This is an inter and trans-disciplinary course, which has two main objectives. The first is to serve as an introduction into the current realities and challenges of the LatinX community within the criminal justice complex in the United States. The course seeks to critically examine the misconceptions and realities of the LatinX community within the larger discussion of mass incarceration and prison reform in the United States. Close attention will also be paid to the use of criminalization as a form of social control and the proliferation of regulations, ordinances, and legislative acts that give legal form to such methods of discipline and punishment. The course will address dynamics and phenomena of racial profiling; juvenile justice; drug criminalization; and the intersection of immigration law with criminal law. In concluding, the course will shift to understanding and connecting the prison-industrial complex to what the future holds for marginalized communities within the current movement and crisis of global capital.

The course also seeks to improve your skills in critical reading, writing, and thinking. Paper assignments and essay exams will provide opportunities to develop your own interpretations systematically and polish your writing skills.

While there undoubtedly exists an infinite research agenda when it comes to the study mass incarceration and the ongoing challenges of the LatinX community within the criminal justice system of the United States, it is only possible [in 15 weeks] to cover a limited surface/amount of such complicated history and realities of these topics. However, I have provided a list of suggested/recommended readings for additional literature to be consulted.

This is an inter and trans-disciplinary course, which has two main objectives. The first is to serve as an introduction into the current realities and challenges of the LatinX community within the criminal justice complex in the United States. The course seeks to critically examine the misconceptions and realities of the LatinX community within the larger discussion of mass incarceration and prison reform in the United States. Close attention will also be paid to the use of criminalization as a form of social control and the proliferation of regulations, ordinances, and legislative acts that give legal form to such methods of discipline and punishment. The course will address dynamics and phenomena of racial profiling; juvenile justice; drug criminalization; and the intersection of immigration law with criminal law. In concluding, the course will shift to understanding and connecting the prison-industrial complex to what the future holds for marginalized communities within the current movement and crisis of global capital.

The course also seeks to improve your skills in critical reading, writing, and thinking. Paper assignments will provide opportunities to develop your own interpretations systematically and polish your writing skills.

While there undoubtedly exists an infinite research agenda when it comes to the study mass incarceration and the ongoing challenges of the LatinX community within the criminal justice system of the United States, it is only possible [in 15 weeks] to cover a limited surface/amount of such complicated history and realities of these topics. However, provided is a list of suggested/recommended readings for additional literature to be consulted.

This is an inter and trans-disciplinary course which has two main objectives. The first is to critically examine the multi-faceted evolution of the Latinx population as an urbanized segment of United States society. Specifically, the course seeks to provide a cross-cultural understanding of the diversity among Spanish-speaking people within the urban context. Different processes and roles over space and time will be problematized included but not limited to the role of urban institutions in the conflicts between assimilation and cultural preservation; the dynamics of migration, immigration, and settlement; and institutionalized participation in the social processes of United States urban life.

U.S. society today is in the middle of facing heightened social transformation in the early 21st Century. Since the inception of well over 150 years of Spanish presence in the United States, structures of inequality, oppression, and fusion remain in place. However, these structures—and challenges against them—are indeed changing along with the identity of what is “Urban” life and what roles Latinxs play in such formation.

Furthermore, as diverse social forces struggle over the terms of development and direction of change, the current state of affairs of Latinxs in the U.S. is full of rising social conflict, political mobilization, renewed revolutionary movements, further economic restructuring, transnational migration, and cultural redefinition. These are some of the aspects/dynamics that will be investigated throughout the course.

However, it is only possible [in 15 weeks] to cover a limited surface/amount of the complicated and rich history and multiple research agendas on the complex relationship between the making of urban life in the U.S. and the role of Latinxs within such historical formation.

The second goal is to improve your skills in critical reading and writing. You will work on understanding and interpreting the materials throughout the course. Paper assignments and essay exams will provide opportunities to develop your OWN interpretations systematically and polish your writing skills.

Examine critical research issues in Puerto Rican and Latinx studies. Introduce students to a variety of ways of thinking about “knowledge" and to specific ways of knowing and making arguments in Puerto Rican and Latinx studies using key humanistic, social science, and "interdisciplinary methodologies."

How do we study U.S. Latino and Caribbean populations and cultures? Some read literature, watch a film, read a history book… and others conduct interviews, do field work to identify and describe social and cultural practices, or collect oral histories and traditions. Are you interested in learning how to use different sources and methods to learn more about ethnic communities in the United States? What is the contribution of ethnic studies to our knowledge about migrant and underrepresented populations and their cultural manifestations? This class is a basic introduction to cultural and social science research methods with a focus on Caribbean and Latino Studies. Course includes library workshops, and class visits by professors and students who will discuss how they use different methods in their research and teaching.

Furthermore, the course will introduce you to the research process, including how researchers select topics, formulate research questions, design research, and analyze and interpret data. It will explore differences in how these issues present themselves and are addressed in designs that are quantitative, qualitative or both.

Impact of Latin@ demographic, political, and cultural trends. Education, economic disparities, political empowerment, and on-going challenges to Latin@s. Identity, citizenship, cultural production, Latinidad, and Latinization.

This is an advanced inter and trans-disciplinary course which has two main objectives. The first is to demonstrate applied research and methodology, through social-historical analysis, to pressing and relevant phenomena of inquiry in Puerto Rican and LatinX Studies. The course is heavily focused on examining pertinent issues as it exists within Puerto Rican and LatinX communities in the United States and in Puerto Rico. Students will engage critical and contextualized analyses within the multi-faceted realities of LatinX population in the United States. The course also seeks to demonstrate the cross-analytical understanding of the various frameworks that can be employed to conduct social analysis (i.e.,, literary, social-historical, and cultural) although the central lens of the course is its social-historical variant.

This course is primarily a literature seminar. We will use American literature as a lens through which to examine different passing tropes. It will provide an introduction to queer, gender, and critical race theories for science and math majors. We will read such works as Running A Thousand Miles for Freedom, Incognegro, and Focault's A History of Sexuality, to name just a few.

A People’s History of New York City traces the history of NYC through the experiences of Immigrant and Migrant communities. By tracing common threads between these groups the City’s modern relevance, as well as its present tensions is unveiled. Highlighted are economic and social struggles for equity, justice and liberation from the marginalized groups who allowed for the creation of arguably the most significant metropolis of the present era.

Examines the history of the United States as a "nation of immigrants" within a broader global context. Considers migration from the mid-19th century to the present through case studies of such places as New York's Lower East Side, South Texas, Florida, and San Francisco's Chinatown. Examines the role of memory, media, and popular culture in shaping ideas about migration. Includes optional field trip to New York City.

This course provides an introduction to the issues of immigrants, planning, and race. It identifies the complexities and identities of immigrant populations emerging in the United States context and how different community groups negotiate that complexity. It explores the critical differences and commonalities between immigrant and non-immigrant communities, as well as how the planning profession does and should respond to those differences. Finally, the course explores the intersection of immigrant communities' formation and their interactions with African Americans and the idea of race in the United States.

This course equips students with the clinical skills necessary for pupil personnel service providers to work effectively with multilingual and culturally diverse populations. This experience-based course will develop an awareness of cultural, linguistic, and ethnic factors that influence and shape behavior and development. Personal history, literature, and films will be analyzed in the contexts of acculturation and identity. Current research and theoretical and applied knowledge in this field will be reviewed. Students will integrate theoretical and applied knowledge in written assignments and presentations.

This assignment is inspired by the learnings that arose from the workshop, “Fostering Play in the Classroom - Pedagogies to Build Creativity, Connection and Light to Oppressive Spaces”. Based on group dialogue, feedback, and the desire to build on pedagogies of play in the workshop, this science fiction short story assignment has been created as an additional layer of liberatory, contemplative learning for students that can be used/tweaked to work in a variety of courses. Powerful conversations arose in the workshop surrounding power/oppression, positionality and how this impacts our ability to engage in play, and the importance of holding both/and (i.e. - joy/sadness, pain/pleasure, restriction/liberation). This assignment attempts to deepen these reflections through creativity, storytelling, and removal of limits for dreaming in a world with obstacles. 

This assignment was created by Professor Bertrade Ngo-Ngijol Banoum, Ph.D., who is Chair of the Department of Africana Studies at Lehman College. The blog that follows is by Mariama Khan, and also can be found here.

The course relies on various theories and methods in the social sciences to analyze the challenges of the Black community. Attempts are also made to explore solutions to the problems. The focus and emphasis of the course, however, is to identify issues in the community that facilitate socioeconomic empowerment of Black people. Furthermore, institutions such as the family, marriage, and the church are analyzed throughout the semester.

Intensive study of a range of texts by a single author or by a limited group of authors whose achievements are mutually illuminating. Some attention to narrative theory, and biographical and cultural backgrounds. Instruction and practice in oral and written communication. Topic: Joyce's Ulysses and Its Legacy.

Intensive study of a range of texts by a single author or by a limited group of authors whose achievements are mutually illuminating. Some attention to narrative theory, and biographical and cultural backgrounds. Instruction and practice in oral and written communication. Topic: Joyce's Ulysses and Its Legacy. This seminar looks at two bestselling nineteenth-century American authors whose works made the subject of slavery popular among mainstream readers. Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain have subsequently become canonized and reviled, embraced and banned by individuals and groups at both ends of the political and cultural spectrum and everywhere in between.

A study of contemporary North American theater movements and selected individual works that are organized around issues of ethnic and socio-cultural identity. Class lectures and discussions analyze samples of African-American, Chicano, Asian-American, Puerto Rican and Native American theater taking into consideration their historical and political context. Performance exercises help students identify the theatrical context and theatrical forms and techniques used by these theaters.

This playlist and handout include works by (and various quotations and media related to) Toni Cade Bambara.

As producers of knowledge with a particular focus on social (in)justice, racial, gendered and transnational journeys, Guttman Community College scholar-activists have constructed a new digital canon that offers New Yorkers the opportunity to contribute testimonies of tumultuous times. Curated by Dr. Samuel Finesurrey, Guttman undergraduates Elsy Rosario, Tigida Fadiga, Luz Hidalgo, Phisarys Sidemion, and Sadaf Majeed and digitized by Guttman staff members Joanna Wisniewski, Ivan Mora, and Kristina Jiana Quiles, this collection democratizes the production of knowledge by empowering community college students, largely deriving from immigrant households, to shape the narratives told about their communities and their generation. Organized into five themes, with testimonies gathered in six languages, this archive documents a diverse set of New York experiences. Funded by the American Council of Learned Societies and the Mellon Foundation, this exhibition helps us rethink struggles and movements of the past and present, to unearth the human networks that carry all New Yorkers in difficult times.

" In this course we will read essays, novels, memoirs, and graphic texts, and view documentary and experimental films and videos which explore race from the standpoint of the multiracial. Examining the varied work of multiracial authors and filmmakers such as Danzy Senna, Ruth Ozeki, Kip Fulbeck, James McBride and others, we will focus not on how multiracial people are seen or imagined by the dominant culture, but instead on how they represent themselves. How do these authors approach issues of family, community, nation, language and history? What can their work tell us about the complex interconnections between race, gender, class, sexuality, and citizenship? Is there a relationship between their experiences of multiraciality and a willingness to experiment with form and genre? In addressing these and other questions, we will endeavor to think and write more critically and creatively about race as a social category and a lived experience."