In this course we will explore ways in which one's culture and
identity (traditional and contemporary, from one's homeland and in
one's new environment) can manifest themselves in art, music, food,
clothing, language, social structure, religion, worldview, etc.  We
will do this through posing a series of questions: What do people
arrive with beyond their physical baggage?  What do they choose to
keep and discard from their native culture?  How do they choose
to "perform" or display this to each other and to the outside?
Students will learn and discuss core concepts from a variety of
fields, things such as language maintenance and shift; boundary
construction and negotiation; material culture; generation gap;
regional variation; endogamy and exogamy; and acculturation,
assimilation, and transculturation.  At the core will be the concept
of identity and the many forms it can take.  Students will also
learn basic techniques of urban fieldwork in order to carry out
interviews and projects later in the semester.  All of these will
come together in the process of trying to answer what it means to
be "ethnic" in America. Note: This course is joint-listed with COLL-
S104 (Honors).