SPAN 443 - Food Cultures in the Latinx Communities

Analysis of food practices and traditions from Spanish-speaking communities in and out the U.S. Focus on personal and collective identities and experiences, shaped and maintained by socio-historical and economic relations in production, preparation, and consumption of food.

Strongly Recommended Preparation: Upper division status (greater than 60 earned semester units) and completion of lower division Area C requirements.
Prerequisites: Completion of GE Areas A1, A2, A3, and B4, all with C- or better.
Possible Instructional Methods: On-ground, or Hybrid, or Online-Asynchronous, or Online-Synchronous.
Grading: A-F or CR/NC (student choice).
Breadth Area(s) Satisfied: GE-UD-C - Upper Division Arts or Humanities, Overlay - Diversity
Course Typically Offered: Fall & Spring


Student Learning Outcomes - Upon successful completion of this course students will be able to:

1. Evaluate multimodal representations of food and describe their relationship to taste, flavor, habits, and thinking systems in the Latinx communities.
2. Articulate food perspectives based on distinctive belief systems, behaviors, and assumptions behind food production and consumption, and examine the connections and/or direct/indirect impact to individuals and communities.
3. Understand information and the design of meaning-making and multimodal semiotic resources through the analysis of demographics and identities in Latinx communities, market data, and marketing strategies of food production.
4. Identify, evaluate, and compare foodways in different historical contexts at local and global levels, including ethical implications.
5. Critically evaluate connections between food representations and power relationships in the U.S. and Latin America, portrayed in categories of identity, such as gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality, and class.
6. Analyze the role food consumption plays in public spaces and Spanish-speaking contexts such as cafes, restaurants, food trucks, neighborhoods, malls, etc.

1. demonstrate an understanding of and ability to apply the principles, methodologies, value systems, and thought processes employed in the arts and humanities;
2. analyze cultural production as an expression of, or reflection upon, what it means to be human; and
3. demonstrate how the perspectives of the arts and humanities are used by informed, engaged, and reflective citizens to benefit local and global communities.

1. describe the histories and/or experiences of one or more U. S. cultural groups and the resilience and agency of group members;
2. identify structures of oppression and the diverse efforts and strategies used by groups to combat the effects of oppressive structures;
3. analyze the intersection of the categories of race and gender as they affect cultural group members’ lived realities and/or as they are embodied in personal and collective identities;
4. recognize the way that multiple differences (including, for example, gender, class, sexuality, religion, disability, immigration status, gender expression, color/phenotype, racial mixture, linguistic expression, and/or age) within cultural groups complicate individual and group identities.