AMES-335
CHINATOWNS: A CULTURAL HISTORY
Not in Fall 2026
Term
Overview
Feedback is mostly positive. The strongest signal is that the readings, films, or examples carry real weight. Best for students who will engage with the materials instead of skimming everything.
DepartmentAMES
Terms offeredFall
Typical enrollment33–51
Semesters of data2
3.4
Hrs / week
38
Responses
84
Enrollment
45%
Response Rate
Evaluation Scores
Overall quality
Teaching, content, and experience combined.
4.9
Intellectually stimulating
Challenges students to think deeply.
4.7
Instructor effectiveness
Explains concepts and facilitates learning.
4.9
Difficulty
Higher means harder.
2.4
Feedback Analysis
Feedback Analysismedium
Analysis based on student evaluations
Based on 128 comments across 2 sections
Feedback is mostly positive. The strongest signal is that the readings, films, or examples carry real weight. Best for students who will engage with the materials instead of skimming everything.
Student Reports
How hard is the A?
More reachable A
Student comments make the grading bar sound relatively reachable. This reads more like a course where steady work is rewarded than one where students describe the A as unusually hard to land.
Homework Load
Homework load is mixed
Homework load looks uneven. Some students call it fair or manageable, while others say the weekly work sprawls more than expected.
Lecture Load
Lighter lecture burden
Student comments describe this as more discussion-, seminar-, or workshop-driven than lecture-dependent. The lecture burden itself does not sound like the main source of friction.
Strengths
• Readings, films, or outside materials come up repeatedly as a real strength rather than filler.
• Discussion is a clear strength; students repeatedly describe the class conversation as engaging and useful.
Tradeoffs
• There is no single dominant complaint theme, but the feedback is not uniformly glowing either.
Best fit for
Best for students who will engage with the materials instead of skimming everything.
Watch out for
• A large share of the evidence comes from one instructor's version of the course, so this may not generalize cleanly.
Student Responses
Immersion, empathy, and research.
Fall 2024 · Chow, Eileen
1. I really learned so much about the history of Chinatowns in general, from immigration flows to chop suey to snakeheads 2. This course taught me how to think about analyzing place and space in Chinatowns in relation to its working parts (immigration, business/economy, community, culture, etc.) 3. This course helped me build my skills in group work and community engagement! Especially through the food ethnography project and TCG
Fall 2024 · Chow, Eileen
asian american history, chinese history for people left behind (ie grass widows), the work of calling a space chinatown, harmful chinatown stereotypes and their effects
Fall 2024 · Chow, Eileen
Reading through primary sources, thinking about topics through the lens of intersectionality, what makes a community.
Fall 2024 · Chow, Eileen
Lots of background information and knowledge regarding Asian immigration history, different ways of thinking about current stereotypes that exist, and rhetoric in speeches
Fall 2024 · Chow, Eileen
Rating History
Rating history
Error bars show \u00B11 std dev
| Term | Instructor | Overall | Difficulty | Hrs/wk | Enrolled |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fall 2024 | Chow, Eileen 4.3Rate My ProfessorsQuality4.3Difficulty1.9Would retake100%Based on 16 ratingsClick to view on RMP → | 4.9 | 2.5 | 3.7 | 33 |
| Fall 2023 | Chow, Eileen 4.3Rate My ProfessorsQuality4.3Difficulty1.9Would retake100%Based on 16 ratingsClick to view on RMP → | 4.8 | 2.3 | 3.1 | 51 |
Instructor
Chow, EileenAMES
Also teaches
AMES-107 INTRO TO EAST ASIAN CULTURES4.7AMES-120CN ASIAN FOODWAYS IN MIGRATION4.7AMES-432S STORYWORLDS5.0AMES-551S TRANSLATION: THEORY/PRAXIS4.3AMES-560S READING THE CHINESE NOVEL4.6