United States History/Ethnic Studies Course Outline

In this unit students will learn about the history of how early inhabitants reached the Americas and the origin stories that have also been passed down to explain how this came to be. Students will learn about different indigenous cultures and the impacts they made upon the lands they inhabited. This is followed by the contact and trade with the arrivals of Europeans, Pacific Islanders, and West Africans. Finally students will investigate resistance and co-existence to European colonization before the American Revolution.

Compelling Question:

Who is here and how did they get here?

Essential Questions:

1. How did first contact between indigenous peoples and settlers play out?
2. What was life like for the first peoples of the Americas?
3. How did different groups both co-exist and resist European colonization before the American Revolution?

In this unit students analyze the lead up to the American Revolution and the role women, lgbtq+, immigrants, African Americans, and indigenous people had in it and war itself. Students analyze how different groups of marginalized people used the Declaration of Independence to petition for freedom and citizenship and contributed to the creation of the early USA. Students look at how the Constitution limited citizenship and Native sovereignty and led to the expansion of slavery and Manifest Destiny including the war with Mexico. Finally students will look at the causes of the Civil War, African American campaigns and participation during the war (ex. Emancipation Proclamation), and the impacts of Reconstruction, including BIPOC citizenship and enfranchisement, upon the United States.

Compelling Question:

How is the concept of race established in the United States?

Essential Questions:

1. How were the ideals written in the Declaration of Independence betrayed by the Constitutional Convention?

2. How did Indigenous communities work to resist American expansion westward?

3. In what ways was Reconstruction an attempt to fulfill the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and how did America fall short of reaching those ideals?

In this unit students analyze the changes of American culture after the Civil War in how it developed through the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era. Students will study the rise of the Labor Movement in the United states and how union activism reshaped worker protections and workers’ rights but also the rise of corruption through Robber Barons and Political Machines. They will also look at attempts to reign in corruption through different presidencies and reforms like the Pendleton Service Act. Another area of focus for students will be changes in the political parties in regards to coalitions and political stances such as civil liberties and the expansion west. This unit will also have students look at the changes in immigration that occurred during this period and the discrimination they experienced not just at Ellis and Angel Island but also while living within the United States. Students will investigate the diversity of cowboy culture, including its lgbtq+ heritage, and Indigenous resistance to further western expansion by the United States through studying events like the Dawes Act, massacres like Wounded Knee, and resisters like Sitting Bull as well as Geronimo. Then students will look Progressive Movement and the goals it had towards reforming American society to benefit the average person along with removing government corruption. Closing out the unit students will look at the Suffrage Movement, including the queer women who led it at one point, and the tactics women used as well as the push back women received in the fight for the right to vote.

Compelling Question:

How did the fights for resistance and liberation within minority communities shift between the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era?

Essential Questions:

1. How did the immigrant experience change between groups over time in regards to communities trying to retain their identity as well as trying to assimilate in certain ways?

2. How was race and gender used to both further and hinder the Suffrage Movement?

3. How was the labor movement used to expand the power of the working class?

In this unit students will analyze the role of the First Great Awakening in reestablishing religious influence in American politics as well as the impacts it had on women, different economic classes, and communities of color through events like the Salem Witch Trials and the founding of the first colleges in the 13 colonies as a push back against the ideas of the Enlightenment. Students will then compare and contrast this to the Second Great Awakening of the 1800’s. Students will investigate the democratization of religion to match the nation’s shift to believing in agency over one’s actions making a difference and the formation of historic black churches. Other focus areas will include the use of religion to support and oppose new social reform movements such as abolition, prison, and education during the time period. Finally students will learn about the influence of religion on the Progressive Era through movements like Prohibition, immigration, Suffrage, imperialism, and settlement houses.

Compelling Question:

How can religion be used as a tool for both liberation and oppression?

Essential Questions:

1. How did religion evolve over time in the United States to either include or exclude different groups of people?

2. How was Christianity used within the North and South to both uplift and suppress the black community?

3. How did the creation of new religious branches impact reform movements for women and people of color?

Students analyze the United States’ transition from a colonial power to an imperialist one, as the army that had been shaped by and charged with the genocide of Native Americans moved to take over and control countries outside their borders, including the Caribbean and Central America (Cuba, Panama, Haiti, i.e. the Banana Wars), Asia (Opium Wars in China) and the Pacific Islands (Hawaii, Guam, Philippines), and during WWI. Students will be able to draw connections between US treatment of BIPOC and LGBTQ+ people within US borders and those in other countries, and the rise and impact of eugenics. Students also trace the start of the Great Migration of African Americans to the north, and how it impacted the culture, politics, and labor movements of the United States. WWI serves as the confluence of all these different forces, as the United States comes into its identity as a world power, the debate about immigration to the United States turns to eugenics and restriction, and the government cracks down on dissent; at the same time the opportunities presented by the war provide workers, women, and many BIPOC groups the chance to get greater respect, economic independence, and legal rights.

Compelling Question:

How did the United States’ newfound role as a world power impact Americans within the United States?

Essential Questions:

1. How did “manifest destiny” and Indian Removal policies lead to US imperialism and US treatment of people in other countries?

2. What connections are there between US imperialism, immigration, eugenics, and the labor movement?

3. How did WWI change (for better and for worse) social equality and freedom within the USA?

Students continue to trace the impact of the Great Migration and the urbanization of African Americans through the Harlem Renaissance, looking at the impact of queer artists in particular. Students should examine the expansion of women’s independence financially, socially, and politically with a focus on LGBTQ+ contributions and their influence on the Prohibition Movement. The changing cultural and economic strength of Black communities in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and beyond reflects the extremes of the 1920s, with extreme wealth and prestige coupled with intense anti-Black violence, poverty, and discrimination. Students should also examine the changing attitudes of the United States to immigration and citizenship, with the 1924 immigration quotas limiting Europeans, Supreme Court cases denying Asian Americans citizenship, and providing opportunities for African American migrants as well as Mexican immigrants, codifying Native voting rights, but also ushering in a time of extreme oppression and violence, including the rise of the Klan and the Tulsa Massacre. 

Compelling Question:

How did the idea of liberation evolve through the 1920s?

Essential Questions:

1. How did BIPOC people respond and resist the codification of whiteness imposed by the government through immigration policy and social pressure?

2. What was the impact of African American culture on the United States and world, and why was it so important and so embraced?

3. How did wealth and racial inequalities shape the United States of the 1920s and beyond?

Students examine the warning signs of the Great Depression, who lost their jobs and support systems, who kept their homes and employment, who were blamed and criminalized, and how the government treated people. Particular focus should be on the deportation of Mexican-Americans in California as the Dust Bowl refugees moved west and the high unemployment of sharecroppers in the South that led to desegregating the unions. As students study the New Deal, they should examine how discrimination was built into the legislation and how different groups organized to make their needs heard, for instance how the New Deal expanded the power and control of federally recognized tribes upon reservation land, the opportunities it offered to artists and historians, and creation of redlining. 

Compelling Question:

How was the expansion of the federal government used by different groups to gain power and privilege?

Essential Questions:

1. How did the Great Depression restructure the country’s labor, in particular impacting Mexican-Americans, African-Americans, Native Americans, and women?

2. How did the New Deal restructure the United States government to prioritize white men over other groups?

3. How was the New Deal used by some groups (Native Americans for instance) to gain rights and access from the government that they had been fighting for.

Students analyze the participation of America’s LGBTQ+ community, African Americans, Asian Americans, Mexican Americans and Native Americans in World War II. Students will analyze why African American, Japanese American, Native American, Hispanic American, women, and LGBTQ+ people enlisted in the military despite their treatment at the hands of the U.S. government. They will study the military as a vehicle for community-building and camaraderie among and between these groups. Students will also analyze the home front, including Japanese internment camps, women and labor in wartime factories, and the Zoot Suit Riots. Students will examine US invention of eugenics, its influence in Germany, and the impact of US antisemitism on the treatment and limitations of Jewish refugees. They will examine US military actions in Europe including the partial liberation of the concentration camps and the decision to continue the incarceration of LGBTQ+ prisoners. 

Compelling Question:

How did World War II serve to advance movements for equality at home and abroad for BIPOC and LGBTQ+ people?

Essential Questions:

1. What tactics did the United States military use to expel gay and lesbian people and discriminate against BIPOC soldiers and workers?

2. How did the American government change for BIPOC people during and after World War II? 

3. What was the impact of the war in the Pacific (Hawai’i, Guam, Midway, the Philippines, and Japan) including US territories, and the development and dropping of the atomic bombs.

Students analyze the growth of the middle class during post World War II through discriminatory policies impacting BIPOC and LGBTQ+ people, like the Lavender Scare, suburbs with restrictive covenants, redlining, eminent domain, the termination policy and policies that forced people of the LGBTQ community out of government jobs. Students will look at the expanding economy through the Bracero Program, labor movement, and women. Students will examine the growing racial tensions including the codification of white supremacy and Jim Crow but also the Truman campaign promising more civil rights for African Americans. 

Compelling Question:

Why did white America view the social transformation of post World War II as a threat?

Essential Questions:

1. What led to growth in the African American, Mexican American and Asian American middle class?

2. Why did people of color continue to face discrimination domestically?

3. How did the Cold War affect minorities during the post World War II era?

4. How did the Bracero Program contribute to the growth and discrimination towards the Mexican community. Why did the United States end it?

Students analyze how United States foreign policy impacted BIPOC/LGBTQ+ communities during the Cold War between the 1950’s and 1970’s. Students will compare the celebrated actions of the United States in Europe, like the Berlin Airlift, to the covert actions in Asia (Korean War, Vietnam War, Cambodian and Laos bombings), the Middle East (Suez Canal, Iran, and Afghanistan), and Latin America  (Nicaragua, Panama, and Cuba). Students will examine the effects of containment in countries like Laos, Cambodia, and Cuba. Students will compare the evolution of US foreign policy of the Cold War to the reaction and oppression of the Civil Rights and Anti-War Movements within the United States. 

Compelling Question:

How did the anti-Communist sentiment of the time drive the U.S. persecution of BIPOC and LGBTQ+ community?

Essential Questions:

1. How did the Vietnam War disproportionately impact people of color?

2. How did the United States foreign policy of the 1950’s and 1960's compare to the Civil Rights Movement? How did those comparisons affect minority and LGBTQ communities?

3. How did the containment policy drive broader anti-communist sentiment of the time, which led to the persecution of individuals and groups suspected of communist affiliation.

Students analyze the collective organizing and cross-collaboration between different groups of Americans pushing for the rights and freedoms promised in the DoI and Constitution (equality, liberty, justice, enfranchisement, representation, and life). Students will be able to explain how the murder of Emmett Till was a galvanizing event that launched the Civil Rights Movement where many disparate grassroots struggles were able to coalesce and lean on each other to change laws, society, and racist practices. Students will be able to explain how this organizing was spearheaded by women and queer people within the African American communities, and how they were able to collaborate and inspire other groups to organize in similar ways, particularly the LA School Blowouts and the Mexican, Mexican-American, and Filipino Farmworkers Movements, the Black Panther Party, the American Indian Movement, and the Gay Liberation Movement. The anti-war and anti-poverty movements should be identified as key cross-collaborative issues that brought more Americans into these struggles, and students should be able to identify the draft that impacted young white men as a key turning point in attitudes about the war in Vietnam. Students will also study the role of the FBI in infiltrating, undermining, and steering these movements into more violent and divisive directions, as well as their illegal practices of spying, assassinating, and targeting members of these groups.

Compelling Question:

How have disenfranchised groups built coalitions between different communities and issues, and what tactics were used by the government to undermine these connections?

Essential Questions:

1. How have disenfranchised groups used the founding documents of the USA to successfully fight discriminatory laws, policies, and create a major structural and cultural change in the US?

2. Why were so many of the instigators and leaders of these movements from disadvantaged groups within their communities (i.e. Black queer women) and how did they use their intersectional identities as a source of power?

3. What connected the Civil Rights Movement, the anti-War Movement, and the Poor Peoples’ Campaign, and how did they work together to achieve their goals?

4. How and why did the FBI try to force these movements towards violence, and what impeded them in doing so?

Students analyze how the movements for equality and rights evolved to focus less on basic legislative changes and more towards liberation and equality on a global scale. The rise of the Black Panther Party as a hyper-local movement and its inclusion of international politics like the treatment of Palestinians and the embargo of Cuba connects the personal and the political, and brings the issues and debates of the Cold War to the policing of the bodies and societies of BIPOC, female, and queer Americans. The work of women and queer activists heralded by the BPP connects directly with the women’s movement and gay liberation movements of the time, including work to end the AIDS crisis. Students should understand the work of all these groups to change, not just laws and legislatures, but racist, sexist, and homophobic social institutions in the United States. They should also look at the rise of conservatism, white flight, the Christian fundamentalists, and the militarization of the police as reactions from the institutional powers to maintain the status quo.

Compelling Question:

How do United States policies toward BIPOC Americans reflect their international policies during the Cold War and globalization?

Essential Questions:

1. How does American society maintain racism, sexism, and homophobia/transphobia beyond legal mandates, and what sources of power have these groups tapped to resist and change society?

2. How did the United States maintain power inequity (internationally and internally) during the end of the 20th century? What institutions changed, and what new strategies did they use?

3. What inequities and debates about rights and privileges still exist in our society, particularly in our communities, and what tactics are people using to address them?

TBD, a project or paper where students make connections between themselves, their communities, and US history.