IMAGINARY MIGRATION EXERCISE IN MULTICULTURAL GEOGRAPHY

This paper presents a writing assignment designed to educate students about an ethnic or racial group different from their own. The assignme nt sensitizes them to the historical and geographical experiences, per ceptions, values, and viewpoints of an American subculture other than their own. The assignment was designed for a lower division university course in regional geography and should, therefore, prove appropriate for community college and, possibly, high school students as well. Th ough targeted to a regional course in California, the exercise can eas ily be adapted to a course in any region of North America or to a regi onal or cultural geography of the United States or Canada. This articl e first sketches the context in which this exercise developed and the curricular needs it meets. It then describes the exercise itself and b riefly presents results obtained from the assignment. In the last sect ion, the article provides source material students can consult to comp lete the assignment.