Max Shmookler will be teaching a series of 3 Adult Education classes November 11 and 18 at the JCC, and December 9 at the Shmookler’s home from 3:00-4:30 PM. Please RSVP to Marcia Berkow at mhberkow@gmail.com if you plan to attend.
Max Shmookler
Migration in post-War American fiction:
This course would explore the ways in which immigrants’ experiences coming to the United States were represented through fiction in the period between the WWII and the Vietnam War, with a particular focus on the experiences of Japanese in the internment camps, Jewish refugees in NYC, the barring of immigrants from Communist countries in the wake of the Korean War, the forced return of Mexican migrants through “Operation Wetback” (and yes, remarkably, that’s what it was called), and the first wave of Cuban exiles after Castro’s coup in 1959. Each meeting would explore one of these historical events through a short story or an excerpt from a novel, as well as accessible supplementary media–including short video and audio clips, images from the period (I think of Ansel Adam’s little known propaganda photographs of the Manzanar relocation camp for Japanese, for example), a work of relevant visual art, etc. I’ve found fiction to be a rich platform for discussions of complex themes in immigration, themes of race, class and the development of immigrant rights, as well as more intimate questions of memory, belonging, and loss that form the emotional undertow of the immigration debate.
Speak Your Mind