Is there a novel in every person?  Are there stories that have never been told because they seemed unimportant? What is the value of the lives of people who will never be famous or have their biographies written? Are we all part of American Memory?
    This project addresses these questions through activities using oral history methods and investigating life in the 1930's.  The time we will all spend contemplating contemporary and past life will be considered successful if we conclude that we have important stories to find and relate.
    Students will compare the immigration/migration experiences of their families to those of people living through the Great Depression. Research will be done using the American Life Histories, photographs, films and other archival materials from the Library of Congress and other sources. Oral history methods will be used to interview family members to find the ways immigration and migration have changed over the years. The students in this project will produce web pages, class displays and presentations, video and audio tapes and family histories that the students can share with their families.

Family stories are very rich, the stuff of literature and film.  Edison/Fareira High School students, predominately Caribbean in origin, will be making a real contribution to history because few Caribbean voices have become part of the written record. When students publish their work on their web sites they will be making their valuable material universally available, underscoring the project s underlying theme that we are all part of history and all part of American Memory.

    Individuals, families, or groups of people may leave a country voluntarily or involuntarily because of events:  harsh environmental or economic conditions (disease, crop failure, excess population);  religious persecution; ãethnic cleansing;ä war; genocide. Or they may be kidnapped, enslaved, and taken to a foreign country.  Migrants may seek better jobs, freedom, or to preserve their very lives.

    At Edison/Fareira High School in Philadelphia, about 72% of the students are Latino (Puerto Rican, Dominicans, a few Haitians), 27% African American, with a small population of white ethnics, Asians, and Palestinians.  The oral histories, of course, will reflect this mix.

Some facts about migrants:  in 1997, there were 30 million Hispanics in the U.S.; 34 million African Americans. By 2005, the projected figures are: 36 million Hispanics and 36 million African Americans. About 44 percent of Hispanics and 10 percent of all U.S. residents were born abroad. Over 60% of immigrants live in cities: Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. In New York, more than a third of the population was born in foreign countries, and 60% are immigrants or children of immigrants.

    There has been a change in the modern immigration experience: rather than leaving the homeland behind forever, many immigrants maintain ties with the place they left to varying degrees. (Although immigrants from 1880 to 1930 did return for a visit or to stay.) Some people travel back and forth, may have dual citizenship, send their children back for summers, or balance their lives between the two places.  Modern technology:  phone cards ($1.71 for a three minute call to the Dominican Republic, $3.66 to India), inexpensive air travel; modems, fax machines, video cameras and videophone parlors have supported this new transnationalism.  Businesses that transfer money or ship goods by the crate help keep up the ties. Immigrants can tune in to television originating from Korea, Moscow, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and radio from the Ukraine and Port-au-Prince.

U.S. Immigration Laws

    Over 60 million people have emigrated to the United States since 1600, from all over the earth, making this country more multicultural than any other.  At times, immigrants have been welcomed, at other times discouraged, depending on the economics and politics of the moment. In order to regulate newcomers, the first federal immigration agency was formed in 1891. Twenty four inspection stations were opened, including Ellis Island in 1892. In 1921, quotas were set, limiting the number of immigrants from various countries, representing the American population. In 1952, the McCarran-Walter Act limited the total number of immigrants to 154,657. The Immigration Act of 1965 ended the quotas by country; the Immigration Act of 1990 set the limit at 675,000 annually, and made changes in the deportation and exclusion regulations. In 1996, legislation was passed delineating new restrictions: citizenship was needed for eligibility for many social benefits, asylum was made more difficult to obtain; and U.S. national borders were more tightly controlled because of the concern about illegal immigrants.  Although there have been many debates about immigration issues, and changes in the laws, immigrants will continue to come to America and add their contributions to our society.

Migration is a broad term that covers movement of people from one place to another.

A group of associated terms have specific meanings, and overlap:

• assimilation: integrating into a new place.

 
• colonization: starting a territory in a previously occupied  (or unoccupied) land.

 
• conquest or invasion:  taking a place by force.

 
• diaspora:  a group of people who were together originally, but have been dispersed or scattered, usually by force.

 
• emigration: leaving a country to live in another.

 
• expulsion: forcing a person or people to leave a place and  become an exile.

 
• immigration: settling in a foreign country.

 
• refugee: an individual who seeks protection in another country.

 
• slavery:  ownership of people (bondage or servitude).

 
• transnationalism: immigrantsâ identification with both the new country and the original country.

Bibliography

Barkan, Elliott Robert, ãImmigration,ä The World Book Encyclopedia. Chicago: World   Book, 1997.

ãChronology,ä  National Immigration Forum

Migration News, Sept. 1998, v. 5, n. 9

Sontag, Deborah and Celia W. Dugger, ãThe New Immigrant Tide: A Shuttle Between Worlds,ä New York Times, July 19, 1998, p. 1+.

Objectives

• conduct oral history interviews
• understand and use research methodology including online primary resources
• understand the difference between primary and secondary sources
• evaluate all information resources for relevance and accuracy
• discuss changes in immigration/migration over time
• analyze photographs
• create Web sites

Time Required

Recommended Grade Level

Curriculum Fit

To go directly to lesson plans

Resources Used

Online

• Civil War photographer and the case of the moved body

 
• African American Odyssey  Click on VIII The Depression, The New Deal, and World War II for text information and visuals about the effect of the Depression and World War II on African Americans.

 
• America from the Great Depression to World War II, Photographs from the FSA-OWI,   1935-1945  Famous documentary photographs showing the effects of the Great Depression.

 
• American Culture in the 1930's  A very rich source of information and links concerning the Great Depression.

 
• Analyzing Images   A useful, simple method for analyzing visual material.

 
• By Popular Demand: Portraits of the Presidents and First Ladies  Pictures of U.S. presidents and their First Ladies. Use the timeline to find the presidents of  the thirties and Related Holdings to find information about them.

 
• Center for Migration Studies   An excellent resource for information about migration and immigration.

 
• Folklife and Fieldwork: A Layman's Introduction to Field Techniques.  Excellent information on conducting oral history from the American Folklife Center.

 
• New Deal Network  Documents, photographs, and information about the United States during the administration of President Franklin Roosevelt.

 
• The Great Depression and the New Deal : The Federal Writers  Project Information about the Federal Writers Project during the Depression and photographs of  the era. Links to oral history interviews.

 
• Links to Oral History Organizations  Excellent list of oral history resources.

 
• Sample Lessons Using Library of Congress Online Resources.

 
• A good starting place for background information and activities. Particularly useful are The Historian's Sources (linked from Sample Lessons) and Framework for Using Primary  Sources with Students.

 
• Also useful is History in the Raw from the National Archives.

• The One-Minute Guide to Conducting an Oral History.  A good checklist for beginning oral historians.

 
• Other Migration-related Links  Listing of links to excellent resources on migration and immigration.

 
• Photo Analysis Guide   A method for analyzing photographs (or other images) for information and meaning. Has a  photo that can be used in  immigration/migration studies.  Another excellent site with a form for easy use is based on materials developed for the American Memory Institute by Brett & Sonnet and adapted with permission of the authors.

 
• Tips for Interviewers.  Helpful pointers to keep in mind when working in the field.

 
• Simon, Julian L., Immigration: The Demographic & Economic Facts. December, 11,   1995.

 
• Thomas   Use this search engine to find legislation on immigration, for instance. (Search by Word/Phrase.)

 
• Words and Deeds in American History  Selected documents from the Library of Congress' Manuscript Division. Use the Chronological List to find papers from the 1930's.

 
• More Stuff For another source see this:  a   good checklist for beginning oral historians.

 
• To find films, try Film Information Sites on the Web

Print

• Edinger, Monica, Far Away and Long Ago. York, Maine: Stenhouse Publishers, 1998.

• "Here and There,"  New York Times, Sunday, July 19, p.1; Monday, July 20, p.1;    Tuesday, July 21, p. 1 (1998).  Three articles about immigration, covering the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and India.

 
• Lanman, Barry A. and George L. Mehaffy, Oral History in the Secondary School   Classroom.  Waco, Texas: Oral History Association, Baylor University, 1988.*

• Mercier, Laurie and Madeline Buckendorf, Using Oral History in Community History   Projects. Waco, Texas: Oral History Association, Baylor University, 1988.*

• Neuenschwander, John A. Oral History and the Law. Waco, Texas: Oral History Association, Baylor University, 1988.*  "...introduction to the many legal issues relating to oral history practice... includes sample forms and copyright forms."

 
• Oral History Evaluation Guidelines. Waco, Texas: Oral History Association, Baylor   University, 1988. "the standard for conducting oral history..."

• Click here to get the *Oral History Association publications order form

 
• Orlov, Ann and Stephan Al Themstrom, Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic   Groups.  Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1980.  An authoritative source of information about ethnic groups and immigration

Film

Immigration

• Benaat, Chicago, (Daughters of Chicago), 1996. Growing up Arab and female in Chicago.

 
• The Dupes, 1972. Three Palestinian refugees hidden in a tank truck try to cross the Kuwaiti border. From the novella, Men in the Sun, by Ghassan Kanafani. In Arabic, with English subtitles

 
• El Norte,  directed by Gregory Nava, USA, 1983. A brother and sister, both teenagers flee their village in Guatemala after it is destroyed by the army. They make their way to El Norte (United States) where, with difficulty, they find work and try to create new lives for themselves. In Spanish, with English subtitles.

• Nueba Yol, 1995, written and directed by Angel Muniz, the film (a hit in the Dominican Republic) follows the adventures of a good natured man (played by Balbuena, one of the most popular actors on Dominican tv) who gives Nueba Yol (New York) a try, but goes back to the island in the end. Many real issues facing immigrants are part of the film. In Spanish, with English subtitles.

• Nueba Yol, Part 3:  Bajo la nueva ley (Under the New Law), the sequel to Nueba Yol   (Angel  Muniz, the director, skipped Part 2, because he doesn't think sequels are any good) follows the further adventures of Balbuena and his humorous struggles with American culture. In English, with Spanish subtitles.

• One-way Ticket   (Un Pasaje de Ida), 1988, directed by Agliberto Melendez, Dominican Republic. A powerful story about a group of men attempting to leave the Dominican Republic illegally. In Spanish, with English subtitles.

• The Two Worlds of Angelita, (Los dos mundos de Angelita), Puerto Rico, 1982. The films follows a Puerto Rican family from the island to New York, and shows the difficulties they face. Told from the point of view of Angelita, an observant 9-year-old girl. In Spanish, with English subtitles.

The Great Depression

• Grapes of Wrath, 1940, directed by John Ford, tells the story of the Joad family, who move from the dust bowl to California during the Great Depression.

• Riding the Rails, Michael Uys and Lexy Lovell, filmmakers, 1997, created a documentary using archival footage and interviews with surviving "road kids" themselves, about some of the four million Americans who traveled around the country in boxcars during the Great Depression.

Teacher Resources

• Edinger, Monica, Far Away and Long Ago. York, Maine: Stenhouse Publishers, 1998.  Include material on conducting oral history projects.
• American Folklore Center Sourcebook

Procedure

1. Describe the project briefly:

Participants in Migration Experiences  will collect stories of their own, or their families or friends immigration or migration to the United States and compare them to immigrant/migrant stories that took place during the Great Depression. The stories will be published in print and on the Internet and will be presented in class and to an invited audience.
 
2. Ask the class:

Why do you think we are called a "nation of immigrants?" Write student answers on the board; discuss ideas about immigration/migration.

If you have an immigration story in your family, relate it to the students, following the questions below. Write the questions and your answers on the board in chart form. (If you don't have an immigration story, use one of the students' stories).
 

3. Explain that the students will now seek the same information about their families as part of the larger project . The four questions will be homework, due in three days.  If any students state that they have no one to ask in their family, suggest that they try the oldest neighbor or other person that they know who moved to the area.

 
4. Example of one teacher's story in chart form:

Lesson 2 - American Life Histories

1. On the due date, check to see that the students have done their homework (Lesson 1 #4). Using  the homework, volunteers/chosen students (from diverse ethnic groups) will do the same with their stories.

 
2. After four or five responses, ask the students if they see any similarities or differences in the chart.

 
3. Define oral history and explain that what the students have done is an informal interview, the start of doing oral history.  They will be learning from an expert how to develop questions, conduct a more detailed, structured interview, and record the sessions.

 
4. Explain what primary sources are, that American Life Histories are examples of primary sources. When students conduct their oral histories, they will be creating their own primary sources.


[Definition: primary sources are original materials that were created by a witness to an event (written, taped, or photographed), or in the case of literary works, written by the author. (See  resources for sites for more information.) Although the source is original, it may not be true.]
 

5. American Life Histories are oral biographical stories collected for the Federal Writers' Project during the Great Depression. The WPA (Work Projects Administration) was formed during the thirties to employ people who didn't have jobs.  A wide range of public work was accomplished from construction to musical performances. In the area of documentation, the WPA hired writers and professionals who did outstanding work in folklore, oral history, photography, and local history.  Their works, about 300,000 items, are valuable sources of information for us today.


Give excerpts from American Life Histories 1936-1940 to groups of students. Because of the ethnicity of our students, we used parts of the oral histories listed below. For your project, you can select from the many oral histories available at from American Life Histories.

Dr. M. Santos, Mr. Fermin Souto, Sudie Holton, George Mehales, Roaldus Richmond, Kelsey L. Pharr, Ruby Beach, Nellie Cox, Mary Wright Hill (principal), Rudolph Dunbar .
 

6. Working in  cooperative learning groups, students will read the excerpts, and record the answers to the same four questions they asked their families. Point out to the students that it is important to read the beginning material of the interview, because in some cases, that is the only mention of  the interviewee's place of origin.

 
7. One person in each group will report the results of their analyzing the reading to the class. [They can use the chart form as before.] Discuss questions the students have and ask for similarities and difference they have found.

1. In the library media center, the librarian will introduce the American Memory Collection and the Library of Congress Home Page  online, reinforcing the concept of primary sources. The librarian will demonstrate how to access the Voices from the Dust Bowl Collection. Students (in cooperative learning groups) will search the collection to find an interview, download and save to disc or audio tape. The groups will listen to the interview, find a three to five minute excerpt to transcribe, and repeat the analysis (four question) exercise. The teacher and librarian will facilitate the process by working with students on the computers.

 
2. Students report their findings to the class.

1. An oral history expert will introduce the ideas and methods of oral history. Check with local universities and historical societies for someone with oral history experience. As part of their role, they will work with students in formulating questions for the person to be interviewed and should discuss the use of photographs and artifacts (pictures that will be scanned and used in students' web sites). This person should return regularly to help in various phases of the project and will be giving feedback on the students' work.

 
2. Model Interview


The teacher will invite a guest from the school, and with the list of questions created by the students,  begin to interview the person. Volunteer students will take over the interview, and record and photograph the person.

1. Distribute and discuss the importance of Consent Forms both for the interviewer and the interviewee. Students will conduct the interviews using their questions, and record the session. Most will use audio tape, but videotape will be an option. Students will choose the two most interesting five minute segments, log/catalog/index the topics discussed by each of the interviewees and transcribe the segments. Students will ask for permission to photograph the person interviewed; they will also ask to borrow or photograph important artifacts, such as documents, connected to the immigration/migration experience. In addition, students will ask to borrow relevant photographs in order to analyze photos  and scan them for the web site.

 
2. Students will assemble the transcripts and photographs in a folder.

1. While students are conducting their interviews outside of class, in class they will be learning about the events, causes and effects of the Great Depression and viewing  WPA photographs of the era. [Documentary Photo Aids, Box 956, Mount Dora, FL 32757]

 
2. Students will select a photograph from The Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Collection  and use the photo analysis guide or another guide.  [The students may come up with more questions than answers.]

 
• Another resource is The Migrant Experience (which  can be used as a handout or read in class).

 
• Option: the students will write a one or two paragraph narrative about the photograph.

 
• Option: show the film Riding the Rails.

1. In pairs, using the "subject" from Voices from the Dust Bowl, a student will role-play the person while another person asks questions used for family members, and then change places.  [If the original interview was too brief, select a longer one.]  The pairs of students will discuss the similarities and differences between the Voices from the Dust Bowl  people and the American Life Histories.

1. Students view the The Grapes of Wrath in class.

 
2. Student assignment for lesson in library: Students will look for background information on the Internet about The Grapes of Wrath  to answer these questions:
• Who wrote the novel the film was based on?
• What year was the novel published?
• What year was the film released? Where is the title from? What does it mean?
• Who was the director, and who starred in the film?
• How is the film considered by reviewers and historians?
• Did the film cause any action to be taken in real life?
• What was the Dust Bowl?

 
3. In the library, the librarian will introduce online searching, by demonstrating how  to search for information about The Grapes of Wrath, both the book and the film using one of these search resources:
• Infoseek
• AltaVista
• Hotbot
• Excite
• Lycos
• Dogpile
• Metacrawler
• Library of Congress Learning Page: Directory of Internet Resources
• All-in-One Search Page

 
4. The librarian will enter "the grapes of wrath" [with the quotation marks] and click on search. (Point out that a narrow search is best.) Some typical hits will include:
• amazon.com - [point out that this is an online bookstore, but it does have reviews from experts and ordinary readers]
• history of the Dust Bowl
• a music band call Grapes of Wrath
• the Battle Hymn of the Republic
• a festival and car show
• sites about John Steinbeck
• school papers about the novel

 
5. Questions for class discussion:
• Who creates web sites?
• Which ones are more likely to be trusted?
• What is plagiarism?
• Can you use a paper word-for-word off the web?

 
6. To find more information about the film,  search for "grapes of wrath" and movie or use the Internet Movie Database  or another source from a list of film sites.

 
7. Demonstrate a fake site [a website constructed as a joke - used to show that the viewer needs to be as skeptical - if not more so - of the Internet as print].  Note: these sites are often short-lived. Check that they are still accessible or you may do a search for fake sites. Be aware that many of these sites come and go very quickly:
• For a list of funny/fake sites, check this out.
• An example is about California's Velcro Crop

1. Using handouts concerning immigration, such as Immigration, the Demographic and Economic Facts or the articles in the New York Times (see resource list  for both); discuss immigration issues such as:
• What is the immigration policy of the United States and how has it changed over time?
• How many people are being deported?  Who are they? How does that compare to the past?
• What groups have not been allowed in the country in the past and in the present?
• Why have Cubans, Haitians, and Dominicans been treated differently?
• What are the pros and cons of immigration?
• What should be done about illegal aliens?
• How are current immigrants different from immigrants of the past?
• How will current immigrant groups change the United States? Why have people been afraid of possible changes in the past and in the present?
• What is the forecast of the ethnic makeup of the United States?
• Should there be more than one language spoken in the United States? How does this compare to other countries in the world?
• What is the status of Puerto Rico?  Why can Puerto Ricans migrate to the U.S. (instead of immigrating)? And what should the future of Puerto Rico be?
• Will/Should Quebec secede from Canada?

Lesson 10 - Reflection

1. Discuss creating reflection questions with the students, such as:
• What are the similarities and differences between people's lives during the Great Depression and today, besides poverty?
• In the life stories you have gathered and read, how was the reality different from the expectation?
• How did the people you learned about change with the demands of their experiences?
• Where did they get the strength to accomplish what they did?
• What story of your's would you like to leave behind? (Perhaps from the perspective of the future.)
• Students will write a short paper reflecting on the project, using the questions as guidelines.

 
2. Optional - Create a time capsule for the year 2100.

The Urban Tech Collective, led by Edison Freire (a teacher at Edison/Fareira High School) will teach the students and teachers how to create web sites, where they will publish their projects online. Students from the Urban Tech Collective will help the students with the construction of the sites.  Similar training opportunities may exist in your area.

Lesson 12 - Presentations

1. Students will present to the class some form of multimedia project that will show their interview, the American Memory oral history selections, photographs and any other artifacts that show the two time periods (this can be their web site). Each presentation should be three to ten minutes in length.

 
2. The interviews and scanned photographs will be published so that each student will have hard copies of the project. [Check for releases.] One copy of each will become part of the library's collection. If possible, bind the paper copies.

 
3. Extra credit - students will create a collage of voices (Voices of the People), excerpts from the tapes of everyone in the class, with a transcription, that convey some of the strong emotions and experiences of the people.

 
4. Students will present their projects and the voices collage (Voices of the People) to families on a Home and School evening.

1. Evaluation will be ongoing.

 
2. The presentations will be graded by a holistic rubric.

 
3. The web sites will be graded on a pass/fail basis according to completion.

 
4. Traditional tests will be given concerning content, but the students will have to refer to their projects in the essay portion.

 
5. Students will be informed beforehand of criteria,  the value of each part, due dates, and given a copy of the rating sheet.

 
6. Optional - students will proofread each other's papers, both for correction and for practice in proofreading, itself.

1. An article from The Daily News and The Philadelphia Inquirer [both Philadelphia papers, owned by the same company using the same news service] cover the same event, a riot on a college campus [insert name and date] will be used to show how bias can taint historical information. [Note to teacher: the story is about a car driven through a block party, injuring several of the students.  The difference in the articles is who provoked the act of the driver: was he drunk or did the actions of the students cause him to panic?]

 
2. Break the class up into groups of five; each group selects a recorder.  Unknown to the students, each half of the class gets a different article. [To be scanned in and posted - after gaining permission.]  The students are told to read the articles and answer these questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why?

 
3. After the article is discussed inside the groups, the recorder from each group will give a brief report giving the group's answers.

 
• If the students do not discover that the articles are about the same event, the teacher will prompt them by saying something like, "Do these reports sound similar?"

 
4. Since the reports give diametrically opposed versions of the story, this will drive home the point that secondary sources can be 'tainted' by the authors or publishers.

 
5. Discussion question for class: How do we know what really happened in that incident and, by extension, the past?

Extension

1. Students will respond to messages from individuals inquiring about their web sites.

 
2. In addition, see Presentations, Lesson 12.

 
3. Dissemination - plans have begun for workshops in the School District of Philadelphia and presentations at conferences.

4/15/1999

 

*From Culbertson with major modifications

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