This introductory course will cover the social, cultural, and political histories of Latino/as in the United States from 1848 to the present including the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the Great Depression, WWI/WWII, the creation of Latino/a civil rights organizations, and the civil wars and free trade agreements of the 1980s and 1990s that have spurned so much of contemporary migration. Themes include colonialism and conquest, sexuality and gender, race and ethnicity, transnationalism and migration, social inequality and practices of resistance. This class will highlight the diversity of the Latino/a experience—focusing on the history of Afro-Latino/as, queer Latino/as, and undocumented Latino/as.
