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Chapter 7: Native Americans

1. Even though native Americans outnumbered the European colonists, at the very beginning of colonization they were, for all practical purposes, a minority. Why is this so?

2. Review Chapter 4's "Minority Group Responses to Prejudice and Discrimination" and "Dominant-group Responses to Minority Groups" and apply them to the experience of native Americans in North America.

3. Who was Bartolome de las Casas? Why is he an important figure in the settlement of the Americas? What were the implications of his writings and actions for what was to become the United States?

4. Compare and contrast the settlement patterns and objectives of England, France, and Spain in the New World. How were their differing settlement patterns and goals reflected in the ways Europeans treated native Americans?

5. Discuss significant U.S. Government policies towards native Americans. (Focus on the various acts and legislation addressed in class).

6. How can functionalist theory, the conflict perspective, and symbolic interactionism be applied to explain the dominant group's treatment of Native Americans?

7. Cite some examples of ethnocentrism and stereotyping regarding native Americans.

8. In what ways can it be said that little has changed in the exploitation of native Americans?

9. Discuss differing cultural values among native Americans and whites reported in the 1700's and 1800's.

10. Describe the case of the Cherokee who tried to assimilate into American society, but were treated brutally just the same.

11. Describe living conditions on most reservations today. How do native Americans fare today in relation to their reservations' natural resources?

12. Discuss some of the circumstances affecting the lives of urban native Americans.

 
Chapter 10: African Americans

1. According to our text, when and under what circumstances did African Americans come to the New World?

2. How did Spanish treatment of African American slaves differ from that of the English and Northern Europeans? (When answering this question be sure to address the role of religion in establishing a national philosophy that allows slavery.

3. The first African Americans to arrive in what is now the United States came voluntarily as indentured servants (as did many whites) and eventually became free men and women. What were the factors that lead to the establishment of slavery in the United States?

4. Our text states that "most historians agree that racism did not emerge until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries." What are some of the factors responsible for this? (Discuss the role of exploration, science, religion, and economy in the development of racism).

5. We spent considerable time before the first test discussing how Stephen Gould's Mismeasure of Man disproved theories of racial superiority. From Chapter 10, show how Thomas Sowell refuted similar arguments made as recently as the 1960's.

6. What are "Jim Crow laws?" Give examples of how they were used by the white majority. How was it possible that Jim Crow laws could emerge in the South shortly after reconstruction, especially after the North had kept such a close eye on southern politics after the Civil War? Describe the consequences of these laws for the North. Discuss the Jim Crow laws as examples of cultural drift and cumulative causation.

7. Using the statistics that I provided in class, evaluate the contention that black Americans are making progress in closing the economic gap between themselves and whites. According to the text, in what areas has the greatest progress been made? Where has progress been the least?

8. In what ways has the black experience in the United States been unique? In what ways has their experience been similar to that of native Americans?

9. According to the text, how are the cultural orientations of African immigrants dissimilar to those of black Americans?

10. What insights into the black experience do the three major sociological perspectives provide?

11. Explain what is meant by the bipolarization of black America?

12. Discuss the current debate of race versus social class as the prime cause of black difficulties.

13. How do Africans and black Americans relate to one another. Why?

14. What is meant by the legacy of racism and slavery?

15. Briefly state the major findings of your professor's two studies on race and education; and race and major league football, that were addressed in class.
 

Chapter 5: The Old Immigrants

1. From what you have read in Chapter 5, what dominant and minority response patterns occurred in north America during the colonial period?

2. Discuss the similarities of the "nativist" reactions to immigrants in the late eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries. (See question #2 from Chapter 7, above).

3. Compare the experiences of French and Dutch immigrants to the U.S. in the 1700 and 1800's. Both French and Dutch cultures persisted for long periods of time. ("Cajuns" and "Creoles" in Louisiana persist to the present). What factors have enabled these two nationalities to enjoy a truly pluralist existence over such long periods of time?

4. Discuss how German immigrants, (among this country's most numerous) have illustrated cultural diversity and success in overcoming societal hostility.

5. Describe the Irish immigrant experience in the United States. What factors marked southern Irish as "strangers" and lead to what our text describes as "the most overt discrimination and hostility any ethnic group had ... encountered [up to that time in America]. How did this minority respond to the dominant culture's discrimination against it?

6. Apply Bonacich's "split labor market theory" to conflicts between Irish, German, Chinese, and Blacks.

7. Describe how the Scandinavian population in the U.S. illustrate ethnic identity and solidarity. What factors have served to maintain this solidarity?

8. Give examples of cultural pluralism among Dutch, German, Irish, Scandinavian, and Scottish peoples in this country. In what ways does dominant American culture today, illustrate an amalgamation of these peoples and their cultures into the larger society.

9. What is important about the fact that 82 percent of the population of the U.S. was comprised of English-Americans when the United States won its freedom from England? Discuss the consequences of this for future immigrants to the U.S.

10. What similarities of dominant-minority patterns were shared by most northern and western European immigrants?

 
Chapter 6: The "New" Immigrants

1. Describe the push-pull factors contributing to the increased immigration between 1880 and 1920.

2. Describe the structural conditions in American society that immigrants from southern, central and eastern Europe found when they immigrated. In what ways did American society react to them?

3. Why were Americans so xenophobic about the newcomers? Discuss and illustrate.

4. What were the findings and recommendations of the Dillingham commission? Discuss the effects of these recommendations.

5. What were the provisions of the following immigration legislation? The Literacy Bill of 1917; The National Origins Quota Act of 1921; The Johnson-Reed Act of 1924; The McCarran-Walter Act of 1952; The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.

6. Using the Slavs, Poles, and Hungarians as examples, discuss early twentieth century labor conditions and ethnic community life.

7. Discuss various aspects of Gypsy culture and why they continue to remain a persistent subculture.

8. What similarities and dissimilarities can be found in the experiences of Italian and Greek Immigrants.

9. Discuss the retention of cultural identity among many Portuguese and Armenians in the United States.

10. Apply the concepts of stereotyping and the vicious circle to the immigrants described in Chapter 6. What factors aroused dominant group antagonism against these newcomers? How was this hostility expressed?

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