WR 220 Stories of the U.S.-Mexico Border

Analyzes stories from and about the US-Mexico border. Explores and challenges conventional ideas about undocumented immigration in the US and considers immigration as a complex phenomenon with various causes. Examines historical and current causes of migration across the US-Mexico border and the difficulties experienced on the migrant trail. Analyzes discriminatory practices of dehumanization, deportation, and detention and reveals immigrant resistance to oppression.

Credits

4

Notes

Lower Division Transfer (LDT) Course

General Education Requirements

AAOT Arts & Letters, AGS Humanities/Arts, AS Diff, Power & Oppress Found

Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
Recognize the major current national discussions pertaining to undocumented immigration along the US-Mexico border. Describe migration across the US-Mexico border from multiple perspectives and recognize its multiple causes (current and historical). Apply main course concepts about migration and its implications to today’s crisis of migration. Articulate the human costs of the current migration crisis. Apply methods of critical race theory to challenge dominant narratives of the US-Mexico Border. Explain how ascribed differences are socially constructed, change over time, and impact our and others’ lived experiences. Articulate –using historical and contemporary examples – how ascribed differences, combined with inequitable distribution of power across cultural, economic, social, and/or political institutions, result in racism and intersect with other forms of systemic oppression. Describe how assets and resilience demonstrated by members of systematically marginalized communities and cultures play a role in dismantling racism and other systems of oppression.