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Teacher's Notes:
Each of the four articles presented here focuses on a minority group living in
America. Each piece probes that group’s emergence, significant periods of its
history, its evolving cultural mores, and the marvels and challenges it has
faced in assimilating and/or gaining acceptance in mainstream American society.
Learning Outcomes:
Students will be able to
· Extrapolate and paraphrase information from the text.
· Observe the unique traits and values of the groups presented.
· Probe cultural mores and how these evolve and merge.
· Examine traits and values that tend to preserve cultural identity.
I. Cofradia: The Penitentes of New Mexico
Vocabulary
viceroy
exotic
recalcitrance
acculturate
confraternity
conjectural
akin
hyperbole
penance
paradigm
flagellation
propitiatory
aberration
subterfuge
blandishment
mysticism
charismatic
ethnographer
autonomous
specter
purgation
clandestine
sanguinary
laconic
<I>Reading and Critical Thinking Questions:</I>
1. Author Thomas J. Steele claims that for well over a century (from roughly
1820 to the mid-twentieth-century), the Penitentes were the “glue” holding
together the village societies of northern New Mexico and southern Colorado.
What important social functions did the brotherhood perform, according to
Steele?
2. Discuss the symbolic elements of the Penitentes’ rituals. What traditions
laid the foundation for these activities? What criticisms have they drawn?
Finally, how does the author view these activities? (Support your answer.)
3. Explain the meaning of Harvey Fergusson’s statement, as quoted by Steele:
“The New Mexican embraces death because he loves life, because death is part of
life and until death has been accepted, life is but a subterfuge.” What is
Steele’s purpose in thus quoting Fergusson?
II. Proud Scots
Vocabulary
vigorously
exhort
rigor
commissary
signatory
Calvinist
thistle
conspicuous
spectacle
Gaelic
kinship
<I>Reading and Critical Thinking Questions:</I>
1. Summarize the factors that compelled many Scots to emigrate to America
beginning around 1732, as cited by Andrew Shaughnessy. What misconceptions about
their emigration does he point out?
2. Sketch a map indicating eighteenth-century Scottish settlements in America.
Be sure to highlight areas that had heavy concentrations of this group.
3. Discuss early Scottish contributions to American institutions, especially
education and colonial politics.
4. Discuss the cultural contributions of notable individuals of Scottish
descent, including Andrew Carnegie, Alexander Graham Bell, and John Muir.
III. Mardi Gras Indians
Vocabulary
reincarnate
raison d’etre
exuberance
oral history
insularity
sashay
Creolization
Marginal
Lexicon
assimilationist
dichotomized
introvert
sociolinguistic
subservience
motley
antiphony
verisimilar
voodoo
dialect
Diaspora
impotence
affirmation
cross-fertilization
tonal
embedded
percussive
<I>Reading and Critical Thinking Questions:</I>
1. Author Maurice Martinez discusses the “alliance” that formed between
southeastern Amerindians and descendants of African slaves in Louisiana. Discuss
this phenomenon: From what needs did this alliance spring, according to the
author? To what type of “cross-fertilization” did the alliance give rise?
2. Give examples of musical “cross-fertilizations” that the author presents in
the article. Also, find evidence of the author’s reverence and fascination for
this phenomenon.
3. Explain the author’s lively metaphor in the following sentence: “If fun is
the sad-glad father of New Orleans culture, spontaneity is its mother.”
IV. The Chinese in America
Vocabulary
exploited
brawny
untoward
queue
cloven-footed
quartz
quicksilver
borax
ravine
prospective
singular
grandeur
<I>Reading and Critical Thinking Questions:</I>
1. What nineteenth-century events in China brought upheaval to a large portion
of the population, prompting the Chinese government to lift restrictions on
emigration? What lured many Chinese to California?
2. Discuss conditions aboard ships carrying the Chinese to America. Also
describe their living conditions in San Francisco.
3. Discuss the various forms of persecution the Chinese had to endure as miners
in California.
4. What reform measures helped end discrimination against the Chinese in the
twentieth-century?
5. Discuss various contributions that the Chinese have made to American culture
and national affairs.
Standards Codes:
E2, E9, E11, E12, F2, F3, F5, WH16, WH21, WH22, WH26, M8, M9
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