Title: Week 13 Overview and Inquiry
Course: The American West: Power, Place, and Memory > Section: Week 13 · November 16–20, 2026: The Postwar West: Suburbs, Water, Nuclear Landscapes, and Red Power

WEEK 13 · INQUIRY MODULE

Week 13: The Postwar West: Suburbs, Water, Nuclear Landscapes, and Red Power

Who benefited from postwar western growth, and who bore its environmental and political costs?

Dates: November 16–20, 2026

Focus

- Suburbanization and Sunbelt growth
- Dams, water, energy, and nuclear sites
- Relocation, termination, tribal sovereignty, and Red Power
- Latino and Asian American civil rights

Before class

1. Read: American Yawp, chapters 25–28 selected sections.
2. Open and inspect the linked primary-source collection(s). Record one source, one context question, and one limitation.
3. Scholarship lens: Megan Black, The Global Interior (2018), selected excerpt; recent Western Historical Quarterly article chosen for local relevance.

Primary-source portals

- National Park Service: Occupation of Alcatraz
- Atomic Heritage Foundation oral histories

Tuesday/Thursday meeting plan

Date | Status | Plan
Tuesday, November 17 | Class | Suburbanization, Sunbelt growth, federal investment, and unequal benefits.
Thursday, November 19 | Class | Dams, water, nuclear landscapes, termination, Red Power, and capstone consultation.

Capstone Interpretive Artifact due Friday, November 20.

After class

Deliverable: Capstone Interpretive Artifact and Decision Log due Friday, November 20.

- I can answer the weekly inquiry with a contestable claim.
- I can name at least two pieces of evidence and explain their limits.
- I can identify an interpretation that my evidence supports, complicates, or challenges.