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ETHS 363 Asian American Women: Myths and Realities

This course examines myths and ideological teachings concerning Asian American women, and how these shape their experiences in the United States. Analyses of myths about Asian American women as obedient, submissive, and as sexual objects will be explored. Scholarly writings that present knowledge and critical understanding of these women's experiences and their issues will be part of course readings and discussions.
4 Undergraduate credits

Effective February 13, 2007 to present

Meets graduation requirements for

Learning outcomes

General

  • Appraise new approaches and different viewpoints in interpreting Asian American women's history and the need to shift from the dominant paradigm to a new approach that more fully recognize and embrace their complexities and differences due to race, class, sexuality, religion, national origin, citizenship and other emerging social categories shaping their existence.
  • Analyze the immigration history of Asian American women and identify historical factors that shape this history.
  • Examine the intersection of race, class, gender, sexuality, religious/cultural values, and patriarchal global capitalism in constructing Asian American women's identities and their stereotypical images.
  • Recognize the impacts of racialization (racism) and sexualization (sexism) of Asian American women and their role in the structural exclusion of Asian American women and their community from fully participating in the U.S. society.
  • Discern contesting efforts towards "reconstructing" identities of Asian American women as marginalized persons and their activism towards social justice and social change.

Minnesota Transfer Curriculum

Goal 5: History and the Social and Behavioral Sciences

  • Employ the methods and data that historians and social and behavioral scientists use to investigate the human condition.
  • Examine social institutions and processes across a range of historical periods and cultures.
  • Use and critique alternative explanatory systems or theories.
  • Develop and communicate alternative explanations or solutions for contemporary social issues.

Goal 7: Human Diversity

  • Understand the development of and the changing meanings of group identities in the United States' history and culture.
  • Demonstrate an awareness of the individual and institutional dynamics of unequal power relations between groups in contemporary society.
  • Analyze their own attitudes, behaviors, concepts and beliefs regarding diversity, racism, and bigotry.
  • Describe and discuss the experience and contributions (political, social, economic, etc.) of the many groups that shape American society and culture, in particular those groups that have suffered discrimination and exclusion.
  • Demonstrate communication skills necessary for living and working effectively in a society with great population diversity.