Interviewee

Students, if you are still looking for an interviewee, please let me know. I have a lead on a woman who immigrated from Bangladesh. She was a pilot there at a time when there were not many women pilots. I think she may have an interesting story to tell. Please email me at pandrews@NDNU.edu if you want her contact information. She lives in San Carlos.

PA

The Century of Immigration: German and Scandinavian

 
For Friday's class please read the rest of Chapter Six and consider the following questions:

• How did the number of German immigrants compare to the number of Irish immigrants?
• What were the push and pull factors for German immigrants?
• What can you say about German American involvement in American politics?
• Contrast German settlement patterns and occupations to those of the Irish.
• Who was more likely to learn English and adopt American ways, German men or women? Why?
• What caused friction between German Americans and their neighbors? (list three things)
• What caused divisions among German Americans?
• How did German Jews impact the American Jewish community and what you wear?
• Did German Jews enter different occupations than other German immigrants?
• How did German Americans try to maintain their German culture in America? How did it work out?
• Why did Scandinavians immigrate to America?
• Why do we have so much data about Swedes and what does that data tell us about the intelligence of immigrants?
• Are ethnic enclaves a good or bad thing?
• What can you say about Danish migration and the Mormon Church?
• Why does Daniels say that the notion of an "Old Immigration" is bunk?

The Century of Immigration: The Irish

For Wednesday's class please read the Chapter Six just up to page 145 and consider the following questions:

• Why is Daniels ignoring the old notion of "old" and "new" immigrants, and what the heck is a shibboleth? 
• What does he say is the most fundamental difference between immigrants in the colonial period and those after 1820 and what accounts for the change?
• Can you make sense of the tables 6.2, 6.3, and 6.4? What do they tell us about immigration from 1820-1924? (define decennial)
• Why did the Irish leave Ireland? How many left?
• Why did so many go to New England and particularly Boston? How were they received there?
• What kinds of work did they find? Who did they compete with for the work?
• Why was their status higher in San Francisco?
• How did they transform the Catholic Church in America?
• What is singular about Irish immigrant demographics in the years following the famine?
• How did the Irish Americans adapt to and change American politics?
• What's with this cartoon?

Don't forget to submit your Document Analysis Paper revisions by Wednesday.

Oscar Handlin, Historian Who Chronicled U.S. Immigration, Dies at 95

check out the obituary in the NY Times.

“Once I thought to write a history of the immigrants in America. Then I discovered that the immigrants were American history.”

Oral History Research Project

For anyone who missed class the day this was assigned...

Oral History Research Project


Please conduct an Oral History interview of a person who immigrated to the United States. Your interviewee must have been old enough at the time to remember details about his or her country of birth.

Develop a series of specific questions prior to your interview. What do you want to know? What can you find out through research before you meet for the interview? What can you find out only by experiencing the person’s face-to-face presence? During the interview, attempt to find answers to the questions you have developed. After the interview, attempt to fill any gaps that remain.

Be sure to record your interview in some manner. This recording or transcript of your interview is a primary source document and should not be discarded.

Write a paper that attempts to answer one or more of your questions using the recording or transcript of your interview as a primary source. 4-8 pages.

DUE: Monday, October 10

Really relevant event tonight!

Questions to keep in mind as you read Chapter 5

1. What distinction does Daniels draw between "race relations" and "ethnic relations"?

2. What is meant by "Anglo-conformity"? Do you know anyone who has experienced "the demand for Anglo-conformity" (p.105)?

3. Daniels makes reference to several laws regulating the private behavior of free blacks in colonial America (p.107), including laws relating to sexual relationships and inter-racial marriage between blacks and whites. Use the internet to see if you can find out how long such anti-miscegenation laws were in effect in any state in the United States. Is this still a debated issue in the United States?

4. Review John Jay's words about "Providence" which appear on p.108. In what way does Jay play down ethnic differences?

Bonus Question: This question is optional for those who are familiar with the notion of "Manifest Destiny." In what way does Jay's statement about Providence use religion to support the notion of Manifest Destiny?

5. How would you summarize Benjamin Franklin's statement from "Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind" which appears on pp.109-110? Does he seem to be saying that racism is a part of human nature? Do you agree?

6. How is the early 19th century nationalism described by John Quincy Adams on p.118 different from the Anglo-conformity described on p.105?

Reading for Wednesday, September 21

As mentioned in class, please read and blog about Chapter 4 of Daniels for Wednesday. Include in your blog post several questions that you think would be good questions for class discussion - you may use the questions previously posted on this blog as examples of how to construct good discussion questions.

Oloudah Equiano reading for Monday

Here is the link to the reading for Monday. As mentioned in class, please read all of the brief chapter summaries in the table of contents, then choose one chapter to read in its entirety. If you were in class today, you have already chosen a chapter... if you were not, please choose either of the last two chapters.

In preparation for our discussion on Monday, please note three quotes from your chapter that you feel would make good points for discussion.

http://history.hanover.edu/texts/equiano/equiano_contents.html

African Immigrants

For Friday's class please read Chapter Three and consider the following questions:

• For every European who came to the New World, how many Africans came?
• How did the slave trade contribute to the development of capitalism?
• If slavery existed primarily in the southern colonies and states, how did the northern colonies and states profit from it?
• At the end of the colonial period, how many Americans were immigrants from Africa or their descendants? How many Americans today are their descendants?
• What are the limits on our understanding of the African immigrant experience in America?
• What is the Myth of the Negro Past? What is the reality?
• What evidence is there for African cultural transfers in the New World? What's Gullah?
• How many slaves were brought to the New World, and what percentage came to what is now the United States?
• Why were there differences in the treatment of slaves throughout the Americas?
• How is that 50,000 slaves were the first illegal immigrants?

First Paper Assignment and Next Reading

First Document Analysis Paper (due Monday, 9/19):
Read Benjamin Franklin's 1751 essay, "Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind," and write a three-page (approximately 1,000 word) reaction paper, being careful to site supporting evidence from the essay and your readings. You will probably find the rubric that was distributed on the first day of class helpful. 


Your document analysis and research papers must be submitted via TurnItIn. If you are unfamiliar with TurnItIn, you can watch this video to learn how to create an account and enroll in our class site. Please submit your papers to the section rather than the master class.

• Class ID #: 4342224
• Class Enrollment Password: AEH2011

Reading Assignment:


For Wednesday's class please read Chapter Two and consider the following questions:

• In the colonial period (1607-1787), how many came to America and how many of those were free?
• What does the first census of 1790 tell us about colonial immigrants?
• Who went to Virginia and why? How did the do there?
• What role did indentured service play? What are two reasons it was replaced by African slavery?
• Who established the Maryland colony?
• How and why was the immigration and settlement pattern of New England so different from that of Virginia and Maryland?
• Who were Miles Standish and John Winthrop?
• What was the role of Puritans in the "Great Migration" of the 1630s?
• What documents and arrangements were required to immigrate to America from England, and what was the cost and duration of the journey?
• How did English colonial migration set the character of what would become the United States?

The reading assignment for the week of June 12th is the first three chapters of Coming to America.

For Monday's class please read Chapter One and consider the following questions:

• What is the distinction between the terms migration and immigration?
• How did Europeans' attitudes towards other change in the Age of Discovery?
• Why did several hundred thousand Europeans come to the New World in the 16th and 17th centuries?
• How many Native Americans lived in what is now the U.S.A. and Canada in 1492?
• What explains the different policies of Spanish, French, and English colonists regarding native peoples?
• What are the laws or tendencies of migration? Define push, pull, and means.
• What are the three major immigration myths that most Americans believe?
• What main factor reduces a groups rate of return or remigration to the home country?
• In general, what is the demographic make up of Europeans who migrated to America?

Be prepared to answer these questions in class on Monday.