Assignment for Friday's Discussion Section:

For your first discussion section on Friday, please read Samuel Huntington’s provocative and controversial article, “The Hispanic Challenge” (in your Reader, pp. 3-18). Read this article at least twice and as closely as you can. In preparation for your discussion section, respond to the questions below. Your response should be no more than one, typed, double-spaced paragraph. This paragraph should be better and more persuasive than any paragraph you wrote in high school.

You must hand in this assignment to your TA at your first discussion section on Friday. James Fetter's students should send him the paragraph as a document file by 10:00 p.m., Thursday evening, at Fetter.3@nd.edu

Respond to this Question:

Under what terms does Samuel Huntington welcome Hispanics (and Hispanic Catholics) into the American nation-state?Or does he?

There is no single, correct answer to this question. Some of you will agree and be glad you have found someone who shares your views (and maybe even those of Bill O'Reilly). Some will profoundly disagree, and even be offended. We are simply interested in seeing how you make your argument about a hotly-debated theme. Keep in mind that the best arguments always take into account the counterarguments that can be raised against them.

To ensure that you are thinking about all aspects of the question, pay close attention to the last full paragraph at the end of Huntington's main text.

As you know, I define ‘nation-state’ as a “symbolic community to which people voluntarily devote their primary political loyalties despite the many particularistic differences (ethnicity, race, creed, religion, partisan affiliation, tribe, etc.) that otherwise divide them.”

In preparing for your section, be sure to read your additional assignments in the Reader and on the Course Web Page. They are short.

This assignment takes for granted that you will purchase your Reader at the Lafortune Copy Center.

Here are some addresses that will be useful to you throughout the course:

A. James McAdams Home Site
Introduction to Comparative Politics Site

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