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Becoming Americans: Immigration and Naturalization in American Life

Susan Coley Leonard

"Each generation of Americans must define what it means to be American."
-- President William J. Clinton, January 20, 1993

The Academic Setting

This unit is designed for an eighth-grade humanities class in an urban middle school serving grades six through eight. One thousand students comprise the student body, which is 38 % per cent Hispanic, 55 % Anglo (non-Hispanic White) , and 10% "other," which includes Native Americans, Blacks, and a few Asians. The free or reduced breakfast and lunch program serves about 35% of the student population. Although most of our students live in single-family homes, the purchase by the city of some nearby apartment buildings for low-income housing has increased the number of our students living at or below the poverty level. The district still has relatively high income and parental education levels. The school’s test scores are consistently above the national average, higher than would be indicated by the usual measure, the level of poverty (the free lunch statistics). We believe that our test scores and other indicators have remained stable largely because of restructuring efforts that have gone on for the past eight or more years. Students in all three grades are placed in two-teacher families of about sixty students. Within the family structure they are taught all core subjects except mathematics, which is tracked. The classes are taught in integrated thematic units for the most part. Assessment is based on students’ ability to demonstrate understanding of the subject but not necessarily to "cover" all aspects of any given subject or textbook.

Philosophy

This middle school is a member of a nationwide network, the Coalition of Essential Schools. The philosophy of the school centers on the Essential Principles of the Coalition:

  1. Focus—Schools help all students to use their minds well.
  2. Simple goals—Less is more.
  3. Universal goals—School practice should be individualized to meet the needs of every group or class of adolescents.
  4. Personalization—The smaller number of students taught allows teachers to know students well and to plan lessons accordingly.
  5. Student as Worker—The student is engaged in his/her learning in many ways; the teacher facilitates learning, but is not a sage on the stage.
  6. Demonstration of mastery—Students exhibit their mastery and understanding of subject matter in many ways including, but not limited to, traditional methods. Exhibition of small group projects is common.
  7. Tone—The school has a tone of unanxious, high expectation for each student.
  8. Teacher as generalist—The teacher is more concerned with teaching students than specific subject matter.
  9. Budget—The administration budgets to support classroom learning.
  10. Cultural diversity—Students and staff recognize and respect diversity.

Goals for the Unit

Eighth grade humanities consists of the study of United States history, literature, and language arts. For each of the past three years, my humanities students have been involved in hosting a naturalization ceremony at the school. At least one hundred new citizens each year have taken the oath of citizenship in our school gymnasium, which has been turned into a federal courtroom for the occasion. Each time the students have provided music, decorations, food, and a great audience. Being able to communicate with the new citizens has complemented our studies, which include taking the test that the immigrants must pass to become citizens. As a result, my students have learned some great lessons in both community service and civics.

However, in the words of John Hibbing, professor at the University of Nebraska, students need to know the barbarics of our history as well as the civics. They need to know that in the history of the United States, many who have sought it have been barred from full citizenship and equal opportunity under the law. Paula D. McClain and Joseph Stewart Jr. (1999) argue that understanding the nature of the barriers to empowerment may work to empower these groups and individuals. One responsibility of schools is to develop knowledgeable, involved citizens. As a result of participating in this unit, my students will be better able to understand how our Constitutional promise of equality, liberty, and democracy draws immigrants to this country. I hope that they all will develop trust in and a tendency to want to be involved in our political system.

A second goal for students is to learn what it takes to become a naturalized citizen. As part of this unit, they must learn the civics requirements to pass the test for naturalization. These questions come from the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS). I hope that by participating in this process and hearing from guest speakers, they will be more appreciative of the effort that many people make to become Americans. I also expect that they will learn the same information required of naturalized citizens.

A third goal is to learn some of the history of American immigration policy. The United States’ population will be at least fifty percent non-white by 2050 through immigration and births (Hing, 1997), yet the image of America as a white, Anglo-Saxon nation lingers in our classrooms and our history books. Is America still the dream destination of the world’s beleaguered people? Do they still yearn for our values of liberty, equality, and democracy? Does America welcome the newcomers with open arms? How have we treated those in our midst, Native Americans, slaves and freed Black people, and women who wanted but were denied the full rights and responsibilities of citizenship? What is the ideal and what is the reality of our policy toward those wishing to become American citizens? Anyone wishing to teach — or learn — United States history today needs to think about these things.

Finally, as more and more immigrants from Asia and Latin America are being admitted to our shores, a fourth goal is to get students to think about what these changes will mean to us as a nation in the future. Can we sustain the current rate of immigration? On what basis should new immigrants be admitted? What are the costs and benefits to us of the current flood of immigrants? How will this generation redefine what it is to be an American?To Top

Narrative

Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, in Letters from an American Farmer, (1782), suggests that the American is a "new man," different from his European ancestors. Here he glowingly states the ideal of immigration:

He is an American, who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds. Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labors and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world.

In the second of The Federalist Papers, John Jay defines a nation as "one united people—a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs."

The United States has never been united by these principles. The committee charged in 1776 with creating a new national seal proposed that it represented "the countries from which the new citizens had originated: England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Germany, and Holland." There was no mention of African or Indian influences on the populace of the new nation, although their descendents were obviously around. (McClain and Stewart, 1999).

In other words, our Founding Fathers saw the United States of America as a unified country of exceptional people of Northern European descent; their ideals forged the nation, but they did not define it. We are a racially and ethnically diverse nation. We have always been a land of immigrants, but now more than at any time since the early twentieth century our nation is being changed by a new flood of people from abroad. Perhaps they come for economic reasons, to have a better life for themselves and their families. They could come in order to participate in political freedom through the ideals of democracy. Some seek political refuge. Each year since 1965, for whatever reasons, more than 800,000 immigrants, mostly Latinos and Asians, have entered this country legally, become citizens, and have brought their relatives to the United States as well. The face and the language of the country are changing rapidly. By 2050, the nation will be no more than fifty percent white.

Immigrants bring a rich mix of values, history, and traditions to their new country, but as their numbers increase, a question arises: What does it mean to become a citizen of the United States? Does it mean to continue to live as a hyphenated American (Mexican-American, Asian-American, etc.), as much part of an ethnic group as an American? Should everyone embrace traditional "American" values, learn what Americans have traditionally learned? And who decides?

Must we indeed define and redefine for ourselves what it means to be an American? Teachers are caught in a dilemma. We have to teach our students who were born here and those who came here what citizenship means. We don’t want to discount the experiences of our students who come from abroad, but we want to teach them what they need to know in order to be connected to the institutions and values of this country. But another problem arises: what are the institutions and values of this country? Do Hispanics, Blacks, Anglos or Whites, Asians, all share the same traditions? In this physically large country, what binds us as a nation? Do class and sectional differences define us? Let us assume that all United States citizens share certain common values. We all pledge allegiance "to the flag and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." We share the rights and responsibilities of citizenship, including equal protection under the law. We are taught a common history in the schools. Can we do more to bind the nation together—or should we?

It might help to learn the history of United States immigration policy. When one thinks of the United States of America symbolically, often the Statue of Liberty comes to mind. She holds a beacon to the world’s immigrant population, and her intent is to shelter them from tyranny. In 1883, Russian emigrant Emma Lazarus wrote a sonnet, "The New Colossus," to help raise funds for the statue’s pedestal. Here is the most famous part of that sonnet:

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me;To Top
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

Oddly enough, at the dedication ceremony when the Statue of Liberty was placed on a pedestal in New York Harbor in 1886, no one else mentioned her poem or thought of the statue as a beacon of hope to immigrants. In fact, there was in America a strong movement to restrict immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. According to John Higham (1975), at that time the Statue of Liberty symbolized freedom, international friendship, and peace; America was not seen as an asylum for the downtrodden, but rather "as an example of republican stability for the French liberals and others who created the monument." Lazarus’s poem, engraved on a bronze plaque and placed on the statue in 1903, was basically ignored for the next thirty years. Like the Liberty Bell and the covered wagon, however, the Statue of Liberty became a symbol of the immigrants’ yearning for asylum. The country was comfortable with this and could afford to be somewhat sentimental, especially during a time in the 1920’s and 30’s when the great mass migrations which had brought perhaps "too many" immigrants seemed at last to be over. Yet Hitler’s tyrannical reign was just beginning, and once again the United States became a refuge for masses of European immigrants, including many Jews. A museum of immigration was opened at the base of the statue, and the myth of an American haven for refugees was reawakened.

The so-called First Wave of immigrants to this country, from 1620 to 1720, was largely white and English-speaking and shared certain conservative values. In 1790, the English population of the United States of America was 60 percent of the white population, which included Dutch, Germans, French, and others. The newcomers sought freedom and opportunity, and they created a new nation on the land once inhabited solely by Native Americans. The Puritan theocracy of Massachusetts forced dissenters like Roger Williams and Anne Hutchinson into exile, and executed those who, like the Quaker Mary Dyer, refused to go. Eventually Massachusetts granted immigrant status to Jews, religious and political dissenters, and others.

Other colonies were more welcoming to different kinds of people. Membership in the civic life of Pennsylvania was open to anyone of European descent, regardless of religious background; however, they did try to limit the number of Irish immigrants who settled there. New York, once largely Dutch and called New Amsterdam, later welcomed English settlers. They wanted European skilled laborers who could help build a strong economy more than they feared outsiders. Virginia and Maryland eventually welcomed diversity, although the latter had been founded by English Catholics. Diversity included Europeans, however, not Africans or Indians.

Before 1776, individuals who wished to become citizens of a particular state did so upon commitment to the political principles for which it stood, including some form of renunciation of allegiance to monarchies. Virginia naturalized white persons who had lived there for two years and had married citizens or owned property and were "putting down roots." Several states allowed male naturalized citizens to vote but not to serve as political representatives until they had "proven their loyalty." The Naturalization Act of 1790 ruled that the naturalization of American citizens could occur, based not on religious affiliation, but on Pennsylvania’s rather liberal model: those eligible to become new citizens were white males with a record of residence of two years in the United States, including one year in the state where the applicant lived, proof of good character, and the ability to support the Constitution. That was it. States could admit free blacks, if they chose to do so, although there was federal accommodation neither for that nor for the admission to citizenship of women or Native Americans.

Those present at the Constitutional Convention discussed the qualities required of naturalized citizens. Ben Franklin believed that just coming to live here was proof enough of good intentions and republican principles; others argued for evidence of military service to the country. It was decided that seven years’ residence would sufficiently cleanse the souls and minds of those seeking office of any ideas about monarchies and other undesirable forms of government; presidents must be native to this country, however. Thomas Jefferson, fearing that immigrants do not leave happy homelands and that the majority of immigrants would come from countries ruled by monarchs and dictators, at first opposed their naturalization. When he later discovered that most immigrants favored his political views, however, he changed his mind.

Alexander Hamilton and the Federalists, on the other hand, from the first eagerly welcomed great numbers of immigrants who could create a work force and a market economy which could lead the United States to international greatness. Realizing that they were usually not supported politically by the immigrants, however, the Federalists later bumped the residency requirement for citizenship from two to five years, and then to 14 years. Under Jefferson’s presidency that was reduced to three years, then five, where it has remained ever since. (Currently aliens, who after two years of residency have indicated their intent to become citizens, must wait an additional three years and then take a test on their knowledge and understanding of American government and language.) In 1798 under the Alien and Sedition Acts it became possible that all foreigners waiting for citizenship could be deported for subversive activity, but it was never enacted.

During the second Great Wave of immigration, from 1820 to 1924, large numbers of Europeans as well as Asians came to the United States to find work and opportunity. They were not warmly welcomed by the former immigrants now making up the population of the United States; they wanted help in doing the hard work of nation-building, but did not want to share full citizenship with the Irish, Italians, Eastern Europeans, and Chinese. During the mid-nineteenth century, increased anti-immigrant feeling appeared in the form of "nativist" movements. The Know-Nothing party, which grew out of political coalitions formed in the 1840s and 1850s, tried to change naturalization laws to require a 21-year waiting period and to bar from major public office any foreign-born candidate. However, when immigrants became ready to take American citizens’ place in the ranks of the Civil War armies for three hundred dollars, at least some of the anti-immigrant feeling subsided.

In 1895, Congressman Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts became influenced by Darwinian claims that a flood of inferior races would weaken the national character. He proposed a literacy test in the immigrants’ native language to determine the intelligence and quality of incoming immigrants. The bill passed the House five times and the Senate four; it was vetoed by three different presidents. In 1917, President Wilson’s veto was overridden because so many Americans had been badly frightened by World War I and wanted to take a more isolationist stance. A literacy test, at least for the husband or head of household, exists today. (We are currently in another period of exclusionary propositions, including movements to close the border with Mexico, to exclude resident aliens from social services, and even To Topto hold a moratorium on all immigration to the United States).

Restrictions on immigration of certain groups long have included criminals, persons of suspected low moral character, illiterates, paupers, diseased persons, political radicals, and Asians, except at times for Japanese and Filipinos. In 1920 there was an attempt to further restrict immigration of "undesirables." The Dillingham quota plan proposed limiting the number of new immigrants admitted each year and assigning percentages of the total number of immigrants admitted to the proportions of those already living here, based on the census of 1920. This swung the doors open to Teutonic people of Britain, Germany, and Scandinavia, and effectively shut out almost all Asian immigration. After some changes, Congress passed the Immigration Law of 1924. President Woodrow Wilson pocket-vetoed it, but President Warren G. Harding signed it into law a few months after gaining office. These quotas remained in place, except for some post-World War II adjustments, until 1952.

Then Congress passed the McCarran-Walter Act, which ended the total exclusion of racial and ethnic groups from naturalization and immigration. (Daniels, 1990). Now everyone in the world could apply for United States citizenship, although quotas remained which would limit actual immigration.. This law was passed partly because the U.S. had failed to allow so many displaced persons, especially Jews, to immigrate during World War II. President Harry S Truman’s Commission on Immigration and Naturalization issued a report recommending doing away with national origins quotas altogether, but that did not happen until the Immigration Act of 1965 was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

This major new law repealed many of the restrictive features of the 1924 Immigration Act. It lifted restrictions on hemispheric immigration totals. Previously Northern Europeans were favored heavily, but now spaces for "New World" Latin American and Asian immigrants opened if Europeans did not apply. Not as many Europeans as before were interested in becoming United States citizens. Thus, another tidal wave of immigrants has come to our shores.

Each year since 1965 about 800,000 immigrants, mainly from Asia and Latin America, have arrived in the United States. A new set of preferences reverses the old order: first admitted are blood relatives, and next, skilled workers and professionals. The newcomers, in turn, may bring in their remaining family members. Others have entered the United States through acts specifically for refugees escaping war and natural disasters or seeking political asylum from oppressive governments. In 1967, the Supreme Court strengthened immigrants’ rights when it held that a naturalized citizen has a "Constitutional right to remain a citizen in a free country unless he voluntarily relinquishes that citizenship." Most people choose to remain citizens here.

Minority Struggles for Citizenship

Most African-Americans came to this country involuntarily, although some earned their freedom once here, and others came as free men. In some states, such as North Carolina, free Black men could vote until 1835, although few did so. The Dred Scott Decision (1857) reinforced the notion that they were not citizens. African-Americans became citizens after the hard-fought gains of the Civil War resulted in passage of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868. In 1865, passage of the Thirteenth Amendment finally abolished slavery, and the Civil Rights Act of 1866 gave freed African-Americans the same rights as citizens of every state and territory in the United States, at least on paper, but only seven northern states actually granted them the right to vote. The passage of the Fifteenth Amendment guaranteed all African-American men the right to vote. Further legislation and court decisions in the last part of the nineteenth century offered them the right to separate but equal public accommodations (Plessy v. Ferguson, 1895). So while African-Americans had the rights of citizens, they dared not exercise them in the South and were not encouraged to exercise them in the North, either. It was 100 years after the Civil War that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 really opened the doors to equal access to citizenship for African-Americans.

It was not until 1924 that all American Indian people became eligible for United States citizenship. When the Fourteenth Amendment extended citizenship to African-Americans in 1868, a debated centered on the question of citizenship for Native Americans as well, but they did not receive the right to vote at that time. In 1901, citizenship was granted to all members of the Five Civilized Nations in Indian Territory. By 1906 there were 166,00 Native American citizens; 65,000 of them who were able to prove "competency" had received land and citizenship simultaneously. Others had to take a certifying test to prove their competency to handle the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. They had to give up tribal affiliations in order to gain these benefits. In part of a citizenship test for Native Americans, the Secretary of the Interior called each applicant forward by his "white" name, asked for his Native name, handed him and bow and arrow, and instructed him to shoot an arrow. Then the Secretary said, "You have shot your last arrow. That means that you are no longer to live the life of an Indian. You are from this day forward to live the life of the white man. But you may keep that arrow; it will be to you a symbol in your noble race of the pride you feel" (Dippie, 1982).

Asian-Americans have also suffered from discrimination in this country. The Naturalization Act of 1870 admitted African-Americans and white Europeans for citizenship, but omitted Asians until 1942, when they were needed to fight for their country in World War II. In fact, in 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act had been written to stop the flow of Chinese immigrants to this country; no other group has been so systematically excluded. The effect of this Act was to limit the Chinese population in the country to the mostly male current residents and those of their children who had been born in America and were thus citizens plus those who could become naturalized through loopholes in the law. Immigration laws were standardized during Teddy Roosevelt’s administration (Daniels, 1990).

Some Asians were already Americans by virtue of living in territories such as Hawaii. Japanese-American youngsters growing up there studied American history for one year and American politics for one semester. They spoke of "our Pilgrim forefathers." They said a special Pledge of Allegiance to the United States flag: "I believe in her institutions, ideas, and traditions; I glory in her heritage; I boast of her history; I trust in her future. She has permitted me. . .to worship, think, speak, and act as I please—as a free man equal to every other man." After the surprise attack by the Japanese on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, they were ready "to repel the invaders with our fellow Americans." Instead, they and many other Asian-American citizens were forced to give up their freedom and property and were detained throughout the war.

Currently Hispanic-American immigration to this country is at an all-time high. Although many Hispanic-Americans are already citizens, because of their appearance and ethnicity, they are often confused for immigrants. Because of our long border with Mexico, many immigrate here illegally. Some of those who enter illegally are temporary workers who cross the border to get work and take home money. Many border towns such as El Paso depend on their business. Hispanics from Mexico, Cuba, and the rest of Latin America currently constitute the largest number of naturalized citizens in the United States.

One other group—women—has had trouble gaining the rights of full United States citizenship. American women did not have the right to vote until the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in 1920. In another anomaly, alien women who married Americans were made citizens, but those American women who married foreigners lost their citizenship under the Expatriation Act of 1907. Congress overturned that law. The Cable Act (1922) gave American women who married foreign men lower status; they retained the rights of a naturalized citizen, not birth citizens, unless of course they married Chinese men. Then, since Chinese men were not eligible for citizenship, the women were deprived of all rights of citizenship. The Cable Act was revised in 1930-31 to make women’s citizenship fully independent of their husbands’ status. The Equal Rights Amendment proposed to guarantee that women have all of the rights of citizenship, but it failed to be ratified by a sufficient number of states within the allotted time limit. Still, American women now share fully all rights of citizenship with the men of this country. To Top

Attaining citizenship

Becoming a citizen confers the rights of citizenship; foremost among these rights is the right to vote, but according to Handlin (1951), "Naturalization did not therefore immediately make voters. That would come only when their own American needs led the new citizens to the ballot box." New immigrants were not likely to have been successful leaders in the Old Country, nor were they likely to understand the concept that their rights were as important as those of higher rank. Not until groups of immigrants became involved in ward politics and labor unions in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries did their sense of political power become real.

How does one become a naturalized citizen of the United States? In the current wave of immigration, the greatest since the 1920s, more people than ever are coming to the United States and being encouraged to become citizens. Here is what they must do to accomplish that goal.

Requirements for United States Citizenship

1. Be born here, whether to citizen or alien parents.
        Or, in order to become a naturalized citizen,
   Qualify by being related to a citizen or possessor of needed skills.
    (Be healthy in body and mind, neither criminal nor radical politically.)
2. Establish residency for five years.
3. Show language proficiency in English.
4. Show understanding of U.S. history and government structure by taking and passing a test.
5. Renounce former allegiances to all other countries and governments.
    (Dual citizenship is now allowed in many cases.)
6. Swear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution and laws of the United States.

In 1986 an Amnesty program was established which allowed current residents who were illegal aliens to apply for legal temporary residence and permanent residence status if they could prove that they had lived in the United States since January 1, 1982. Many feared identifying themselves because they believed that it was a trick to deport them, but others took advantage of the amnesty. Currently there is a movement to establish a point system which would speed the naturalization of many who are long-time residents, elderly, or especially skilled.

Some people believe that our admissions standards should be more rigorous

( Pickus, 1998). "The naturalization process does not adequately incorporate newcomers, strengthen citizenship, or foster self-government. We need a process that generates a sense of mutual commitment among all Americans, naturalized and native-born alike." Pickus argues further that new citizens should not only complete the requirements for citizenship, but that their loyalties should be engaged, as well, in a sense of shared identity. "It (citizenship) requires some felt sense of communal obligation, some feeling of responsibility derived in part from a perception of shared history and fate." How can that be achieved in a nation of people with such different histories? Is it the responsibility of public schools to forge that sense in the children of immigrants in the second and third generations? How might that be done? Most important, perhaps, who would decide what should be taught and valued?

Others think that naturalization tests are a waste of time because they are usually set at a very low level that screens out very few people anyway. Length of residency and some ability to communicate in English are the major requirements, besides a great deal of tenacity to show up at all of the required meetings and to fill in all of the paperwork. Are our requirements for citizenship too difficult? These are some of the problems that face teachers who decide to tackle teaching civics and trying to create involved, knowledgeable citizens.To Top

Strategies for Teaching the Unit

Students will engage in a variety of lessons as we work through this unit. Everyone will read a novel, keep a notebook, take tests, and participate in discussion groups. They will also participate in a culminating activity.

Essential Question: What does it mean to be an American?

 Sub-essential questions:

Lesson: Define what it means to be an American.

Goal: Students will compare and contrast diverse points of view. Students will create a visual image of their definition and study those of other groups.

Time: This shouldn’t be rushed. Take as much time as necessary.

Materials: Page of direct quotes (below); art materials.

Page of Quotations on Immigration to America

What is an American? Read each statement below and visualize the image that the author had in mind.

What then is the American, this new man? . . .He is an American, who, leaving behind him all his ancient prejudices and manners, receives new ones from the new mode of life he has embraced, the new government he obeys, and the new rank he holds. . .Here individuals of all nations are melted into a new race of men, whose labors and posterity will one day cause great changes in the world. –Hector St.John de Crevecoeur (1782)

To one thing they must make up their minds, or, they will be disappointed in every expectation of happiness as Americans. They must cast off the European skin, never to resume it. They must look forward to their posterity rather than backwards to their ancestors. – John Quincy Adams

Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a colony of the aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our language or customs anymore than they can acquire our complexion? --Benjamin Franklin

We have never dreamt of incorporating into our Union any but the Caucasian race—the free white race. To incorporate Mexico would be the very first instance of the kind of incorporating an Indian race. Ours, sir, is the Government of a white race. –John C. Calhoun

You have chosen to live the life of a white man—and the white man lives by work. Only by work do we gain a right to the land or the enjoyment of life. --Native American Naturalization Ceremony

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore; send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me. I lift my lamp beside the golden door. –Emma Lazarus

  1. Students will work in small groups of no more than five. The group members will read the above quotes and then have a chance to speak and to be heard. Go around the circle and tell what you think it means to be an American. Once everyone has given at least one idea, you may continue to discuss this concept until the group develops a shared vision which incorporates everyone’s ideas.
  2. Given a variety of art materials, your job is to work together as a team to create an art object which represents your group’s vision. You may choose to represent de Crevecoeur’s "melting pot," Adams’ vision of "casting off the European skin," or one of the other images, or even Mom and Apple Pie, a tossed salad of races, or a collage of the Statue of Liberty and other images of freedom (or repression) that many believe represent our country’s ideals and/or reality.
  3. When projects are completed, groups will place their art around the room, gallery style. Class members will walk around, observing and noting each piece. They will choose one piece (not their own) as a focus and will compile a list of at least five adjectives that they think describes that group’s idea of what it means to be American. No one from the group may "defend" or explain their project. The art has to stand on its own. (The teacher could assign groups to objects to ensure that every group will be included in the discussion). The lists of adjectives will be posted as a starting place for class discussion.
  4. At that point, when all have observed the others’ objects, groups may tell what they intended to say with their visualization and others may question or comment on their work. Ideally this will lead to civil discussion of the different points of view represented and the reasons for the difference in interpretation. Students will come to see that the United States is made of many diverse groups. Is that one of our strengths or a source of weakness? Discussion follows

Students will write responsively in their notebooks.

Lesson : Naturalization of Citizens

  1. Goals: Students will see how new citizens are tested; they will also see whether or not they could pass the test to become a citizen if they had been born elsewhere. They will come to appreciate the effort involved in completing the process.
  2. Materials: Students will receive a list of citizenship questions compiled by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. These questions are available from any INS office or from the local library. Not all questions are asked every time, and there is no defined percentage for passing the test. Nevertheless, I set a 75 % or 80 % passing level and allowed students to retake the test until they passed or quit. I was available for tutoring, of course. Those who passed received a certificate of citizenship for their portfolios.
  3. Time: one period to read them over, several periods or days to study and take the test.
  4. Discuss what is a citizen? Does it require more than just residency in the country to be a citizen? A good citizen? Students can add their ideas to the discussion/list. (What do good citizens do? Vote? Take back their shopping carts? Walk away from ethnic jokes?)To Top

Sample Questions from the INS List of Citizenship Questions

(many questions are asked in several ways on the original list which is available in libraries and from INS)

  1. What do the stripes on the flag represent?
  2. What is the meaning of the 4th of July?
  3. Who is the current vice-president of the United States?
  4. Who elects the president?
  5. What is the Constitution?
  6. What is duty of the judicial branch of government?
  7. What is the Bill of Rights?
  8. Who becomes president of the U.S. if both the president and vice-president die at the same time?
  9. Who is the current Chief Justice of the Supreme Court?
  10. Who has the power to declare war?

(Answers: 1. 13 original colonies 2. Independence from Britain 3. Al Gore(for now) 4. Electoral college 5. Supreme law 6. Interpret the Constitutionality of the law 7. First Ten Amendments of the Constitution 8. Speaker of the House 9. Justice William Rehnquist 10. Congress)

Lesson: What guarantees do we have under the Constitution which make this a great country worthy of its citizens? Why do people come here from all over the world? Using a social studies textbook or copies of the Constitution, read closely the Preamble and the Bill of Rights. A sample lesson follows.

Lesson: Reading about The Immigrant Experience in America

Goal: Each student will read a book on the subject of the immigrant experience in America and write a short report on their findings. Students will come to appreciate the difficult transition that immigrants must make when responding to the push-pull of immigration.

Materials: a novel from the student reading list.

Goal: Students will read a novel chosen from among five or six offered. The teacher will entice readers by summarizing each book and pitching aspects that students would enjoy. Reading groups can be formed if several students choose to read the same book.

Time: Varies according to class or group and book.

Assessment: Students will write a book report based on the novel that they have chosen to read.

One interesting method of reporting to the class or hooking the interest of the class before the unit starts might be to bring in a suitcase filled with items that a protagonist might have carried to Ellis Island. Each item could be explained in the context of the story, i.e. a favorite doll, a book, religious artifacts, photographs of family, a musical instrument, or food preparation items, etc. would articulate the immigration experience. Alternative groups could report on the history behind the historic fiction. Questions which the teacher could pose for response include the following: What are the elements of literature (character, setting, plot, structure, theme, mood) specific to the novel and the push-pull factors (why leave one country? Why come to another?) universally true for all novels about immigration?

A rubric would contain the following criteria: description of character and setting; historical accuracy; response to universality of the immigrant experience; final product appearance and level of readability.

Lesson: Stereotypes of the Immigrant Experience

Materials: Film, "The Immigrant," by Charlie Chaplin; worksheet on stereotypesTo Top

Time: One or two periods

Goal: Students will understand the issue of stereotyping and will perceive its dangers. This could also serve as a pre-test and post-test to see if student’s perceptions of immigrants have changed as the result of the unit.

Charlie Chaplin’s film "The Immigrant" depicts the many stereotypes of the immigrant rampant in American thought. Students could watch that film and then list the stereotypes in a group compilation. A discussion of the viability of stereotypes could follow. Some stereotypes that come to mind include women in shawls, seasickness, reverence for the Statue of Liberty, crooks waiting to pounce on the immigrants as soon as they landed, etc.

Worksheet: Attitude Questionnaire on Immigrants

Answer each question 5 strongly agree, 4 agree, 3 neutral, 2 disagree, 1 strongly disagree

  1. Immigrants are usually willing to uphold America’s laws.
  2. Most immigrants come here illegally.
  3. Most immigrants want to learn English or already do so.
  4. Immigrants usually take jobs away from Americans.
  5. Most immigrants come to America to make a better life.
  6. Immigrants have contributed greatly to our country.
  7. There are too many immigrants in America today.
  8. Illegal immigrants do not have to pay taxes.
  9. Members of my own family were or are immigrants.
  10. America accepts more immigrants than any other country in the world.
  11. Being able to speak more than one language is desirable.
  12. Most immigrants come here to go on welfare.
  13. If someone becomes a citizen of the United States, he or she can then bring in family members from their home country.

    1. True 2. False 3. True 4. False 5. True 6. True 7. Opinion 8. False 9. Opinion 10. True 11. Opinion 12. False 13. True

 Some famous immigrants that you might want to mention to your students include the following people whose dates, countries of origin, and contributions can be researched: To Top

Isaac Asimov
Charles Atlas
John J. Audubon
Mikhail Baryshnikov
Alexander Graham Bell
Irving Berlin
Andrew Carnegie
Albert Einstein
Enrico Fermi
Marcus Garvey
Greta Garbo
Bob Hope
Henry Kissinger
John Lennon
John Muir
Martina Navratilova
Akeem Olajawon
Joseph Pulitzer
Knute Rockne
Levi Strauss
Rudolph Valentino

Vocabulary of the Immigrant Experience: These words and others can be used correctly in sentences and in class discussion. They may appear on tests and will certainly be used to some extent in students’ writing.

  1. amnesty- general pardon for offenses or convictions
  2. almalgamation—the biological and cultural blending of two or more groups of people into a distinct new type; the melting pot theory.
  3. citizen-native or naturalized member of a state or nation who owes allegiance to its government and is entitled to its protection.
  4. deport-to cause to leave a country; banish
  5. emigrant-one who leaves one’s country or region to settle in another
  6. foreign national-one who is a citizen of another country than the one in which he/she resides
  7. illegal alien-one who is residing in a country without legal papers
  8. immigrant-one who migrates to another country, usually for permanent residence
  9. naturalization-to confer upon an alien the rights and privileges of a citizen
  10. oath of citizenship-a sworn oath forsaking previous allegiances to other countries and pledging allegiance to the new country
  11. preference system-system by which aliens are admitted to citizenship according to family connection to citizens, skills, length of residency, etc.
  12. quota system-the number or percentage of persons of a certain kind permitted to immigrate or become citizens, somewhat outdated since 1965
  13. refugee-a person who flees a country in time of war or political upheaval
  14. visa- an endorsement upon a passport permitting entry to or passage through another country

Lesson: Immigrants in our midst.To Top

Goal: Help students put a human face on the immigrant experience.

Method: Students will hear a guest speaker discuss the topic of his or her experience in immigrating to the United States. As a result of research among their friends, family, and neighbors, students will find someone to come in to speak to the class. The INS and Catholic Social Services might be good sources of information, or attend a naturalization ceremony and ask someone to come in to speak to your class. Students should compile questions which respectfully as the speaker to probe his/her experiences.

Assessment: Note participation in class. Who listens attentively? Who asks follow-up questions? Who helped find the speaker in the first place? Who talks with the speaker after the class presentation? Who is interested in learning more about the experience or helping out in some way? Students can write letters of thanks to the speaker which will be sent as well as writing responsively in their journals. These can be graded or just checked. Alternatively, students can interview someone they know who is an immigrant and write an account of the interview.

In order to balance the traditional assessment strategies with some more creative attempts at synthesis, I have two ideas for a culminating experience. First, the enterprising teacher might do as my teaching partner and I have done, host a naturalization ceremony at your school. This involves working closely with the Federal Court system in your community to establish a time and place where typically one hundred new citizens can spend several hours to complete their paperwork, swear the oath of allegiance, and be welcomed by civic groups and your students. The ceremony can be as lavish or plain as you wish. We have been successful in hosting families at a meal before the ceremony and light dessert afterward. Other groups in the school have participated through performing the flag ceremony, singing patriotic songs during the program, writing and delivering speeches of welcome to the new citizens, creating posters and other decorations, including one memorable occasion when art students made huge "postcards" from every state inviting them to visit. Students have interviewed the citizens as they waited before the ceremony began. We have invited guest speakers to come back to the school to talk about the value of American citizenship to them. The local media have been happy to participate in publicizing these events. This is doable, but it takes time, energy, and strong school-community coordination, down to a dressing room for the judge and parking arrangements for the immigrants and their guests.

Another idea for assessing student understanding is the following idea for a composition. Your students, placed in small groups, have been chosen to create a naturalization ceremony which honors the native country(ies) of the immigrants while welcoming them symbolically to United States citizenship. How would they define what it means to be a citizen of the United States? Should the new citizens become exactly like United States natives, or do they have something more to contribute? How can the two groups become more involved with one another? As a result of the ceremony, the new citizens will feel welcomed, included, and honored, and the current citizens will feel their own connections to the nation renewed.

Rubric:

  1. The new citizens are recognized in a manner appropriate to their culture.
  2. Symbolic gestures of inclusiveness are made.
  3. The strength of the American system of government is acknowledged.

 

Teachers’ Reading ListTo Top

Daniels, Roger. Coming to America. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1990.

Dippie, Brian W. The Vanishing American: White Attitudes and U.S. Indian Policy. Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press,           1982.

Epstein, Lee and Thomas G. Walker, Constitutional Law for a Changing America: A Short Course. Washington, D.C.:                     
        Congressional Quarterly Press, 1996.

Handlin, Oscar. The Uprooted. Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 1951.

Higham, John. Send These to Me. New York: Atheneum Press, 1975.

Hing, Bill Ong. To Be An American. New York: New York University Press, 1997.

McClain, Paula D. and Joseph Stewart, Jr., Can We All Get Along? Racial and Ethnic Minorities in American Politics. Boulder:           Westview, 2nd ed., updated, 1998.

Pickus, Noah M.J., ed. Immigration and Citizenship in the Twenty-first Century, New York: Rowman & Littlefield, Publishers,           1998.

Parrillo, Vincent N. Strangers to these Shores,4th ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1994.

Students’ Reading ListTo Top

Avi. The Escape From Home (Across the Western Seas Series.) New York: Camelot, 1997.
        This is a fictional account of two Irish children’s journey to America in the company of a young runaway English lord.

Beatty, Patricia. Lupita Manana. New York: William Morrow & Co., 1981.
        When their father dies, two Mexican children head north of the border to live with their "wealthy" aunt in California. They experience  illegal border crossings, migrant labor, and a raid by the INS.

Bode, Janet. New Kids in Town: Oral Histories of Immigrant Teens. New York: Scholastic, 1995.
        Eleven contemporary teen-age refugees tell in their own words what it is like to leave behind their homeland and to make their way in a new, unfamiliar culture in the United States. This could start some great class discussions in multiethnic or homogenous classrooms.

Crew, Linda. Children of the River. New York: Laurel Leaf Library, 1991.
        Sundra is 13 when she escapes the Khmer Rouge and arrives in Oregon, where she must learn to live as a "good Cambodian girl" in modern America

Freedman, Russell. Immigrant Kids. New York: Puffin, 1995.
        This small book is full of photographs of young European immigrants in New York in the early 20th century.

Paulsen, Gary. The Crossing. New York: Laurel Leaf Library, 1990.
        The life of a desperately poor young boy in Juarez, Mexico, intersects with that of a disillusioned Viet Nam veteran.

Yep, Laurence. Dragonwings. New York: HarperTrophy, 1989.
        A young Chinese immigrant sees how poorly his father and others of his race are treated in San Francisco during the early 1900s.

_______Dragon’s Gate. New York: HarperTrophy, 1995.
        Young Otto travels from China to help build railroads in the mountains of California in the late 19th century.

__________Star Fisher. New York: Puffin, 1992.
        This is based on the true story of the author’s mother whose family immigrated first from China, then from Ohio to West Virginia, where they were the first Chinese family seen in the region.

District Standards for Language Arts, Grade 8To Top

Thinking

Communicating

Connections

Listening

Speaking

Reading

Writing

District Standards for Social Studies, Grade 8

History and culture

Learners exhibit an understanding of the ways human beings view themselves in and over time.

Civic Understanding

Learners exhibit an understanding of the ideals, principles, and practices of citizenship in a democratic republic.