Reference no: EM133842727

Homework: Sociology

Essay Instructions: In an (typed) essay of at least 600 words, please address all of the questions below. Feel free to treat each question in a separate paragraph. But please do not number the paragraphs according to the question you're answering, or use bullet points to separate the paragraphs. Make it look like an essay: indent the first line when you start a new paragraph.

I. Describe a claim that you have learned as a result of taking this class. Describe it as accurately and precisely as seems necessary. Be sure to identify the source of the claim (where you got it) and be sure to include any support for that claim.
In general, it's best to avoid long quotations. If you have to quote, do so only briefly. It's much more useful to try and render what you've learned into your own words.

II. What does the claim suggest about the answer to one (and only one) of the Organizing Questions (in the syllabus)?

III. What is your position on this claim? What, in other words, do you think about it? For example: do you agree or disagree with it? Why? --What specifically is the basis for your agreement or disagreement? (Note: feel free to discuss your own experiences, if that is the basis for your position.) Or, perhaps: do you agree or disagree with it only conditionally? --Again: what specifically is the basis for your position? (Again, your personal experiences are acceptable, here.) What are those conditions? Why?

IV. How might your position on the claim be incomplete, or flawed, or perhaps wrong? What, for example, might be an alternative, or alternatives, to your position?

V. What specific questions might you ask of existing scholarship -- including, perhaps, one or more of the course readings -- that might help you to test your position and help you to solidify, or modify, or abandon it?

Organizing Questions

I call these "organizing" questions as a way to suggest that you use these questions to organize the course materials. One good reason to do this is because: I did; the course, in other words, is built around these questions, and is designed to teach you what you need to know to think deeply, systematically, and comprehensively about them. I give them all to you now, at the start of the quarter, so that you can see the structure we will be building together, and so that you can understand why I am asking you to do the things that I'm asking you to do and why I'm asking you to consider the materials that the course offers. Moreover I am giving these questions to you now so that you can use them to focus your Critical Articulation Essays (see above, under Course Requirements).

Basic

I. Why do people do what they do?

II. Why do people think what they think? (Or, if you like: believe what they believe.)

III. Why do people feel what they feel?

Intermediate

IV. How does race become real enough to "affect people's life chances and opportunities"

V. What does it mean to be Asian American? What experiences have Asian Americans had, and why have they had these experiences?

VI. What does it mean to be Filipinx American? What experiences have Filipinx Americans had, and why have they had these experiences?

VII. How are the answers for #6 similar to the answers for #V? How are they different? In other words: to what extent are Filipinx Americans also ... Asian Americans? Totally? Mostly? Sort of? Not at all? Why?

Advanced (possible final essay questions - see rubrics, in "Course Documents and Information" on canvas)

VIII. Were post-World War II efforts at "urban renewal" racist, according to racial formations theory? Why or why not? Centering your analysis on urban renewal efforts in Stockton after WWII (as explored in Dawn Mabalon's research), be sure to discuss the demolitions and displacements of the West End Redevelopment Project and the construction of the Crosstown Freeway, in addition to ideas (representations) about people of color, poor folks, and "urban blight." Also be sure to set your analysis in the broader context of post-WWII U.S. federal housing policy, as Mabalon does, and as the documentary The House We Live In also explores.

IX. Is Rex Navarrete's comedy racist according to racial formations theory? Why / why not?

X. Who or what is a Filipinx American, according to Rex Navarette? Analyze Navarette's standup comedy, and in particular the "SBC Packers" routine and other examples discussed by Sarita See, as a social project along the lines suggested by Omi and Winant and discussed in class. Is Navarette's comedy essentialist in terms of race or gender . . . or some other analytic? Does it exclude and / or marginalize groups who should, in your view, be included and / or centered? Does it privilege and / or center groups who should, in your view, be de-centered? What are the benefits of this project? What are its costs? In your view, do the benefits of this project outweigh the costs, or vice-versa? Why?

XI. Are the Black-eyed Peas videos for "Bebot" racist according to racial formations theory? Why / why not?

XII. Who or what was a "Filipino," according to the ilustrados? Analyze the construction of the term "Filipino" by the ilustrados of the Propaganda Movement as a social project along the lines suggested by racial formations theory, discussed in class, and indeed deployed in Paul Kramer's work. What did it mean, originally? Why did the ilustrados adopt the term, and how did they try to change its meaning? Was it essentialist in terms of race or gender . . . or some other set of categories? Does it exclude and / or marginalize groups who should, in your view, be included and / or centered? Does it privilege and / or center groups who should, in your view, be de-centered? Did the benefits of this project outweigh the disadvantages, or vice-versa? Why?

XIII. Why was the Philippine American War fought, and why was it fought in the ways that it was? Discuss the origins and fighting of the War, and, paying particular attention to the motivations and tactics on both sides, analyze the War as a war of competing racial projects along the lines suggested by Omi and Winant and explicitly argued by Paul Kramer. Were these racist racial projects? Why / why not?

XIV. Are the performances of indigeneity that figure prominently in the kind of Pilipino Cultural Night (PCN) that Gonzalves and Gaerlan describe racist, according to the terms laid down by Omi and Winant? Why or why not?

XV. Compare and contrast the Philippine Exposition in Madrid in 1887 and the Philippine Exhibition at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis in 1904, specifically with reference to Omi's and Winant's notion of "racial projects." Were these racist racial projects? Why or why not? What functions did the organizers of these displays of people from the Philippines hope they would perform for the Spanish and American colonial projects? What roles did these displays play in the ideas about Filipinxs held by Spanish society? By American society? What "cultural work," in other words, did these Fairs do for Spanish and American imperialism, respectively? Get the instant assignment help.

XVI. Who or what are Filipinx Americans, according to Bontoc Eulogy? For other sorts of Americans, the idea that an individual or a group can better understand their place in America and American history by discovering their "roots" is a relatively straightforward one. Bontoc Eulogy seems to suggest that this "know your roots" strategy does not work very well for Filipinx Americans. How and why does the film make this argument? Overall, what does the failure of the narrator's quest-to use historical sources to construct individual identity-suggest about Filipinx Americans and America? How might we understand the film's critique of this method of symbolic transnationalism as a critique of American exceptionalism?

XVII. Who or what is a Filipinx American, according to the Filipinx-identified hip hop artists whose music videos we've analyzed? Describe the contours, as you see them, of the conversation that the Filipinx hip hop community seems to be having about what it means to be Filipinx. Analyze each song / video as an individual contribution to that conversation and as a social project along the lines first suggested by racial formations theory and then expanded upon in lecture. Are any individual contributions essentialist in terms of race or gender . . . or some other set of categories? Does any contribution exclude and / or marginalize groups who should, in your view (or perhaps the view of other artists participating in the conversation), be included and / or centered?