Race in Post WWI America

Broesamle, "Cast Down Your Bucket"

What about their backgrounds are important to understanding both Washington and DuBois’ positions on African Americans and race relations?  Why is this important?

What was Washington’s argument regarding black-white relations?  What did he mean by “cast down your bucket?”  What kind of education did he propose?

Why was DuBois so critical of Washington’s position on race relations and education?  Was this criticism fair?

How did BTW and others criticize DuBois and his Niagara Movement?

Why are Washington and DuBois’s ideas and impact still significant today?

 

Alain Locke, “Enter the New Negro”

What is the “Old Negro?”

How had blacks participated in the perpetuation of the  “Old Negro?”

What is the primary cause of the changing these views and thus the arrival of the New Negro?

Why does Locke believe that the segregation and separation of the races is fiction?

What is the new group psychology that blacks seemed to develop?

Why the effort to link to other African peoples?

In his conclusion, what can blacks do to help rehabilitate their image and status in American society?

 

“Seven Letters from the Great Migration”

Why would you use these letters in a classroom?  What would they accomplish?

Which letter struck you the most?

What were some of the common themes evident in most of these letters?

Why didn’t the first letter’s author want it published? 

 

Takaki, “El Norte”

Why should you discuss the early Mexican American experiences?

What key fact or issue makes the Mexican immigration and the immigrant’s experience different from all other immigrants at that time?   Why is this fact so important?          

What were the causes and contributing factors behind this great migration of early 1900s?

What was urban experience of Mexican-Americans?

Why were Mexican workers so valued and attractive to American growers?

How did growers control Mexican workers and keep them from moving on?

How and why was migrant farmwork different than that experienced by urban Mexican workers?

How did Mexican workers attempt to improve their lives?

What was the impact of the Great Depression on Mexican and Mex-Americans?

What was the impact of the barrio on the Mexican-American experience?