Title: Reading Check 8: Race, Labor, and Violence
Course: The American West: Power, Place, and Memory > Section: Week 10 · October 26–30, 2026 — Homecoming Week: Racial Regimes, Labor, and Border Violence, 1880–1920

Q: How did law help make racial categories in the modern West?
- Law merely reflected fixed identities
- Law assigned unequal rights and mobility
- Law never affected access to employment
- Courts consistently avoided questions of race
A: Law assigned unequal rights and mobility

Q: Why compare newspapers with different audiences?
- To locate identical language everywhere
- To replace primary evidence with opinion
- To identify audience-shaped framing
- To avoid comparing independent accounts
A: To identify audience-shaped framing

Q: What is the most ethical way to quote racist historical language?
- Repeat every slur without explanation
- Use necessary language with context and care
- Silently modernize every historical phrase
- Pretend that violent language never existed
A: Use necessary language with context and care

Q: Name one piece of evidence from this unit and explain how its creator, audience, or collection context affects how a historian may use it.

Q: Make a one-sentence claim answering this unit question: How did law, labor markets, and public narrative make race in the modern West? Then identify one limitation, uncertainty, or counterexample that keeps the claim from becoming too broad.