Latinx and Latin Amer Studies 307 - United Farm Workers: Latinx and Asian American Movement Histories

(Offered as LLAS 307, AAPI 307, ENGL 472 and RELI 332) On September 16, 1965 the largely Mexican membership of the United Farm Workers (UFW) met with the mostly Filipino American membership of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC) in Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church in Delano, California. The result of this meeting would be a multiracial labor alliance despite differences in culture and languages. This Asian and Mexican American organizing was a formative part of US Civil Rights history.

This course will examine the politics, history, culture, and religious dimensions of the United Farm Workers movement. This course connects the immigration and labor movement histories of the fields of Asian American Studies and Latinx Studies by analyzing the historical, religious, political, and economic forces that led and lead to migration to the United States. We will use these histories to contextualize contemporary migratory realities. Students will develop a broader historical analysis integral to understanding the labor movement histories of the 1960s and 1970s. Content and historiographical knowledge of the Mexican-American War, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, US Empire in the Pacific, the Spanish-American and Philippine-American Wars, the Bracero Program, and the Catholic Church during the Cold War era will be emphasized in our class conversations. This class will make ample use of Amherst College’s own archives on the movement history of the UFW. Students will pursue their own historical research projects utilizing the Jerry Cohen Papers, 1960-2009. Jerry Cohen was legal counsel for the UFW working closely with Chicanos Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, and Filipino Larry Itliong.

This course will have community-engaged components with planned field trips to local farms and advocacy organizations. 

Limited to 25 students. Spring semester. Professors Barba and Coráñez Bolton

How to handle overenrollment: Due to Amherst Archives space, no over-enrollment possible

Students who enroll in this course will likely encounter and be expected to engage in the following intellectual skills, modes of learning, and assessment: Students who enroll in this course will likely encounter and be expected to engage in the following intellectual skills, modes of learning, and assessment: an emphasis on written work, readings, independent research, oral presentations, group work.