LALW317 Immigrants in America 3 cr.

This course focuses on a variety of literary
texts and films that examine the experience of
immigrants in the USA from the 1950s to nowadays.
Through the reading of excerpts of novels, short
stories and critical essays, and the viewing of
movies and documentaries, we will discuss the
issues that have affected the different
generations of Irish, Jewish, Italian, Japanese,
Indian and more recently Hispanic/Caribbean
immigrants in the USA.
We will devote special attention to the
experience of marginalization of the immigrants,
the changes in their family structure, the
process of ‘becoming American’, and the social
and cultural impact these communities have had to
the US national identity so far.
We also will look at the ways in which immigrant
writers both adopt and adapt the English
language, while changing and often enriching it,
and how they work against the conventional
cultural and visual representations of immigrants
in the US media.

Prerequisites: LALW200

Lecture/Seminar
Culturally Diverse Content
All College Elective
Fall/Spring

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