Course Description:
Introduction to the Asian American political experience.  Drawing from historical examples and contemporary issues, students will examine how Asian Americans have been impacted by U.S. institutions, including federal, state and local governments, the mass media system, and the new institutions of global corporate power.  The course will also emphasize how Asian American communities have historically resisted oppression and how social movements and organizations continue to advance the struggle for equality and democracy within the U.S.
 
 Objectives:
· Increase fundamental understanding of the political & ideological framework of U.S. and California institutions and government;
· Develop a critical assessment of the political status of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the U.S.;
· Develop greater awareness of basic rights and responsibilities under the U.S. Constitution;
· Build awareness of how institutionalized forms of domination operate in contemporary U.S. society by uncovering the intersections of race, class and gender in social struggles;
· Analyze the relationships between federal, state and local governments;
· Build multicultural awareness and a critical approach to addressing contemporary public policy issues;
· Increase students’ ability to analyze social problems and formulate opinions and solutions.

Methodology:
Lectures/Dialogue/Class & small group discussions/Readings/Written Assignments/
Audio Visual presentations/Guest Speakers/Community Observation Assignment

Course Text and Reading Materials:

· Race, Rights, and the Asian American Experience (Angelo Ancheta, Rutgers Univ. Press 1998)

· Course Handouts – available from the instructor throughout the course. Including: Wen Ho Lee case readings; Educational Rights readings; and excerpts from Deliberate Disadvantage: A Case Study of Race Relations in the SF Bay Area (Applied Research Center 1996).
 

Requirements:
 

  Assignments      50%
   & Participation in Class
  Research Project/Paper    25%
  Final Exam      25%
 
 

Regular Attendance and Participation:

I expect every student to make her best efforts to participate in the class discussions and in small groups. Therefore, regular attendance is absolutely necessary.

Warning:  repeated missed classes will severely lower your final course grade.

Policy on late work:

I do accept late papers but assignments turned in late get lowered grades.  For example, an “A” paper which is turned in one class after the due date will be given a “B“ grade.  If that paper is turned in 2 classes after the due date, the grade will have fallen to a “C”.
No late work will be accepted more than 3 class meetings after the due date.
 
 

Education is not neutral.
It is for the liberation or for the domestication of people,
for their humanization or their dehumanization,
…whether the educators are conscious of this or not.

Paulo Freire, Revolutionary Educator