Teaching U.S.–Mexico Relations to Dreamers in the Time of COVID-19

Angela Cecilia Espinosa

doi:10.5195/rt.2021.919

Abstract

This article reflects upon the shared experience of learning and teaching among a community of Dreamers at San Jose State University in fall 2020. The triple whammy of the COVID-19 pandemic, the murder of George Floyd, and the 2020 presidential election created a semester like no other for college students. Our class acquired a deeper understanding of the historical and political events that brought us to the United States as inhabitants of the California borderlands as we watched the events of 2020 unfold.

Highlights

Long live students! Gardens of our happiness! They’re birds who fear neither beast nor police, neither bullets nor hounds could scare them!
What follows are my reflections on building and teaching “U.S.–Mexico Relations” from a Chicanx Studies perspective amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the California wildfires, and the 2020 presidential election
After the Mexican–American War (1845–1848), Mexico lost over 50% of its territory and the United States acquired the Four Corners states, California, and access to the Pacific Ocean

Summary

Getting into the Nitty Gritty

We were able to delve into our main text, Grandin’s The End of the Myth. The history of the United States is the history of expansion for the sake of Anglo-Saxon Americans, which took a heavy toll on Native Americans, on enslaved Africans, and on Mexicans whose government ceded their territory in 1848 As such, it is a history of white nationalism, with its most recent (and perhaps most dangerous) incarnation in Donald Trump. We could all benefit from acquiring a more complete picture of our shared history than the one we learned growing up After laying these foundations, I assigned chapters of Grandin’s book alongside additional texts, websites, and videos about contemporary U.S.– Mexico relations with the intention of weaving the two threads of the class together into a cohesive whole by the end.

To lighten our first week with

Student Assessment and Finding Closure

What Did Students Learn?

Conclusion

Findings

Works Cited