowman, Gonzalo Mendez, Sylvia Mendez, Sandra Robbie, and Philippa Strum, "Mendez v. Westminster: A Living History,"  Michigan State Law Review 401 (2014): 401-427.
• “I Am Joaquin/Yo soy Joaquín,” by Rodolfo Corky Gonzales
• El Plan Espiritual de Aztlan, 1969
• Chicana Feminist Thought: The Basic Historical Writings. London: Taylor & Francis Group, 1997.
• Delgado Bernal, Dolores. "Grassroots Leadership Reconceptualized: Chicana Oral Histories and the 1968 East Los Angeles School Blowouts." Frontiers 19, no. 2 (1998): 113-142.
• Department of Ethnic Studies, "Chicano Park 2015 Murals Documentation Project: Guide To The Murals of Chicano Park" (2015). Ethnic Studies Books. https://digital.sandiego.edu/ethn-books/1 

Provide the cost savings from that of a traditional textbook. $40

License: Textbook is copyrighted. Additional readings are open access or copyrighted and available through library databases.