INQ-271 | How High the Fence

Full Title: How High the Fence?

Topic Description:

How and why do nations around the world build immigration policies and then change them? Students will address this central question by focusing on immigration over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries from a global perspective. Through a variety of resources—novels, documentaries, poetry, guest speakers, and movies—students will examine causes of immigration and the experiences of immigrants from Asia, Europe, Africa, and Central America. Students will examine the origins, maintenance and alteration of national immigration policies, concentrating on the U.S. case. They will also compare U.S. policy with other national policies like those of Mexico and Germany. In addition, students will consider responses to immigration from a diversity of perspectives ranging from organizations like the UN to anti-immigrant groups like the U.S. Minutemen. The course will conclude with an examination of current immigration policies and debates.

Counts as Global? No

Topic Approved: December 2010