PAPER PROJECT

Your task - as bright, young, and eager historians - is to contribute to the historiography by focusing on your own case studies.  Choose one of the following questions:

1.  Yellow Peril 

The Yellow Peril in American racist mythology has been prevalent since the mid-19th century (indeed, Dower tells us its roots go back much farther in Western civilization when Europeans feared the invasion of Mongols from the East).  Choose a particular historical event in the post-World War decades dealing with the relationship between American fears of the Yellow Peril and its conduct of foreign policy.  What form did the Yellow Peril take?  What were the fears expressed by American officials, intellectuals, and/or the public?  What foreign policy action did these fears produce?

Suggested topics (only focus on one):  Chinese Revolution (1949); Korean War; Vietnam War; Japanese economic power in the 1970s/'80s; strained relations with China since 1989; Chinese economic/military power in 1990s.

2.  Ethnic-Racial Group Influence

We have discussed in this class many examples of the impact that ethnic groups have had on American foreign policy in the 19th and early 20th centuries - some successful, some not so successful.  Choose a particular ethnic or racial group and assess the impact that it has had on promoting a particular aspect of American foreign policy in the post-World War II decades.  Can you determine whether the group had broad based support within the public?  Did it have broad based support within its own ethnic group?  How successful was it in bringing about the implementation of its policy goals.

Suggested topics (only focus on one):  Polish American voters and FDR/Truman; American Zionism and Israel; Cuban Americans and Castro's Cuba; Vietnamese refugees and U.S. relations with communist Vietnam; African Americans lobbying against South African apartheid.

Topics within these two questions are merely suggestions.  Feel free to come up with your own ideas (just gain my approval before you start any major research).

Choosing Your Topic:  I will only allow 11 students for each question - and my approval will be based on first-come, first-served.  Tell me after class which question you would like to do or e-mail me.  You must choose one of the questions by Monday, May 20 or else I will assign one of the questions to you.

Sources:  The materials we use here in class will be a good starting point for you, but you are also required to do some outside research.  Periodicals can be a great resource in determining popular thinking of the time (editorials, letters to the editor, feature articles and news stories), as can public opinion polls.  Journals and academic books will also be of use.  Michael Krenn has a series called Race and Foreign Policy From the Colonial Period to the Present that is placed on reserve at the library.

Mechanics:  This should be a 4-5 page paper complete with proper citation and bibliography (MLA Style, please).  Of course, all papers should be typed, double-spaced, with 1" margins.  Make sure you have a clear thesis in your introduction which states exactly what you intend to argue (to prove) in your paper.

Due Date: Papers are due by the end of class on June 7 (10th week).  Papers received after class (9:50 am) will be marked down 1/3 of a grade each day that they are late (including June 7).  Papers will NOT be accepted after June 12.