On Experiential Learning days we conducted site-visits designed to illustrate themes from the readings and
lectures.

Experiential Learning
Module 1: Seaver Center for Western History Research and the Natural History Museum

I planned this module to follow our reading and discussion of The Frontier in American Culture by Richard White and Patricia Nelson Limerick. Arranged for my section’s admission to the Natural History Museum in Exposition Park. Led tour of California history wing of museum, drawing attention to paintings depicting the American West. Led tour of California history wing of museum, drawing attention to paintings depicting the American West. Prompted students to connect exhibits to course reading. Arranged meeting with the staff of the Seaver Center for Western History Research. Supervised staff introduction to archival resources, including manuscript materials, books, serials, pamphlets, broadsides, maps, posters, prints, and photographs. Met with staff beforehand to arrange for photos of El Pueblo to be pulled, in anticipation of our reading of California Vieja by Phoebe Kropp. Offered suggestions for how our class visit could be used to complete Paper 1, which prompted students to analyze he character of the “American West” as seen through images. 

I designed this tour to complement our readings of Phoebe Kropp’s California Vieja. In planning it, I drew from my master’s capstone project on ethnic tourism completed at UCLA. I used this tour as an opportunity to introduce students to field work methods and analysis of the built environment, which were skills they would need to complete their second paper, an analysis of a heritage site.

Olvera Street (1930)- Tourist site, millions of visitors a year, Former alley, storefronts are uneven

Puestos- Make note of what sold. Who is the audience?

Commodore Robert Stockton took it over as his temporary headquarters when the United States first occupied the city in 1846

How does tourism work to illuminate or to hide aspects of frontier society and/ or the history of the U.S. West?

What is it depicted?

How are education and entertainment balanced?

Who is visiting the site?

How do visitors interact with the site?

The Plaza (1820)- Laws of the Indies, Statues- King Carlos III of Spain; Felipe de Neve, the Spanish Governor; and Father Junípero Serra, founder of the Alta California missions

La Placita Church (1822) (1861)- Submission of the San Gabriel Mission

Experiential Learning

Module 3: Black Power and Community Archives

• I designed this module to supplement our reading of Robert Self’s America Babylon: Race and Struggle for Postwar Oakland.


• Arranged class visit by the executive director of the Southern California Library


• Facilitated discussion on the Black Power Movement in California


• Supervised student handling of archival materials related to the Black Panthers in northern California


• Asked students to connect our readings on the American West to the status of the western United States as a site of significant political, racial, and economic meaning