FALL 2000
This information effective for Fall 2000.
Check with instructor the first day of class for any changes.
Instructor(s): Prof. Jonathan Fox
Fall 2000
Office: Merrill Annex 58 (lower level)
Office hours: Wed. 2:00 - 4:30 pm and by appt.
Phone: 459-5897/459-3125 fax
e-mail: jafox@cats.ucsc.edu
Class Meetings: TTh 2:00 - 3: 30 pm
Room: Cowell 131
Mexico is in the midst of a long and difficult political transition. The political system is opening up, reforming and breaking down at the same time. This course explores the main trends in contemporary Mexican politics against the backdrop of long-term historical, social and economic change. This fall will be especially exciting because of the run-up to the presidential elections in 2000.
The first half of the course explores how Mexicans from many walks of life experience politics and power in their daily lives, in the context of an overview of national politics and institutions. The second half of the course concentrates on the rise of diverse grassroots movements for social change and democratization, the emergence of guerrilla movements and the politics of immigration and North American integration. Discussion of US-Mexican issues will go beyond analysis of relations between the governments to assess efforts to build coalitions among social organizations and public interest groups in both countries. There will also be a special focus on the politics of the media in Mexico and the US.
Judith Adler Hellman, Mexican Lives, (New York: New Press, 1994)
Wayne Cornelius, Mexican Politics in Transition: The Breakdown of a One-Party Dominant Regime (La Jolla: Center for US-Mexican Studies, University of California, San Diego, 1996 edition)
Copies of additional required readings (noted with an * in the syllabus below) will be made available in a course reader. News updates will also be distributed regularly. The course will also include guest speakers from Mexico, as well as video documentaries.
Both books are on Reserve at McHenry Library.
The course requires a mid-term and final exam, which will be based on the readings, handouts, and lecture material. The final exam will be take-home. Detailed study guidelines will be distributed to help to prepare for the exams. Throughout the quarter, students will also be expected to monitor and analyze US and/or Mexican media coverage of Mexican political, social and economic or environmental issues. All students are also expected to have email addresses by the second week of class, since Mexican news updates will be distributed electronically.
Student evaluations and grades will be based primarily on the two exams, but consistent attendance and active participation in class will also be taken seriously. Extra credit option: students have the option of doing an in-depth research paper instead of the final exam (15-20 pages), but it must be completed by the same date.
Students are encouraged to take advantage of the professor's office hours. Students can also make appointments and should feel free to ask follow-up questions by email.
1. Sept. 23, Thursday: Introductions
2. Sept. 28, Tuesday: Course overview
Mexican Lives, pp. 1-42Mexican Politics in Transition, pp. 1-9
3. Sept. 30, Thursday: Historical background: Mexico's revolutionary legacy (PBS video, in-class)
Mexican Lives, pp. 43-62Mexican Politics in Transition, pp. 11-24
4. Oct. 5, Tuesday: Urbanizing Mexico
Mexican Lives, pp. 63-113
5. Oct. 7, Thursday: The countryside in transition
Mexican Lives, pp. 113-151
6. Oct. 12, Tuesday: On the border: Life on the line (Course reader to be distributed)
Mexican Lives, pp. 152-184
7. Oct. 14, Thursday: Understanding lives of struggle
Mexican Lives, pp. 185-232
8. Oct. 19, Tuesday: The post-revolutionary regime: Political parties and elections
Mexican Politics in Transition, pp. 25-76Jonathan Fox and Luis Hernández, "Lessons from the Mexican Elections," Dissent, Winter, 1995, pp. 29-33*
Denise Dresser, "Post-NAFTA Politics in Mexico: Uneasy, Uncertain, Unpredictable," in Carol Wise, ed., The Post-NAFTA Political Economy: Mexico and the Western Hemisphere (University Park: Penn State Press, 1998) pp. 221-256*
9. Oct. 21, Thursday: Economic development, crisis and the production of poverty
Mexican Politics in Transition, pp. 99-113Tom Barry, Mexico: A Country Guide (Albuquerque: Inter-Hemispheric Resource Center, 1992), "Restructuring and Modernization," pp. 76-94*
David Barkin, Irene Ortiz and Fred Rosen, "Globalization and Resistance: The Remaking of Mexico," NACLA Report on the Americas, 30(4), Jan/Feb., 1997, pp. 14-27*
10. Oct. 26, Tuesday: Organizing and disorganizing society: The hand of the state
Mexican Politics in Transition, pp. 77-98, 115-119David Brooks and Jim Cason, "Mexican Unions: Will Turmoil Lead to Independence?" WorkingUSA, March-April, 1998, pp. 23-35, 88-91*
12. Nov. 2, Tuesday: Women mobilize: Gender, class & ethnicity [Remember: Election Day]
Victoria Rodríguez, "The Emerging Role of Women in Mexican Political Life," in V. Rodríguez, ed., Women's Participation in Mexican Political Life (Boulder: Westview, 1998), pp.1-22*Vivienne Bennett, "Everyday Struggles: Women in Urban Popular Movements and Territorially Based Protests in Mexico, in Rodríguez, op cit, pp. 116-145*
Lynn Stephen, "Gender and Grassroots Organizing: Lessons from Chiapas," in Rodríguez, op cit, pp. 146-163
13. Nov. 4, Thursday: The Chiapas rebellion: "Nunca más un México sin nosotros" (in-class video: "The Sixth Sun: The Mayan Uprising in Chiapas")
Carlos Fuentes, A New Time for Mexico, (New York: Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1996), pp. 86-93*Jonathan Fox, "The Roots of Chiapas," Akwe:kon - A Journal of Indigenous Issues, 11(2), Summer, 1994*
Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee, Zapatista Army of National Liberation, "Who are the Zapatistas?" January 6, 1994*
Luis Hernández Navarro, "The San Andrés Accords: Indians and the Soul," Cultural Survival Quarterly, 23(1), Spring, 1999, p. 30-32*
"The San Andrés Accords on Indigenous Rights," Cultural Survival Quarterly, 23(1), Spring, 1999, p. 33-38*
14. Nov. 9, Tuesday: Sustainable development in rural Mexico: Organic coffee coop experiences (Guest speaker, María Elena Torres Martínez, Latin American Studies, UC Berkeley)
David Barton Bray, "Peasant Organization and "The Permanent Reconstruction of Nature: Grassroots Sustainable Development in Mexico," Journal of Environment and Development, 4(2), Summer, 1995 (pp. 185-198)*Ellen Contreras Murphy, "La Selva and the Magnetic Pull of Markets: Organic Coffee-Growing in Mexico," Grassroots Development, 19(1), 1995 (pp. 27-34)*
Ron Nigh, "Organic Agriculture and Globalization: A Maya Associative Corporation in Chiapas, Mexico" Human Organization, 56(4), 1997 (pp. 427-435)*
Food First Backgrounder, "Report From the Front: Building a Local Economy in Zapatista Territory" (Institute for Food and Development Policy, 1997 [to be distributed]
15. Nov. 11, Thursday: Behind the Salinas scandals (in-class video: "PBS Frontline: Murder, Money and Mexico," 1997)
Alma Guillermoprieto, "Letter from Mexico City: Losing the Future," The New Yorker, April 4, 1994, pp. 53-56*Andrew Reding, "It Isn't the Peso, It's the Presidency," The New York Times Magazine, April 9, 1995*
Alma Guillermoprieto, "Letter from Mexico City: The Riddle of Raúl, The New Yorker, June 2, 1997, pp. 36-47*
For extensive background to the video, plus web links, see: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/mexico/
16. Nov. 16, Tuesday: Democratizing local governments: Bringing government closer to the people
Andrew Reding, "The Next Mexican Revolution," World Policy Journal, 13(3), Fall, 1996, pp. 61-70*
Bill Weinberg, "The Golf War of Tepoztlan: Ecology and Popular Defense in the Heartland of Zapata," Native Americas, 13(3), Fall, 1996, pp. 33-42*
Andrew Reding, "Aztec Sun Rising," World Policy Journal, 14(3), Fall, 1997, pp. 63-70*
Paco Ignacio Taibo, "The Cardenistas' First 100 Days," The Nation, July 13, 1998, pp. 16-18*
Wayne Cornelius, "Subnational Politics and Democratization: Tensions Between Center and Periphery in the Mexican Political System," in Wayne Cornelius, Todd Eisenstadt and Jane Hindley, eds., Subnational Politics and Democratization in Mexico (La Jolla; UCSD, Center for US-Mexican Studies, 1999), pp. 3-14*
17. Nov. 18, Thursday: Immigration and Mexican politics in the U.S. (Guest speaker: Prof. Gaspar Rivera, Sociology Dept, University of Southern California)
Philip Martin, "Mexican-US Migration: Policies and Economic Impacts," in Laura Randall, ed., Changing Structure of Mexico: Political, Social and Economic Prospects (Armonk: M.E. Sharpe, 1996), pp. 145-156*Denise Dresser, "Exporting Conflict: Transboundary Consequences of Mexican Politics," in Abraham Lowenthal and Katrina Burgess, eds., The California-Mexico Connection (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993), pp. 82-112*
Jesús Martínez and Raul Ross "In Search of Our Lost Citizenship: Mexican Immigrants, the Right to Vote and the Transition to Democracy in Mexico," in David Brooks and Jonathan Fox, eds., Cross-Border Learning: Lessons from Mexico-US Social Movement Coalitions (forthcoming), pp. XXX *
Gaspar Rivera,"Binational Grass-Roots Organizations and the Experience of Indigenous Migrants" in David Brooks and Jonathan Fox, eds., Cross-Border Learning: Lessons from Mexico-US Social Movement Coalitions (forthcoming), pp. XXX *
18. Nov. 23, Tuesday: The politics of North American integration
Tom Barry, Harry Browne and Beth Sims, The Great Divide: The Challenge of US-Mexican Relations in the 1990s (New York: Grove Press, 1994), pp. 287-343*Karen Hansen-Kuhn, "Clinton, NAFTA and the Politics of US Trade," NACLA Report on the Americas, Sept.-Oct., 1997, 31(2), pp. 22-26*
Jonathan Fox and David Brooks, "Discussion Note: Dilemmas of Cross-border/Binational US-Mexico Organizing," UC Santa Cruz, May, 1998 draft, pp. 1-6*
19. Nov. 30, Tuesday: Envisioning future paths: North American integration and political change in Mexico
Jorge Castañeda, "Mexico's Circle of Misery," Foreign Affairs, 75(4), July/August, 1996, pp. 92-105*
20. Dec. 2:, Thursday: Review, final exam to be distributed
Follow the news and surf directly to Mexico: See especially La Jornada, one of Mexico's best independent daily newspapers (http://unam.netgate.net/jornada/). La Jornada provides free access to indexed back issues by date or topic. See also their regular thematic supplements on women, the environment, indigenous issues, human rights, labor, etc. For Mexico's leading investigative newsweekly Proceso, see http://www.proceso.com.mx/. For economic news, see El Financiero at http://www.elfinanciero.com.mx/ (see also their English-language weekly). For government reports and data, see: http://www.presidencia.gob.mx/ & http://www.quicklink.com/mexico/ and http://info.cddhcu.gob.mx:80/camdip/index.htm (congress). Government statistics are at: http://www.inegi.gob.mx. La Neta is a Spanish-language entry point to a wide range of Mexican organizations, including women's, environmental, indigenous, civic and pro-democracy groups and links to many others. See http://laneta.apc.org and click from there. For additional sites that deal with Chiapas, peace and human rights issues in Mexico, see: http://www.nonviolence.org/sipaz/frme.htm, http://www.globalexchange.org/campaigns/mexico/, http://www.peak.org/~joshua/fzln/ and http://www.mexicosolidarity.org/. On Mexican labor issues, see http://www.igc.apc.org/unitedelect/alert.html. On border issues, see "Information for Citizen Transboundary Action on the Environment" at: www.zianet.com/irc1/incitra/. On NAFTA-related issues, see: http://naid.sppsr.ucla.edu/, with many other links. On trinational environmental issues, see http://cec.org/. On migration issues, see http://migration.ucdavis.edu. For independent Mexican political opinion polls and analysis: http://comdemoc.rosenblueth.mx/. For US government views, see http://www.state.gov/www/regions/ara/mexico_index.html. For a general overview of Mexico news in Spanish and English, with many links to local Mexican newspapers, see http://www.trace-sc.com/index1.htm.
Susanne Jonas, Merrill 110, x9-3232, 9-2855-message
Office Hours: Tuesday 1-4, Wednesday 11-12, or by appointment
Email: sjonas@cats.ucsc.edu
This course (Gen Ed code E) aims to give students the broadest possible understanding of the situation in Central America today, with a particular focus on Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala. It also highlights Honduras and Costa Rica as a contrast (in part, to prepare students planning to go to Costa Rica for EAP). Specifically the course is designed to examine the region from the perspectives of the principal Central American actors and to explain the historical and socio-economic roots of the popular and revolutionary movements in Central America; to provide a comprehensive understanding of U.S. policies in the region; to evaluate the results of the peace processes ending the civil wars in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. In the wake of the Fall, 1998, devastating Hurricane Mitch, the course will also focus on strategies for sustainable reconstruction and development in the region, and the role of new social actors in such development. Finally, the course includes a section on Central American immigrants living in California and elsewhere in the US - their situations in the U.S. and their links to their home countries and communities.
The required readings for the course are: (1) a course Reader, and John Booth & Thomas Walker, Understanding Central America. Additional optional reading: Susanne Jonas, The Battle for Guatemala. The Reader will be sold in class; the books are available for purchase at Bay Tree Bookstore.
In addition, there will be a list of recommended/optional readings, which will be on reserve at McHenry Library as available. Additional course materials and resources will include films, videos, tapes, and guest speakers from varying points of view.
Required work includes: (1) a take-home midterm examination; (2) a take-home final exam; (3) class presentations, as they come up, on topics of study; (4) periodic reports on items in the news. Students will be evaluated on the basis of written and oral work in the class. In addition to fulfilling course requirements, students should keep up with course readings, and come well prepared in order to contribute to lively discussion and debate in the class. Finally, this class places particular emphasis on following contemporary developments in Central America in the major news media.
NOTE:
Topics/Sessions
NOTE: For readings included in each section of the Reader, see Reader Table of Contents.
I. Overview of the Region; Historical Background and Roots of the Crises in Central America (September 29, October 4)
II. Guatemala: Legacies of the 1954 U.S. Intervention, the 36-years' Civil War, and the Peace Accords (October 6, 11, 13)
III. El Salvador: Origins of the Civil War, U.S. Involvement, the Peace Accords, and Post-War Situation (October 13, 18, 20, 25)
IV. Nicaragua: The Sandinista Revolution, the U.S.-sponsored Counterrevolution, the Post-Sandinista Era; Summary on Theories of Revolution and Regime Change (October 27, November 1, 3)
V. Costa Rica and Honduras: Non-Revolutionary Countries (November 8)
VI. United States Policy and Alternatives: The "New Cold War," the Reagan Doctrine, the Central American Peace Process, and the Panama Invasion (November 10, 15, 17)
VII. Central America in the 1990s, Central Americans in the U.S., and Hurricane Mitch: Neoliberalism, Cross-Border Organizing, Migration, Mitch, and a Sustainable Future (November 22, 29 and December 1)
Instructor: Susanne Jonas
Merrill 110, x 9-3232, 9-2855-message, email: sjonas@cats.ucsc.edu
Office Hours: Tuesday 1-4, Wednesday 11-12, or by appointment
This interdisciplinary course (Gen Ed code E) addresses Latin American immigration to the U.S. from a variety of perspectives. Areas to be covered include:
(1) Background and history of immigration to the United States - the U.S. as an immigrant nation.
(2) Major social-economic and political conditions in Latin America causing immigration to the U.S. - and U.S. business needs for immigrant labor;
(3) Specific immigration processes and experiences (border and non-border, Latin American and Asian);
(4) Issues facing Latino immigrants and their communities in the U.S. (special focus on women) - and their contributions to the U.S.;
(5) Immigrant labor organizing;
(6) Cross-border binational and transnational communities and experiences;
(7) Immigration laws and current debates about U.S. immigration/refugee policy - among these, debates about economic impact, new varieties of racism, the new Latino vote, and immigration as an issue of democracy in the U.S.
While drawing on materials from throughout the U.S., some sections of the course focus in detail on California, with its large communities of Mexicans and Central Americans.
Course Readings and Materials: Required readings are a Course Reader (to be sold in class), and two texts (available at Bay Tree):
Requirements and basis for evaluation of students: a midterm exam and a final exam (both take-home); active participation in class discussions, including occasional presentations; periodic written reports on immigration-related items in the news, and written statement (or story) on student's own identity in relation to course issues.
NOTE:
1) Class attendance is mandatory; all absences must be excused.
2) If for some reason you should need to take an "Incomplete" in this class, you must negotiate it ahead of time with the Instructor - including the deadline for turning in the work.
TOPICS/SESSIONS:
I. Background and History: U.S. as an Immigrant Nation
- History of Immigration Trends and Policies (September 29, October 4)
II. Latin American Migration to the U.S.: Causes and Experiences
- Economic Factors (October 6)
- The Revolving Door: Mexican Migration (October 11)
- Border Crossings, Border Violence (October 13)
- Refugees from Civil Wars: Central Americans (October 18)
- Varieties of Immigration Experiences and Non-Border Arrival (Puerto Ricans, Haitians, Cubans, Asians) (October 20, 25)
III. Immigrant Communities and Immigrant Labor in the U.S.
- Work/Community Situations: Urban, Rural and Semi-Rural (October 25)
- Immigrant Women (October 27)
- Identity and Binationality (November 1, 3)
- Immigrant Labor in the Context of Economic Restructuring (including NAFTA) and Theoretical Aspects (November 8)
IV. Immigration Laws, Policies, and Debates
- Prop. 187 and Beyond: Laws and Politics (November 15 & 17)
- Latinos and African Americans, Anti-Immigrant Environmentalism, and Debates over Economic Impact (November 22)
- Thanksgiving Eve (November 24) - NO CLASS
- Rethinking Citizenship, Immigration as an Issue of Democracy in the U.S. (November 29)
- The Future of Immigrant Struggles (December 1)
- GET FINAL: December 1
- FINAL DUE: December 8
Instructor: Carter Wilson
Fall 2000
e-mail: georgec@cats.ucsc.edu
Class Meetings: T-Th 10:00 -11:45
Room: 130 Merrill
Intensive investigation of major aspects of the ethnography and literature of Mayan people since the Spanish Invasion. Concentration on forms of social life and meanings of discourses such as public performance in fiestas, joking, and tale-telling, and on individual biographic/autobiographic expression. May be repeated for credit. Gen Ed. Codes X "E" Prerequisite(s): LALS 80M, 100B, 142A, 147, 170, or Art History 150A. Enrollment is limited to 25. Reason: seminar course. A final examinations is not required.
This course is for students who want to pursue an already-existing interest in the lives, art, and thinking of Mayan people of the present or the western-historical past (i.e., since the Spanish Invasion). Those who have not taken the introductory course LALS 80M, Mayan History and Literature, might not be properly prepared, unless they have had Professor Carolyn Dean's Art History 150A: Advanced Studies in Pre-Hispanic Visual Culture: The Maya, or, alternatively, LALS 100B, Culture and Society: Transculturation; LALS 142A, Central America: Revolution, Intervention, and Social Change; LALS 147, Land and Peasants in Latin America; or LALS 170, Indigenous Struggles.
The course will proceed as a seminar--some lecturing by the instructor, but also discussion of reading, and (importantly) student presentations of their own work. In addition to the books we will study collectively, time has been made for students to read extensively on their own for individual final research essays. Ability to read Spanish with ease is preferred. The essays, though not lengthy (10 to 12 pages), are to be serious research, "literary," and intellectual efforts. Topics may come from a wide range. Examples include: Mayan gender relations, ladino- or mestizo-indigenous relations in one Mayan area, "style" in telling in a particular body of tales, revealed ideas about self and family in autobiographical material (such as dreams), animals and animal spirits and how they function, the shape of a Mayan rebellion, Spanish-Maya religious syncronics, a critical assessment of the work of one non-Mayan Mayanist. Students are expected to define a research topic by the third week of the quarter, to submit a bibliography by week five, a draft of the essay in week eight, and a final, revised and polished essay by the tenth week. The written work for the course is thus a) a research proposal of three pages, b) a bibliography, also three, and c) an essay of 10-12 pages. Additional standards for narrative judgment include class participation and revealed understanding of reading.
Burns, Allan F., An Epoch of Miracles: oral literature of the Yucatec Maya
Clendennon, Inga, Ambivalent Conquests: Maya and Spaniard in Yucatán, 1517-1570
Eber, Christine, Women & Alcohol in a Highland Maya Town: Water of hope, water of sorrow
Landa, Fray Diego de, Relation of the Things of Yucatán
Sullivan, Paul, Unfinished Conversations: Mayas and foreigners between two wars
Womack, Jr., John, Rebellion in Chiapas: an historical reader
A reader
Week 1: Introduction to the course; Mayan-Spanish
intellectual and spiritual confrontation - the events leading to the
interrogations at Maní
Reading: Clendinnen, first half
Week 2: The Mayan view of life and its necessities at the
time of the Invasion; the beginning of ethnography
Reading: Clendinnen, second half
Landa, complete
Week 3: Another form of culture contact; Mayans and
archeologists in the modern period
Reading: Sullivan
Macduff Everton, "The Cruzob Today" (reader)
Assignment due: Plan for research (3 pages)
Week 4: Stories and story-telling; what the presentation
tells us about lived experience
Reading: Burns (selections)
Karasik and Laughlin, selected dreams and stories from "People of the
Bat" (reader)
Week 5: The production of ordinary life and its
disruptions; religious life and spectacle
Reading: Eber (first half)
Assignment due: Topic bibliography
Week 6: Performance, spectacle; seeds of (causes of)
rupture/rebellion
Reading: Eber (second half)
Womack (selections)
Weeks 7 through 9: Class time will be taken up with student
presentations
Assignment due: Final essay rough draft, week eight
Week 10: Conclusions
Assignment due: Final essay revised
Evaluation criteria: Class participation, evidenced understanding of the reading, three written assignments (individual topic paper; bibliography; final 10-12 page essay)