SPAN 105 Rancho Hollywood: Los Angeles Migrations Stories

This course offers students the opportunity to analyze narrative stories films and other cultural artifacts that document a history of immigration and migration to Los Angeles from Mexico and Central America during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.Many of the narratives films and other cultural works studied treat significant contemporary issues (e.g. the representation of history questions of identity and alterity questions of race and ethnicity globalization authority the construction of class and gender in society) that Los Angeles faces as an emblematic socio-cultural space that continuously shifts as consequence of new arrivals to the city. Emphasis will be placed on studying narratives and films within the social historical and cultural contexts of the material they treat and current critical theories. Specifically this course presents a critical view of the representation of migrations to Los Angeles in order to understand how these migration stories function as a socio-cultural medium that document and occupy many geographical spaces that establish Los Angeles as a heterogeneous cultural place and space.