Prof. Le’s Soc 361 Blog

I hope many of you have already heard of Eric Byler — he was the director of Charlotte Sometimes and Americanese (an adaptation of Prof. Shawn Wong’s novel American Knees), both being critically-acclaimed independent movies.

Eric’s latest project, in collaboration with fellow independent filmmakers Annabel Park, Jeff Man, and Zhibo Lai, is entitled Project 9500 and is a multimedia documentary of the issues of illegal immigration in northern Virginia.

While much of the focus of this project is on Latino immigrants, Eric notes that Asian immigrants have been brought into the issue because many illegal immigrant critics argue that Asian immigrants are the “good” immigrants because they learn English quicker and are perceived to be more willing to assimilate into American society, as opposed to the “bad” Latino immigrants.

They are putting together a feature-length documentary film, but the project also involves short video essay clips that capture different aspects of the issue. Their YouTube site contains several dozen such video essay clips but two “introductory” clips that were recently featured in the Washington Post are below:

As I told Eric, these clips do an excellent job in capturing the individual-level emotions and institutional-level influences that are involved with such a complex and controversial issue. All signs are that their project is coming together quite nicely.

I encourage you to view some of their other video essay clips on their YouTube site and to keep an eye out for their upcoming documentary — it would be very, very interesting.

Attached is a copy of the syllabus in PDF format.

Here are the readings for Topic 7 “Education and Affirmative Action” (Mar. 27 & Apr. 1):

• AB1: “Test-Score Trends Along Racial Lines,
  1971 to 1996: Popular Culture and Community Academic Standards” by Ronald F. Ferguson
• AB1: “Affirmative Action: Legislative History, Judicial Interpretations, Public Consensus” by Carol M. Swain

Here are the readings for Topic 6 “Immigration” (Mar. 13 & 25):

• AB1: “Contemporary Immigration and the
  Dynamics of Race and Ethnicity” by Min Zhou
• AB1: “Political Trends and Electoral Issues of
  the Asian Pacific American Population” by Don T. Nakanishi

Here are the readings for Topic 5 “Residential Segregation” (Mar. 6 & 11):

• AB1: “Residential Segregation and
  Neighborhood Conditions in U.S. Metropolitan Areas” by Douglas S. Massey
• AB1: “Geography and Opportunity” by Manuel Pastor, Jr.

Here are the readings for Topic 4 “Attitudes, Prejudices, and Cultural Images” (Feb. 26 & 28):

• AB1: “Racial Attitudes and Relations at the
  Close of the Twentieth Century” by Lawrence D. Bobo
• AB1: “Racial Trends and Scapegoating:
  Bringing in a Comparative Focus” by Anthony W. Marx

Here are the readings for Topic 3 “Experiences and Characteristics of Inequality” (Feb. 14 & 21):

• AB1: “Hispanics in a Multicultural Society: A New American Dilemma?” by Albert M. Camarillo and Frank Bonilla
• AB1: “Trends Among American Indians in the United States” by Russell Thornton

Here are the readings for Topic 2 “History and Racialization” (Feb. 7 & 12):

• AB1: “An Overview of Racial and Ethnic
  Demographic Trends” by Gary D. Sandefur, Molly Martin, Jennifer Eggerling-Boeck, Susan E. Mannon, and Ann M. Meier
• AB1: “The Changing Meaning of Race” by Michael A. Omi

Here are the readings for Topic 1 “Basics of Demography” (Jan. 31 & Feb. 5):

• AB1: “Introduction” by Neil J. Smelser, William Julius Wilson, and Faith Mitchell
• AB1: “An Overview of Trends in Social and Economic Well-Being, by Race” by Rebecca M. Blank

This blog will be used in conjunction with my Sociology 361 course that I am teaching in the Spring 2008 semester at UMass Amherst. On this blog I will post announcements and updates about the course, current events and news items that relate to course issues and material, and upload readings, handouts, and other materials for students to download.

Students can also participate on this blog by (1) submitting their own short posts on issues and materials covered in class, or current events and news items that relate to the course issues and materials, and/or (2) commenting on either my posts or those of your classmates.

There are only two rules for submitting a post or a comment: (1) you must register on this site and post using your real name (and also for me to know who to give credit to) and (2) respectful disagreement and constructive debate are fine and encouraged, but comments that are abusive, slanderous, threatening, or blatantly racist are not.

Finally, remember that posts can relate to any kind of media (articles from the textbook, newspapers, magazines, websites, blogs, YouTube videos, TV shows, etc.) but should focus on a ‘serious’ issue related to race/ethnicity.

So for example, writing something like, “Hey, what’s up with J Lo’s dress at the Grammy Awards last night?” is not a serious race/ethnicity issue. However, something like, “What do people think about Kanye West’s comment that ‘George Bush doesn’t care about Black people’ on the Hurricane Katrina benefit concert last night?” or “Did everyone see the latest episode of Big Brother last night? Was [Contestant x]‘s comment to [Contestant Y] racist? are appropriate.

Thanks for your cooperation and participation!