fighting their own battles term paper

I chose to based my paper on chapter 5 “Am I My Brother’s Keeper?”. The instructions are in the word document, it has to be five full pages double spaced. There is no need for a cover page or an abstract page. When using sources it has to be from the chapter. please include a reference page APA 7th format.

AFAM 335

Sect. 50

Cal. State Fullerton

Dr. Jennifer B. Thompson

Fall 2020

 

FIGHTING THEIR OWN BATTLES TERM PAPER PROMPT

(value: 35% of the course grade)

 

Introduction:

 

All too often, racial prejudice has tainted the heritage of American society. As we have already seen in the first term paper, persons of Mexican and African extraction were routinely denied full rights in the shaping of the Wild West. Yet, persons of color did find some means of advancement from time to time. The rejection of ethnic diversity continued across the board into the twentieth century.

 

In Fighting Their Own Battles, Brian D. Behnken shines a spotlight on the struggles of two groups as they sought equal treatment under the law and as fellow human beings. The author argues that, owing to the particular needs of each group and the emergence of “whiteness” legislation in Texas, African Americans and Mexican Americans operated on separate tracks in trying to achieve racial equality. Sadly, the lack of common ground not only meant their failure to combat together a common foe, but also general dislike and distrust towards each other. Fighting Their Own Battles offers a window into two parallel civil rights movements in Texas during the 1940s through the 1970s. It also serves as a cautionary tale about the perils of disunity during our present age when persons of good need to fight injustice in a united front more so than ever.

 

Goals for this assignment:

 

This paper, worth 35% of the grade, has the following objectives:

• To review the resources each group had for preserving and strengthening their ranks.
• To examine factors that explain the disunity between the two ethnic groups.
• To look at disagreements within the Mexican and African communities.
• To measure similarities and differences between the two civil rights movements.
• To understand at the hurdles and advances of each group.
• To assess to what extent we can learn from the errors of the previous generations.

 

DUE DATE: Please email it to jethompson@fullerton.edu by 8 pm on Thursday, November 19.

 

Please note: Because of the unique nature of the Fall 2020 term, the deadline for this assignment is more flexible than usual. If you find yourself unable to turn in the paper by the deadline, please do so as soon as you can thereafter.

 

Instructions:

 

PRELIMINARIES

 

Your paper will be divided into three parts: a one-page general introduction; some coverage of one chapter (or two) that you choose in Brian D. Behnken, Fighting Their Own Battles; and analysis and personal reflections about the book. Do not select the book’s Introduction or the Conclusion for detailed coverage. No credit will be given for them if you do. .

 

You may wonder how many pages you should devote to each section. I strongly recommend the following if your paper is about five pages total: 1 page for the general introduction; 2 pages for the summary coverage of the chapter you select; 2 pages of analysis and personal reflection. (Notations—discussed later in this prompt—can add another ½ page or more to the total length) You can adjust the amount of summary and analysis portions. It might be 2 ½ pages of summary and 1 ½ pages of analysis. It might be 1 ½ pages of summary and 2 ½ pages of analysis. But avoid writing a paper that is almost entirely summary or almost entirely analysis.

 

Let’s talk a bit more about paper length. Try to aim for five pages of content on average. Five pages means the fifth page of content has writing on at least ¾ of the last page. It is NOT four pages, with a few lines on the fifth page! If you find yourself having difficulty reaching the minimum or writing in excess of ten pages, please contact me.

 

Cover page? A cover page is optional. If you do one, that’s fine. But please remember: the cover page will not be added to the total number of pages in your term paper. The paper MUST have the following as identifiers:

• Your name.
• The class designation and section number.
• The date that you turned in the paper.
• The title of the assignment (Fighting Their Own Battles term paper).

 

If you add my name and Cal State Fullerton, that’s fine. But I don’t require this.

 

SELECTING A CHAPTER

 

First, begin by selecting one chapter (between 1 and 7) as the basis for your paper. (Note: the book’s Introduction or the Conclusion are not available as options, either for regular or extra credit.) Here is what you should do to help you select (and understand) a chapter. First skim, THEN read it. To locate the key points the author is making, read all of the first page, all of the last page, and the first sentence in each paragraph. Take a few notes on your initial impressions. (They will help you when you’re ready to put together the chapter summary.)

 

PAPER INTRODUCTION:

 

Part 1 is the paper introduction. Here is what it should contain (and in this order):

• A brief statement that mentions to the reader a pattern of the racial exploitation of brown and black people during the early and mid-1900s.
• Identifying (by full name and title) the author and the book.
• The core idea of Fighting Their Own Battles.
• A brief preview of what your paper will contain.

 

There are any number of things you could say. What is most important at the end of your introduction is this: keep the preview brief (one page at the most) and do not fully identify the number or title of the chapter at this point. (Save this for the summary coverage.)

 

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER(S) CONTENT

 

By now, you have chosen a chapter that interests you, based on a skimming of content. You are now ready to write the chapter summary.

 

What are my expectations for your summary? Firstly, I am NOT expecting you to pick up every point of a chapter. You will usually find about three points (maybe more) the author is expressing. Begin by clearly identifying the chapter about which you are writing. Do so by the number and the full title of that chapter. State the thesis (key idea) the author is putting forth for that chapter. Once you do this, write most of your summary as a narrative (such as a novelist would do in a good work of fiction). What conditions (as a physical setting or attitudes) existed at the beginning of that chapter? What action took place first? Who did what (or said what) to whom? How did that person or group respond? What happened after that? What was the final outcome? Be sure to include viewpoints (what a group thinks of itself or of others; biases), relations with others (positive or negative), and outcomes.

 

ANALYSIS AND PERSONAL REFLECTIONS

 

The last part of your paper allows you to make sense of the book’s contents and (before the end) to weigh in on your opinion of the book.

 

The following are a list of questions that are applicable to each chapter in Fighting Their Own Battles. Choose at least three of the analysis questions. In writing the paper, do not include the wording of the question in your paper. (To do so spoils the flow.) Instead, include your answers into the body of your paper.

 

Analysis questions:

• On which aspects of discrimination did Mexican and Mexican Americans in Texas focus their efforts for eradication?
• On which aspects of discrimination did African Americans in Texas focus their efforts for eradication?
• Which factors meant that people of African and Mexican heritage seldom got along or worked together for mutual support?
• What were some of the advances of the Mexican and Mexican American populations mentioned in this book?
• What were some of the advances of the African American population mentioned in this book?
• What were some of the resources (human, material and institutional) that Blacks used to preserve and strengthen their community?
• What were some of the resources (human, material and institutional) that Mexicans and Mexican American used to preserve and strengthen their communities?
• In what ways did Anglos in power treat Mexican and Black similarly?
• In what ways did Anglos in power treat Mexicans differently from Blacks?
• How might we of today learn from the errors and successes of the peoples detailed in Fighting Their Own Battles?

 

Personal reflections questions (Answer both of the questions that appear below.):

• What did you like or not like about this book?
• What, to you, was most noteworthy in Fighting Their Own Battles?

 

INSTRUCTIONS FOR EXTRA CREDIT:

 

If you seek extra credit, here is what you will need to do:

• Pick an additional chapter (a total of two to cover in your paper).
• The second chapter can be from chapters 1 through 7, but not the Introduction or Conclusion.

 

Length of an extra credit paper will be 6 – 8 (or more) pages, not counting the notations. Be sure to aim for the average of seven pages of content for extra credit. Here is what an extra credit paper would look like: 1 page of general introduction; 1 ½ pages of summarizing one chapter; 1 ½ pages of summarizing the other chapter; 3 pages of analysis and personal reflection. (The analysis would be for both chapters.) Again, feel free to adjust the proportions of summary to analysis. It might be more summary and less analysis, or less summary and more analysis. The choice is yours.

 

VALUE OF EXTRA CREDIT: 2/3 letter-grade boost if all the requirements are met, or 1/3 letter-grade boost if only partially met.  

 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

 

Ideally, I prefer that you do endnotes.

 

For details, please refer to the following in Guides on Titanium:

• End notes formatting for Fall 2020.
• Chicago Manual of Style.

https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citationguide.html

 

You want the Notes and Bibliography Style. By clicking Notes and Bibliography Style, you will see how the notes should look for many different types of sources, including websites and blogs. This site will show you the long-format citation, which is how a source should appear the very first time that you get specific information from that source. The second and subsequent citations are the short-format citation.

 

Please contact me if you wish to learn more about endnotes or are having difficulties creating them.

 

ALTERNATIVE TO ENDNOTES:

 

If you don’t choose endnotes, you MUST then do in-text citations.

 

You will need to fully identify the text in the first notation:

 

Example: (Brian D. Behnken, Fighting Their Own Battles: Mexican Americans, African Americans, and the Struggle for Civil Rights in Texas (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011), __ )

 

This first note is called the long-format notation. It includes the author’s full name, the book’s full title, publication information, and the first page where you are citing specific information (where the underline appears.) You only need to do this the first time. It is essential that you furnish full identification of this source.

 

The second (and all other) notation is called the short-format citation. It will be the author’s last name, a shortened version of the title, and the next page where you are citing specific information.

 

Example: (Behnken, Fighting Their Own Battles, 29)

 

DON’T write (Behnken: 2011)

 

Reason: Such a notation is not specific as to the location of specific information in the book.

 

Here is the rule of thumb to make sure you acknowledge the source sufficiently: you should have at least one notation at the end of each paragraph that you write. Otherwise, you run the risk of unintentional plagiarism, which can lower your grade by up to one letter-grade.

 

Also important:  Where your paper does broad brushstrokes, you will need to cite this material, too. Here are two cases.

 

CASE A: Broad brushstrokes for the summary, but detailed analysis.

 

Behnken, Fighting Their Own Battles, ch. 5 is what you would write for such a summary.

 

For the detailed analysis, it would be the following:

 

Behnken, Fighting Their Own Battles, 85. (The number is the page number referring to specific content.)

 

CASE B: Detailed summary, but broad brushstrokes for the analysis.

 

Behnken, Fighting Their Own Battles, 85. (The number is the page number for specific content in the summary.)

 

Behnken, Fighting Their Own Battles, ch. 5. (This is for broad brushstrokes analysis.)

 

Feeling really stressed (for any reason)? Let’s talk! There are options that will help you get a good grade. This is certainly true if you turn in a paper after the November 19 deadline.