Race, Immigration, and Planning

Lecture Notes

lec #	TOPICS	LECTURE NOTES	DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1	Introduction
2	Planning and Immigration	(PDF)	1. Many immigrants are here illegally and live beneath the law and accounting structures (e.g. the US Census). How do you plan when you don’t even know what the population is for whom you are planning? 2. Do planners have an obligation to plan for everyone? Can they do effective planning when they don’t take everyone into account? 3. What do we know about immigrants? How is our knowledge of immigrants constructed?
3	Why Emigrate? The Immigration Experience	(PDF)	1. What are the varieties of the immigration experience? 2. What are the immigrant flows? Where are people coming from? What are their characteristics? (Are they mostly wealthy or poor? Connected to family or coming alone? Educated or uneducated? etc.) 3. Where do people settle? In the city or the suburbs? Does it vary? What role does the length of their stay play? 4. What are immigrants’ expectations coming here? How does that change over time the longer they stay?
4	Geography and Immigration in the U.S.	(PDF)	1. In what ways are immigrants reshaping central cities? In what ways are they reshaping suburbs? How do those patterns vary by region/place? Why might there be variations? 2. What are the arguments that say immigration is a policy problem? What are the arguments that say immigration is a boon for cities and towns? 3. Given changing demographic trends, in what ways is immigration changing mainstream discourse (black, Latino, white)? Is the mainstream itself changing? 4. What are the tensions that arise in communities through immigration being mediated? Churches? Schools? Unions?
5	Immigrants in the Economy	(PDF)	1. What is the variety of entry points for immigrants into the U.S. Economy? To what extent are those entry points sorted by the class or race of the immigrants? 2. Is the role of immigrants in the economy a source of unity or friction among immigrants? 3. Are immigrants undermining certain sectors of the U.S. workforce? If so, which ones? 4. Are immigrants key to the revitalization of certain sectors of the U.S. economy? If so, which ones? 5. What impacts do immigrants have on the fiscal health of urban areas? Are they a boon to those areas or do they drain public resources? 6. Given the realities of globalization, is immigration likely to continue at the same rate, increase or decrease? 7. What are the background economic forces that encourage immigrants to leave their home countries?
6	Gender and Immigration	(PDF)	1. In what ways does Shah distinguish between white, black, and Asian feminism? What specific issues that are important to Asian feminism are lacking in the other discourses? 2. What are the conflicts between first and second generation Asian women activists? 3. What is the “international division of reproductive labor”? 4. What is the conflict between “pre-industrial” values and “post-industrial” household structures among Filipina families? 5. In what ways is Indian national identity, according to Shukla, gendered? 6. What does the Thai worker case show regarding the potentials and limitations of feminism as a liberation ideology?
7	Citizenship and Political Rights	(PDF)	1. How did immigrants lose the right to vote? 2. What are arguments for and against immigrant voting today? 3. Is the issue of immigrant political rights too highly charged to advocate in today’s public opinion climate? 4. What is the relation between political rights and economic status?
8	The Legacy of Race and Immigration	(PDF)	1. What is racial dualism and what are contemporary examples of its presence? 2. Are immigrants beyond the politics of black and white? 3. How is the history/racial legacy of white immigrant assimilation relevant to contemporary problems of immigrant incorporation?
9	Racialization and Racial Inequalities	(PDF)	Client Meeting: MIT Video: Farmingville 1. What is the difference between race and racialization? 2. How is racialization relevant to community development (where do you see examples of it, how does community development reinforce or challenge racialization processes)?
10	Racial Coalitions in a Context of Increasing Diversity	(PDF)	1. Given the diversity of immigrants, does it make sense to keep race as an organizing category and update it or are immigrants better off developing an alternative immigrant story?
11			Field Trip: Framingham
12	Project Discussions	(PDF)	Client Meeting: MIT
13	Project Discussions(cont.)		Client Meeting: Framingham
14	Project Discussions (cont.)