CLS 181 - American Diversity

1. Demonstrate an understanding of American diversity and the cultural roots of the American people as they are reflected in the history, literature, and other arts and humanities of the United States.
   • Describe the meaning of the terms, “American” and “diversity” and explain their relevance to the history and culture of the United States.
   • Describe the meaning of the term, “culture,” and provide examples of cultural similarities that provide common ground for Americans of diverse backgrounds.
   • Identify the main components of American diversity, including race, ethnicity, religion, language, sex and gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, social class, education, geographic locale, family and marital status, occupation, and disability.
   • Explain why the United States is described as a “Nation of Immigrants,” and how this concept relates to American diversity.
   • Evaluate the influence of cultural diversity on American history, literature, poetry, visual arts, music, dance, and other aspects of the arts and humanities, and popular culture.
2. Describe the diverse cultural attributes of people in the United States, as they relate to the historical development and contemporary reality of American society.
   • Summarize the racial, ethnic, religious, and linguistic diversity of the contemporary United States.
   • Define race and explain how race was socially constructed in the historical evolution of North American civilization.  
   • Define ethnicity and panethnicity and provide examples that distinguish ethnicity from the concept of race.
   • Explain how race, ethnicity, religion, and language in the U.S. often intersect and are related to immigration.
   • Analyze ways in which cultural universals (e.g., customs, norms, values, rites of passage, festivals, holidays, politics and government, the economy, mass media, education, arts and humanities, popular culture, beverages and cuisine, science and technology, sports and recreation) are related to American diversity.
3. Identify the five major historic waves of immigration to North America and their impact on the sociocultural, economic, and political evolution of the United States.
   • Trace the history of the first major wave of immigration to the U.S. and its impact on the sociocultural, economic, and political evolution of the United States.
   • Trace the history of the second major wave of immigration to the U.S. and its impact on the sociocultural, economic, and political evolution of the United States.
   • Trace the history of the third major wave of immigration to the U.S. and its impact on the sociocultural, economic, and political evolution of the United States.
   • Trace the history of the fourth major wave of immigration to the U.S. and its impact on the sociocultural, economic, and political evolution of the United States.
   • Trace the history of the fifth major wave of immigration to the U.S. and its impact on the sociocultural, economic, and political evolution of the United States.
4. Differentiate between minority and majority groups and identify important concepts that illustrate minority-majority group relations in the United States.
   • Provide a sociological definition of minority and majority groups, and differentiate between the two concepts.
   • Define the concepts of prejudice and discrimination and explain how they are related to majority-minority group relations in the past and present-day United States.
   • Define the concept of stereotyping and provide historical and contemporary examples in the United States.
   • Define the concepts of segregation, integration, and institutional discrimination, and provide historical and contemporary examples in the United States.
   • Summarize the origins of indigenous peoples and formerly enslaved peoples in North America and describe their status as minority groups in the past and present-day United States.
5. Analyze the causes and consequences of migration and identify important concepts and examples in the social sciences and the arts and humanities that illustrate the immigrant experience in the United States.
   • Differentiate between push factors and pull factors and provide examples of both concepts in the context of immigration to the United States.
   • Explain how the concepts of racism, ethnocentrism, xenophobia, nativism, and scapegoating relate to the immigrant experience in the United States.
   • Provide examples of refugee groups and asylum-seeking groups, and explain how they relate to the historic development of American diversity,
   • Define labor migration and chain migration, and explain how these concepts relate to the historic development of American diversity,
   • Explain how the concepts of assimilation, amalgamation, acculturation, and cultural pluralism, have been applied to the immigrant experience in the United States.
6. Explain how racial ethnic groups have been socially constructed in American society and provide relevant examples.
   • Differentiate between immigration, colonialism, and annexation as ways in which racial/ethnic groups have been socially constructed in the United States.
   • Explain how Native Americans were transformed into a new racial-ethnic group through a combination of immigration, colonialism, and annexation.
   • Explain how a combination of immigration and colonialism emanating from Western and Northern Europe created new ethnic groups in early to mid-American history.
   • Explain how forcible immigration from Africa (the transatlantic slave trade) and labor migration from East Asia created new racial-ethnic groups in early to mid-American a Qaqhistory.
   • Explain how the annexation of territory from France, Spain, Mexico and other countries created new racial/ethnic groups in 19^th century America.
   • Explain how immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and other regions of the world created new racial/ethnic groups in late 19^th and 20^th century America.
7. Identify policies, ideologies, and practices, which have periodically stigmatized and marginalized ethnic groups or immigrants in the United States.
   • Describe the “Know-Nothing” movement and the related Nativist backlash to Roman Catholic (German and Irish) immigrants and Chinese immigrants in the 19^th century.
   • Define manifest destiny and explain how this concept was related to such events as the Mexican American War and the Native American “Trail of Tears.”
   • Trace the evolution of U.S. government policies involving African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, and other minority groups.
   • Trace the evolution of civil rights movements and laws relating to African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans, and other minority groups.
   • Trace the evolution of immigration laws and related nativist backlashes and immigrant rights movements in the United States.
   • Analyze contemporary social problems and political issues related to American diversity, such as race discrimination, religious discrimination, Islamophobia, undocumented immigration, the new nativist backlash to immigration, immigration reform, racial profiling, and police brutality; and how they are depicted in the arts and humanities and popular culture.