Urban Dreams: Cultural Change in America

On Thursday morning, October 2, at the Oakland Unified School District's Technology Learning Center, twelve teachers and three curriculum specialists attended a presentation by UCB Ethnic Studies Professor Alex Saragoza. This was the first of four professional development sessions to be hosted during the 2003/2004 academic year. The series is a collaboration between the IU and OUSD’s Urban Dreams Technology Innovation Challenge Grant.

Saragoza's talk, Between Reform and Reaction: Latinos in the 1940s and 50s, explored themes and issues undergirding changes in American and immigrant identities during the tumultuous decades from the Depression to the Cold War. With special emphasis on how Latino immigrants participated in, and were affected by, shifting cultural perspectives in the United States, Saragoza explored the intersections of political, historical and economic developments in order to understand American cultural shifts during the middle decades of the 20th Century.

Professor Saragoza posed four guiding questions: How was America being redefined? What does it mean to be an American? What does it mean to be someone other than an "American"? What are "legitimate" ways to dissent from evolving definitions? In essence, his questions shed light on critical contemporary social issues: How is a nation defined? What is the relationship of individual identity to national identity? What are the means and limits of dissent in an open society?

. . . Continue on to the IU News October 2003 page to read more about EDGE.