Monday, September 16, 2013

Thursday, September 12, 2013

"How I Met my Grandmother: Using Family Stories to Uncover Community History."

On Wednesday, October 23 at noon, Monica Perales will speak in the Conference Center in the Student Services Building. The title of her talk is "How I Met my Grandmother: Using Family Stories to Uncover Community History."

Dr. Perales will tell the story of the research she conducted for her award winning book, Smeltertown: Making and Remembering a Southwest Border Community. In that book, Dr. Perales utilized her grandmother's photographs and oral histories with family and friends, as well as many other historical records, to place her grandmother's story of immigration, Americanization, community, and neighborhood women's activism in historical context.  The talk focuses on Dr. Perales'  attempt to learn more about the community of which her grandmother was a part. Her presentation focuses on how everyday folks found ways to navigate a world shaped by industrial labor, poverty, and racial discrimination.

About Dr. Perales:
Monica Perales is associate professor of history at the University of Houston, and is the Assistant Director and Graduate Program Coordinator for the UH Center for Public History.  She received her Ph.D. in history from Stanford University in 2004, and holds a B.A. in journalism and an M.A. in history from The University of Texas at El Paso. Her book, Smeltertown: Making and Remembering a Southwest Border Community (University of North Carolina Press, September 2010), received the Kenneth Jackson Award for Best Book in North American Urban History from the Urban History Association.  She is also co-editor of Recovering the Hispanic History of Texas (Houston: Arte Público Press, 2010).  Her 2008 article “Fighting to Stay in Smeltertown: Lead Contamination and Environmental Justice in a Mexican American Community” (Western Historical Quarterly, Spring 2008) received the Article Award from the Oral History Association. Professor Perales has been the recipient of various fellowships including the 2006-2007 Summerlee Fellowship in Texas History at the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies at Southern Methodist University.  She serves as a member of the boards of the Labor and Working Class History Association, the Urban History Association, and Humanities Texas, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.  Perales’s general research and teaching interests include Chicana/o labor and social history, memory and history, immigration, race and ethnicity in the American West, Borderlands, and oral history.  She is currently working on a book manuscript exploring the intersections of ethnic Mexican women’s labor and food in the U.S. Southwest through a from 1900 to 1960.

Sponsored by the Center for Diversity Studies

Structure of Unit Exams



·         Paragraph 1 (Columbus Day) Topic sentence that takes a stand.
o   Evidence (textbook) à keyword à who what when where and so what?
o   Evidence (video)
o   Evidence (de las Casas)
o   Conclusion
·         Paragraph 2 (reparations) Take a stand
o   Evidence (keyword identified) textbook
o   Video
o   Ghetto life 101 audio
·         Paragraph 3 : you reflect on this topic

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Victory Gardens Workday--Service Learning Opportunity




Step 8: planting seeds/crop plants

Please join us this Saturday (September 14th, 2013) at the Lone Star Victory Gardens from 10:00am-12:00pm for our first official fall workday. Activities will include: clearing the eight garden plots of old plants; tilling the soil for the plots; planting new plants to produce fall crops; and, watering the plots. While it is not required, students are encouraged to bring with them any gardening tools they might have for the day, including gloves, shovels , hand-shovels, etc. Please show up at 10am, and we will perform the listed activities until noon. Thanks, and I hope to see you there!
-Professor Jacobs


The victory Garden is located at: 7603 Antoine Houston, TX 77088. This is behind the old Inwood Country Club

Monday, September 9, 2013

Do I Really Have to Read the Book

A Great Resource at FunkNBeans

Inevitably, each semester students ask instructors: Do I really have to read the book?! The answer is YES. You really do need to read the book. You bought it; you will have assignments and exams related to it; and you are in college to learn and earn credits. That’s not going to happen successfully by just going to class. There is a lot more to college than showing up, and reading the book is essential. It’s not extra. It’s not optional. It just has to be done.
However, reading a textbook can feel like an overwhelming task, and it’s very likely no one ever taught you how. Knowing how to read doesn’t actually go far enough. We need to specifically know to read a textbook. The following resources have great advice for reading textbooks — these guides can make all the difference between a successful college experience and a seemingly impossible struggle and miserable bore! Here are some of my suggestions, but be sure to check out the other resources too.

Get the full story at FunkNBeans

Friday, September 6, 2013

Hispanics and College Success


Never before has a minority group made up so large a share of the nation’s youth. A new national survey finds that Latino ages 16 to 25 are satisfied with their lives and optimistic about their futures. They value education, hard work and career success. But they are more likely than other youths to drop out of school, live in poverty and become teen parents. They also have high levels of exposure to gangs. And when it comes to self-identity, most straddle two worlds.

Amazing report here.

U.S. High School and College Completion Rates Continue to Climb

Record shares of young adults are completing high school, going to college and finishing college, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly available census data. In 2012, for the first time ever, one-third of the nation’s 25- to 29-year-olds have completed at least a bachelor’s degree.
These across-the-board increases have occurred despite dramatic immigration-driven changes in the racial and ethnic composition of college-age young adults, a trend that had led some experts to expect a decline in educational attainment.

Get the full report here.

Pronunciation of Aztec Names



There is a base language called Nuatla. It was spoken by the Aztecs as the first Spanish who visited them. The Spanish recorded it, and unfortunately their spelling is often used for the names of Aztec deities. Why unfortunately? Well English and Spanish do not always pronounce things the same. 

Tthe Spanish also destroyed most of the glyphs (pictured sounds) that constituted the Aztec's alphabet but the priests also preserved a few of their deer skin manuscripts and so we have some of the original 'sound symbols' of the Aztecs. See Aztec Writing for more details.

Spelling of Quetzacoatl in English is the Spanish spelling. QUE is not like in 'question' but like in the Spanish "Que passa?" which sounds like "KAY PASSA". (Actually it sounds close to "kuh passa.")

 

Pronunciation Guide Here

Thanks to Michael Patrick Simpson for this resource. 

Constitution Day


Mark your calendars and encourage your students to commemorate and celebrate CONSTITUTION DAY 2013 on Tuesday, September 17th 2013 in ACAD-126, the LSC-North Harris Teaching Theatre.

Guest Speakers:

Dr. David Yalof, Professor of Political Science at the University of Connecticut. Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in Constitutional Law., and a JD from the University of Virginia Law School. Speaking on “The U.S. Constitution.”

Professor Marcy Delesandri, Founder and Director of the LSC-North Harris Paralegal Studies Program. Speaking on “Constitutional Checks and Balances and the Rule of Law.”

Time:

11:30 a.m.- 1:30 p.m.

Other events around campus will include Voter Registration tables….. sponsored by the LSC-North Harris Library.

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Monday, September 2, 2013

Nine Questions about Syria You were too Embarrassed to Ask

 The United States and allies are preparing for a possibly imminent series of limited military strikes against Syria, the first direct U.S. intervention in the two-year civil war, in retaliation for President Bashar al-Assad’s suspected use of chemical weapons against civilians.

Get the context here