Teaching Immigration Since 1965

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There has been a lot of attention this year to the 50th anniversary of Selma and the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. But there is another law that was passed in October of that year that garners little attention in history classes. Yet it had a profound effect on American society.

President Johnson signing the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act
on Liberty Island in New York City.

As I have said over and over again on this blog, we cannot teach everything and we have to cut content often to avoid our class becoming a laundry list of one battle, one piece of legislation or one presidential election after another.

But the Hart-Celler Immigration Act, also known as the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, is the foundation for the mosaic of ethnic and racial diversity in the United States today.

As I looked out at the faces of my students last spring--nearly half had parents or grandparents from the Middle East and South Asia-- I realized how important it is to teach about this piece of legislation that is usually forgotten in the curriculum. Depending on where you teach, you might also have many students who would not be in your class were it not for this law, as it led to a dramatic increase in the numbers of immigrants coming to the U.S. from Latin American and Asia in particular. Most of teach about the dramatic increase in immigration during the period 1880-1920. Common sense would suggest we should teach about 1965, too, no matter what the ethnic background is of our students.

A few posts ago, I discussed the importance of including art, literature and music in our history course. But we also need to include basic sociological and geographic data. For example, check out the pie charts below:

Image above from teacher.scholastic.com. Click on link for additional numeric data on immigration and questions teachers can use with students to analyze the data. And check out this document with teaching ideas.

You may have introduced students to the 1921 and 1924 immigration acts which preceded this law, if you spend any time discussing nativism, either in your unit on late 19th century immigration or when you got to the 1920s. But if not, you should introduce students to that legislation. No need to get into the nitty gritty details, but they need to understand what the old quota system was. I touched on this briefly in an earlier post. And see here for a handy table showing the quotas (the rest of the lesson has some good stuff, too!)

When researching for this post, I learned 3 really interesting things I did not know about the 1965 act (one of the many reasons I love doing this blog):

1. Prior to 1965, 70 percent of all immigrants to the U.S. came from just three countries!! Can you guess? The answer is at the end of this post.
2. If you read the end of Johnson's speech about the law's passage, you will see that he concludes with an appeal to Cubans seeking asylum in the United States. He asks Congress for $12.6 million to do it. More on Cuban immigration here.  
3. Surprisingly, nobody in the government thought that the law would dramatically change the composition of U.S. immigrants! Obviously, if you look at the graphs above and link to the additional ones, a lot of people were wrong. Secretary of State Dean Rusk, for example, commented on the possibilities of large numbers emigrating from India:

The present estimate, based upon the best information we can get, is that there might be, say, 8,000 immigrants from India in the next five years ... I don't think we have a particular picture of a world situation where everybody is just straining to move to the United States ... There is not a general move toward the United States.

Boy, was he wrong! According to the Center for Immigration Studies article where I found the above quotation, there were nearly 28,000 immigrants from India in the next five years--more than 3 times what Rusk had predicted. It would be interesting to discuss with students how such incorrect predictions (and the not-so-subtle racism that motivated the assurances) allowed an otherwise unpopular measure to pass. Read or listen to more on that in this story from National Public Radio.

Additional resources on the law itself:

• Lyndon B. Johnson's speech at the signing- text of full speech
• my edited version of the speech
• Actual text of the law - can't imagine using with students, but fyi
• Three Decades of Mass Immigration: The Legacy of the 1965 Immigration Act - This article, was published on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the bill by the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), a non-partisan research organization. It offers good background for teachers. You can also find other data and articles from the Center here.
• Lesson Plan from CUNY - good materials here (including a chart with questions that can be used with students, some political cartoons,  and quotations from politicians about the law) that are adaptable for your students.

Additional resources about immigration in general & statistical data:

• Migration Policy Institute - all kinds of articles, fact sheets, and statistics on contemporary immigration
• If you've never been to the U.S. Census website, it is time! There is so much stuff on this website, it's hard to know where to begin, so check out these infographics for starters. (Just 'cuz I think they're pretty cool.) But if you're here for the immigration info, start here.
• Google things like "immigration statistics," "immigration demographics" and include the name of your state, region or city and you will find information specific to your community. Also check out this interactive map.
• ReImagining Migration lesson plan on 1924 law (see elsewhere on this site, too)

Additional resources about Latino Americans, Asian Americans and immigration from Africa:

• Article on impact of 1965 law on Asian Americans - This website seems to an excellent resource if you are looking for more information about Asian Americans in general. Written by C.N. Le, a sociology professor at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, there are articles about demographics, different Asian American groups from Bangledshis to Hmong to Vietnamese, and lots more. This happens to be Asian Pacific American History Month, so if you are interested in that, AsiaSociety.org is another useful resource.  
• PBS.org Lesson plans on Latino Americans - I haven't had a chance to look through any of these, but I figured I'd include the link anyway. One of the things on my summer to-do list is to watch at least some of the 6 hour PBS series on Latino Americans, so I'm not just including Latinos in the curriculum in 1965!
• Overview essay: "An Historic Overview of Latino Immigration and the Demographic Transformation of the United States" by University of California-San Diego historian David Gutierrez. (Page 6 is where the post-1965 info begins.)
• I found the above essay from the National Park Service website, of all places. Click here for info about the NPS American Latino Theme Study. 
• Immigration from Africa
• Facts on Central American Immigration

Answer to point #1 above: 70% of immigrants to the U.S. came from the United Kingdom, Ireland and Germany. Did you guess right?

Immigration Today, Immigration Then

Like many of you, I had the best of intentions during the last week or so, but the holidays, kids, travel plans, etc. all got in the way.

So, I decided to go ahead and post an incomplete post. I will be back with more good things after the New Year. Enjoy the school break and the holiday.

Teaching about Nativism

If you're going to talk about late 19th century immigration to the U.S., you also have to talk about anti-immigration sentiment, or nativism. You won't have any trouble finding current examples of nativism, even if that's not the term we use anymore, so you could start with the present and then look backwards.

But if you prefer to start with the past, one way to teach about nativism is by having students read some primary sources and look at political cartoons to come up with their own definition. I created this document for that purpose. I have followed up this in-class activity up by using some of the political cartoons collected here. See here for more Thomas Nast cartoons, especially on the Chinese Exclusion Act. And here is a google doc presentation I found online with more political cartoons about nativism. Also see this short, readable essay that has good background information for the teacher or older students, including a connection to the post 9/11 surge in anti-immigrant sentiment.

Teaching about Contemporary Immigration

For contemporary statistics and other information on current U.S. immigration:

• From the U.S. Census Bureau: see graphics (charts and maps) and Information on foreign-born population. The graphics link has maps and charts that show the top 10 countries where immigrants came from in 1960 compared to 2010. You can also see this interactive map based on U.S. Census data from the Migration Policy Institute. It has data on each state.
• For recent news from the White House about Obama's actions on immigration, click here. See here for the story from The Atlantic Monthly.
• U.S. Department of Homeland Security
• frequently requested statistics from Migration Policy Institute (a non-partisan Washington think tank)
• You can find a variety of resources from another non-partisan Washington think tank, the Immigration Policy Center.

How to Handle the Post-Civil War/Reconstruction Period

A few years into my first job teaching U.S. History, our department made a unanimous decision to switch our semester "cut-off" to roughly 1900 in order to allow for more time for the twentieth century. Our school calendar was similar to most: students took finals a couple of weeks after winter break. This meant we had an awkward two-week break in the middle of our "Industrial America" unit. The challenge was to accommodate the calendar and final exams on the one hand, and create a logical unit of study on the other.

Below is an example of what we came up with (ours was a very collaborative department in the best sense).  I will use this year's calendar dates as an example, (which allows me to see how behind I am in my blogging!) Please keep in mind that our school was on a kind of mixed block schedule, so some of the topics below were taught on "block days" which meant that we had 80 minute periods. So it's not quite as condensed as it looks.

Mon. Dec 8 - Railroads, the West and Industrial Revolution

Tues. Dec 9 - continued (I usually included some specifics about Chicago)

Wed. Dec 10 - Big Business (here's where we'd look at Rockefeller, Carnegie, etc.)

Thurs. Dec 11 - continued

Fri. Dec  12- Social Darwinism

Mon. Dec 15 - Immigration

Tues. Dec 16. - Anti-Immigration: The Nativist Response

Wed. Dec 17 - Labor and the New Industrial Working Class

Thurs. Dec 18 - Labor vs. the Capitalists (here's where I might do a simulation or debate activity centered around the Pullman strike. I like to use the Pullman strike as an example here in the Chicago area. But of course, there were lots of other strikes.)

Fri. Dec 19 - continued

Mon. Jan 5 - The "End of the Frontier" and the Indian Wars
Tues. Jan 6 - The Indian Reservation System
Wed. Jan 7 - Farm Problems and Protest
Thurs. Jan 8 - Government Regulation in the "Gilded Age"
Fri. Jan 9 - Populism and the Election of 1896

Mon. Jan 12 - Fri. Jan 16  This would be the week of exams, which would mean I'd probably do a day or two of review, and then the three days of exams.  Obviously, middle school teachers don't have this problem, though they usually seem to lose more days due to special assemblies and testing. 

I can't tell you how painful it is to put this into print-- I have left out so much. How can I do justice to Rockefeller and Carnegie in just 2 days?? How can students learn half of what there is to know about the immigrant experience and prejudice against them in just 2?? Is there time to discuss Obama and his recent executive order during those 2 days, or would I have to add a 3rd? What about other contemporary concerns about immigration reform? What if half my class is of immigrant or 2nd generation background? Wouldn't I want to spend more time comparing historic immigration to their experiences?

And while it sort of makes sense to segue from immigrants to labor to strikes, it also makes sense to discuss Indian policy right after the railroads and the West.  But then I would have to move labor to post-winter break, separating it from big business. Or move immigration to post-break, separating it from labor. And what activity will work well on the Friday before winter break? How many students will even be here? When/how/should I include a test in this unit? Do I really want to have students studying for a test right before winter break? Right after? Right before finals? How do I connect the Indians to the problems of the farmers? Do I really want to end my semester with the Populists? (Do I really want to teach the Populists at all?) Maybe that would be a better way to begin next semester's unit on the Progressives? 

Does anyone share my pain?

Even if your unit on this period doesn't start until second semester--as many teachers do--you will still have the "coverage problem" and the problem of what order to use.

But enough moaning. After all, this is one of favorite time periods. I joked about the Populists, but really, William Jennings Bryan is such a character. He can even make the Populists fun.

So time for some suggestions to help you in your unit planning. Just a few in this post, and I will include more in the next.

The key to both the coverage problem and the what-order-to-use problem is to develop your unit around a FEW BIG IDEAS/QUESTIONS and MAKE CONNECTIONS. As I mentioned above, how does the development of the railroads lead to big business and the wars with the Indians? How do the problems of how to assimilate the Indians compare to the situation of immigrants coming to the U.S.? How do those immigrants help fuel the labor demands of big business? If you can tell yourself the story about why you are moving from topic A to topic B to topic C, but how topic C also connects to topic A, then you are in business.

I like to use clips from episode 5 of Ken Burns's series, The West.  Click here for an interesting analysis of the series from the American Historical Association's Perspectives on History. Episode 6 is good for the Indian Wars. You could assign students a short essay or a few paragraphs that would answer the question, how did the railroad change the United States? Make sure they consider both positive and negative aspects. Probably your textbook has additional information they could use. This will force them to consider how a variety of things connect: buffalo, Chinese immigrants, Indians, women and the vote, Mormons, growth of a national economy, the role of the government, etc.

Looking for a way to connect Andrew Carnegie and the topic of immigration? This excerpt from Carnegie's autobiography describes his own immigrant experience.

Looking for Ellis Island info? Check out the National Park Service's info on Ellis Island and The Liberty Ellis Foundation (which is privately funded).

Don't forget to teach about Asian immigration during the late 19th century! The Library of Congress has a complete unit on Chinese immigration. Check out the Angel Island website. On the home page, there is a virtual tour. And under the Education tab they have a curriculum guide for teachers, a photo gallery, book and film recommendations, and lots more. Also check out books by Ronald Takaki, including his A Different Mirror for Young People: A History of Multicultural America.

How to connect immigrants and Indians to what you discussed in Reconstruction about African Americans? I created this chart for that very purpose. You can use it by having students brainstorm first on their own or in groups, and then fill in the gaps as you discuss the other groups. I have included at least some of the "answers" on the second page. You can follow up by having students write a compare/contrast paper or have a discussion. A caveat: you can find yourself in murky waters when you make some of these comparisons. The goal is NOT to decide "who had it the worst." It is not up to us to judge whether or not someone's experience of witnessing a beloved family member die from lynching or in a war was "worse." Avoid comparisons of personal pain and suffering.

Looking through the Trick-or-Treat bag for History:

Ideas for Teaching about Halloween

I never realized that there was history, close at hand beside my very own home. I did not realize that the old grave that stood among the brambles at the foot of our farm was history.

— Stephen Leacock

In my work with student teachers, there are two days that I will never observe them teach: the Friday before spring break and Halloween. No teacher wants to be evaluated on those days.

And this year, Halloween falls on a Friday. Of course, there is no reason why you cannot go about your business and teach whatever topic you are on. As I mentioned in my last post, I meant my next post to be about slavery. But then I got thinking about Halloween and the quotation above, and I thought, why not teach something about the history of Halloween next Friday? I like the idea of getting students to see that history is all around them. Even at the bottom of the trick-or-treat bag.

I live just outside Chicago within biking distance of one of the Mars Candy Co. headquarters and Ferrara Pan Co. factory (maker of Lemonheads, Redhots and Jugyfruits among others). The Chicago area is also home to Blommer's Chocolate Factory, which (according to their website) is the largest cocoa processor and chocolate supplier in North America. You can smell the chocolate up to a mile away depending on the direction of the wind. Very Willy Wonka-esque.

When I drive on I-294, I go past the rotating Baby Ruth/Butterfinger sign. And I love to see the Wrigley building on the Chicago River when it’s lit up at night. Yes, that Wrigley. Chicago used to be the candy capital of America. At one time it produced up to a third of all the candy in the country, as I learned two years ago at a wonderful little exhibit at the Elmhurst Historical Museum (if you’re in the Chicago area, check out their website. It says you can contact the curator for a traveling version of the exhibition).  


But even if you live nowhere near a candy factory, you can still teach a lesson about candy and Halloween.  Halloween is the second largest commercial holiday in the country, and I read somewhere that we spend an estimated six billion dollars on it. Of course, Halloween was not always such a big deal. Neither was Christmas, for that matter. I remember being surprised when I first learned that Puritans in colonial New England had banned the celebration of Christmas.

Teaching students about how the holiday of Halloween has evolved offers opportunities to see that history is everywhere; that our celebrations of holidays changes over time and is impacted by other changes in society.

For example, both Christmas and Halloween have been profoundly affected by immigration. The tradition of Christmas trees came from German immigrants and carving pumpkins may have evolved from an Irish tradition of carving turnips into lanterns during an Irish festival marking the end of the harvest. (See here.) Candy-making, too, was influenced by immigration. (See below for more info).

So below are some additional websites I have found that are useful for pulling together a lesson on either Halloween or candy or both. What would you do with them? Well, I have also recently been looking into the concept of Genius Hour. While the whole point of genius hour is to let students explore what interests them, not to predetermine the topic, I think you could still adapt the idea by giving them the predetermined topic.

Here is a link to a post that describes doing something like that in a Civil War unit in a middle school setting. (This is Project Based Learning or PBL. Find out more about that here.) Perhaps you could adapt this to Halloween for a day and ask students one big question and then let them go to town trying to find answers and information. So maybe--it's Halloween Friday, so why not?--just have students look through some of the websites I have listed below and see what they come up with about one of the questions below:

How has the holiday of Halloween changed over time and why?

What can we learn about history from the history of candy?

Or perhaps you can eliminate the question and have the students come up with a good, historical question. (Admittedly, teaching students how to ask historical questions is something that you really have to train students how to do in advance. Maybe this could be your first lesson in a series of lessons teaching about how to ask good questions.) So maybe you could try something really basic: Find one fun or cool fact to share with the class and one "interesting" question (as opposed to historical--just see what they come up with. Just make sure it's not a factual-type question. Find some way for students to post this online or share. 

Just one suggestion: do NOT make any of this a homework assignment over the Halloween weekend!

• Edsitement's website has a page about Halloween and other similar festivals around the world. It includes information about the Day of the Dead celebration in Mexico, along with other festivals (If you have a significant Hispanic population at your school, it would be interesting to compare and contrast the two. I was in Mexico City last October, just before Day of the Dead and was surprised at the markets to find so many more decorations for American-style Halloween than traditional sugar skulls and Mexican decorations!) The website also contains lesson ideas and links to the American Memory Project's documents about Halloween. (If you've never been to the American Memory Project, it is an essential website. Check it out!)
• The History Channel has a brief history.
• I missed this exhibit at the University of Chicago, but it's online now. There are quite a few images and a page on the history of chocolate and candymaking in Chicago.
• See "Halloween by the Numbers," where you can find statistics from the U.S. census.
• See this "flashback" article from the Chicago Tribune about the role of immigrants and Chicago in the history of candy. (Paywall, but maybe you can get from your public library.) This book is for those of you who live in Chicago and want to learn more.
• An article from the Huffington Post about Chicago and candymaking.

• This article from the National Retail Federation discusses current economics/business news related to the holiday.

• This article from the Smithsonian's website discusses the history of candy, Halloween and the surprising relationship between candy and medicine.
• Candyfavorites.com is an online store, but has surprisingly good (and fun!) historic resources, including a timeline, a list of discontinued candy, a history overview, and lots of nostalgic candy ads and old TV commercials. Check out their candy timeline.
• And last, but certainly not least, connect baseball to candy! Check out this history of the Baby Ruth candy bar or this one.