Minor in MAS
The minor in MAS requires a total of 18 units: 9 units from three required courses, and 9 elective MAS units. A minor in Mexican American Studies is an excellent way to enhance majors in fields of politics, society, culture, and health. You may add the Minor in Anthropology at any time by contacting your major advisor or through the online declaration form.
Core Courses
Introduction to Mexican American studies from multidisciplinary perspectives.
Migration is currently re-shaping American cities, families, urban landscapes, rural areas, politics, and altering the nation's racial and cultural make up. In response, societal attitudes and power dynamics that structure their incorporation shift, often engendering competing perspectives about immigrants' efforts to belong and carve out a place for themselves within the United States as "A nation of Immigrants." This course will focus on the quasi-permanent presence of undocumented immigrants and other vulnerable noncitizens living in the United States, focusing in particular on those who come from Latin America.
A culminating experience for majors involving a substantive project that demonstrates a synthesis of learning accumulated in the major, including broadly comprehensive knowledge of the discipline and its methodologies. Senior standing required.
Minor Electives
Complete 9 units from the following courses.
Exploration and analysis of the origin, nature, dynamics (political, social, cultural), ideology, activities, and effects of the Chicano movement of the 1960s.
Using a comparative and interdisciplinary focus this course critically examines major issues affecting today's Latinx populations. Major topics include immigration, class, race, gender, sexuality, culture and identity, and the role of discrimination, laws, public policies and policing in structuring inequality.
This course is a two-part program in critical leadership and participatory action research. The leadership module will focus on critical leadership development, examining leadership theory, and critically analyzing examples of Latina/o leadership within the United States. The theoretical framework for critical leadership is based on "organic intellectualism," in which individuals from a particular community develop their intellectual/critical capacities to better serve the interests and needs of the community. The research portion of this class will expose students to research on Latina/o issues and will prepare students to conduct supervised research projects. The methodological approach to research is based on "participatory action research," in which individuals work collectively to study and address social problems within their community.
This course provides and in-depth exploration on how social and cultural factors influence the health of racial/ethnic groups and underserved populations in the United States. The Socio-Cultural Determinants of Health are social, political, economic and cultural conditions, forces and factors that influence how health is distributed among entire groups and populations. The examination of socio-cultural influences is an interdisciplinary field of study that draws on research and scholarship from many areas including medical sociology, medical and cultural anthropology, public health, political science, public policy studies, epidemiology, and critical gender and race studies. This course introduces important concepts found in the scientific literature and then examines fundamental determinants of health, including income and social class, ethnicity and racism, place and space on specific determinants (e.g. segregation, racism) and health conditions (e.g. infectious and chronic diseases).
Social processes involved in minority groups in terms of race, caste, class, ethnicity, politics, and religion.
Political problems of the poor; analysis of systematic poverty in the U.S. and theories of causation; selected policy problems: education, housing, job training, enforcement of anti-discrimination statutes; future of "power" movements.
Traditional Indian Medicine, or TIM, is a concept that refers to Indigenous knowledges expressed through the varied healing systems in Indigenous communities. This course will pay particular attention to American Indian nations and healing knowledges that are intersecting and intertwined relationships with the natural world, the Indigenous body and the sacred. We will examine both how Indigenous healing systems have persisted as well as responded to social conditions, such as genocide, colonization and historical, as well as contemporary, forms of oppression. Topics include intergenerational trauma as well as how resilience is expressed in practices of wellbeing, healing and self-determination. We will also explore TIM as containing systems of healing that may/may not operate in conjunction with allopathic medicine. This course takes a transdisciplinary approach, incorporating readings from American Indian/Indigenous studies and health to explore a complex portfolio of American Indian/Indigenous wellbeing.
Historical background, cultural institutions, identity problems, social relations, and expectations of people of Mexican ancestry in the United States.
This course will provide an overview of the theories, policies, and practices related to the education of Latinos. We will focus specifically on the social, cultural, economic, and institutional factors, within and outside the school context, that contribute to Latino students' underachievement, failure, and negative educational outcomes. In addition, transformative practices that promote student achievement, learning, and critical consciousness will be discussed. Readings will cover various issues in education as well as introduce course participants to a broad collection of primarily Latino scholars interested in developing new methods and policies that will improve the educational experiences of Latino students.
A public health perspective in examining health and mental health issues affecting Latinos residing in the U.S., with particular emphasis on Mexican Americans.
Introduction to Mexican American studies from various perspectives. Research issues and interpretation in the field; public policy and Mexican origin populations; and social sciences and the professions and impact upon the Mexican American community.
This course will examine the varied and evolving concerns of Chicanas as they forge new visions of feminism through the Chicano Movement of the 1960s; organizing among Chicana lesbian communities; Chicanas' entrance into academic, literary and artistic arenas; diverse community and national activist efforts in the 1980s; and current transnational initiatives.
This interdisciplinary course examines key works by those women of color whose political and cultural investments in a collaborative, cross-cultural critique of U.S. imperialism and heteronormativity has been called "U.S. Third World Feminisms."
Historical survey and sociological analysis of past and present experiences of Mexicanas and Chicanas in the United States.
This course on Chicana women introduces students to basic concepts, categories and issues organized around the concept of gender. We examine gender and power relations within various institutions: the home, the school system, university, the church, the environment, and various human work spheres.
Survey from the 16th century to the present, with emphasis on social, political and economic trends in their historical context.
From discovery through the War for Independence.
Struggle for political, economic and social stability; international relations, cultural patterns.
This course offers a full panoramic view of Mexican music, using history as a point of departure and linking Mexican music across eras, styles, and performance traditions. In doing so, students learn both the repertory and the musicians. Starting with music from the Pre-Hispanic to contemporary musical practices such as cumbia, rock, mariachi and many others.
Studies of major works by Mexican and Mexican-American writers. Taught in Spanish although a small portion of the readings may be in English.
Major novelists of modern Mexico; their works, narrative perspective, characterization, language, time, space, and themes.
Practical Spanish for the elementary and secondary school subject-matter teacher who uses Spanish as the medium of instruction.