NEWSLETTER

Society for the History of Children and Youth

Race and Juvenile Justice
Chicana/o Studies 182

Winter 2008

Professor Miroslava Chávez-García  
Email: chavezgarcia@ucdavis.edu                                              

COURSE DESCRIPTION:
Using a chronological, thematic, and cross-cultural approach and drawing on interdisciplinary texts in history, criminology, and literature, the course analyzes how society--individuals and institutions--has dealt with “troublesome” or delinquent youth of various racial, ethnic, and class backgrounds in the past and present. It pays attention to ways in which ideas about race, ethnicity, class, and gender have shaped how wayward youth have been understood and handled.

As this course focuses on youth of color, particularly on racial minorities, the class begins by examining the concept and meaning of “race” and how it has changed over time. Next it explores the historical experiences of youth of color in the pre-colonial and colonial periods, paying attention to the origins of delinquency and to institutions for delinquent children. The class then turns to the reform impulses of the 19th and early 20th centuries, particularly to the reform school and juvenile court movements and examines how those affected youth of color. Lastly, we study the mid-to-late 20th century, investigating Mexican American, or Chicana/o, youths, the “pachucos” and “pachucas” of the World War Two era, the life history of Jimmy Santiago Baca, and the current trends in the juvenile justice system, particularly “DMC,” or disproportionate minority confinement/contact, and the implications for African, Mexican, Asian, Native, and Euro-American youth.

In this course, students will not only read about race and juvenile justice from a variety of perspectives but also gain hands-on experience to historical practice and to leading class discussion. This will enable students to become involved in the class and to learn from each other.

REQUIRED READINGS:
(These books are available at the bookstore and on reserve at Shields Library. The reader is available from reader services.)

• Eric Schneider, In the Web of Class: Delinquents and Reformers in Boston, 1810s-1930s (New York, 1993).
• Jimmy Santiago Baca, A Place to Stand (Grove Press, 2002).
• CHI 182: Course Reader.

ASSIGNMENTS & DUE DATES

• Leading Class Discussion: To Be Determined
• Analytical Essays: Wed. Jan 23, Week 2/Mon. Feb. 18, Week 7           
• Midterm Exam: Mon., Feb. 4, Week 5
• Essay Proposal (1 page): Wed., Jan. 16, Week 2
• Essay Draft (3-4 pages): Mon, Feb. 13, Week 6
• Final Essay (10-12 pages): Wed., Mar. 5, Week 9
• Final Exam: Friday, Finals Week, March 21

GRADING

Analytical Essays (10% each)  20
Midterm Exam   20%
Research Paper (Proposal 3pts, Draft 7pts, Final 20pts)   30%
Final Exam  20%
Leading Class Discussion/Participation  10%

COURSE SCHEDULE:
Week One: Jan. 7-9
Introduction to Course, Themes, and Topics
Youth in History; The Concept and Ideology of Race
Reading for Discussion:
Jan. 7: Film, Scared Straight! 1978.
Jan. 9: Reader—Week One: Barbara Fields, “Slavery, Race, and Ideology in the United States of America,” New Left Review (May/June 1990), 95-118; and Fields, “Ideology and Race in American History,” in Region, Race, and Reconstruction

Week Two: Jan. 14-16
Troublesome Youth in the Pre-Colonial, Colonial, & Republican Periods
African American Youth & Reform Efforts in the 19th Century
Reading for Discussion:
Jan. 14: Reader—Week Two: Frederick Greenwald, “Treatment of Behavioral Problems of Children and Youth by Early Indigenous Americans,” in History of Juvenile Delinquency, Vol. 2; Priscilla Freguson Clement, “The Incorrigible Child: Juvenile Delinquency in the US from the 17th-19th Centuries,” in History of Juvenile Delinquency, Vol. 2; Hawes, “The Heritage of Colonial Society,” in Children in Urban Society, pp. 12-26; Sanders, ed., Juvenile Offenders for a Thousand Years, pp. 317-351.
Jan. 16: Reader – Week Two: Robert Bremner, "Juvenile Delinquency," in Children and Youth in America, pp. 671-673, 677-688, pp. 691-695: “Immigrant children,” in Children and Youth in America, pp. 398-401, 414-415, 418-420; Christopher M. Span, “Educational and Social Reforms for African American Juvenile Delinquents in 19th Century New York City and Philadelphia,” The Journal of Negro Education Vol. 71 (Summer 2002), 108-117.
Jan 16: One-page Paper Proposal Due

Week Three: Jan. 21-23
Social Welfare & Juvenile Delinquency in the 19th Century
Organizations, Reformatories, & the Juvenile Court
Reading for Discussion:
Jan. 21: Holiday—No Class
Jan. 23: Schneider, In the Web of Class, 1-108.
Jan 23 Analytical Essay #1 Due

Week Four: Jan. 28-30
Social Welfare & Juvenile Delinquency in the 19th Century
Organizations, Reformatories, & the Juvenile Court
Reading for Discussion:
Jan. 28: Schneider, In the Web of Class, 109-144.
Jan. 30: Schneider, In the Web of Class, 145-192.
Film, Juvenile Court, 1974.

Week Five: Feb. 4-6
Mexican Youth, Race, & Science in 1920s
Reading for Discussion:
Feb. 4: Midterm
Feb. 6: Reader—Week Five: Chavez-Garcia, “Intelligence Testing at Whittier State School, 1891 to 1920” PHR (May 2007): 193-228; Chavez-Garcia, “Youth, Evidence, and Agency: Whittier State School and Mexican and Mexican American Youth” Aztlán 31 (Fall 2006): 55-83; Franklin Paschal, “Racial Differences in the Mental and Physical Development of Mexican Children,” in Comparative Psychological Monographs, Oct. 1925.
Feb. 4 Midterm Exam

Week Six: Feb. 11-13
Mexican Youth, Delinquency, and Zoot Suiters
Reading for Discussion:
Feb. 11: Reader—Week Six: Escobar, “Crime Fighters and Zoot Suiters, Chap.8”; “Facts and Origins of the Zoot-Suit Hysteria, Chap. 9,” in Race, Police, and the Making of a Political Identity.
Feb. 13: Reader—Week Six: Escobar, “More Sinned Against Than Sinning, Chap. 10”; “The Riots and Their Aftermath, Chap. 11,” in Race, Police, and the Making of a Political Identity
Feb. 11 Guest Speaker, Eddie Salas, Former CYA Counselor; Film, Zoot Suit Riots, PBS.
Feb. 13: Essay Draft Due

Week Seven: Feb. 18-20
Gender and Delinquency in the 19th and 20th Centuries
Case Study: “Pachucas” and Cholas
Reading for Discussion:
Feb. 18: Holiday—No Class
Feb. 20: Schlossman & Wallach, “The Crime of Precocious Sexuality: Female Juvenile Delinquency in the Progressive Era”; Odem, “Single Mothers, Delinquent Daughters and the Juvenile Court in the Early 20th Century Los Angeles,” Journal of Social History 25 (Sept 1991), 27-43. Elizabeth Escobedo, “Pachuca Panic,” in “Mexican American Women on the Home Front,” 57-104.
Feb. 20 Analytical Essay #2 Due

Week Nine: Mar. 3-5
Personal Narrative of Race, Youth, and Justice
Reading for Discussion:
Mar. 3: Baca, A Place to Stand, first half.
Mar. 5: Baca, A Place to Stand, second half.
Mar. 5: Essay Due In Class (no exceptions)

Week Ten: Mar. 10-12
Open Discussion