IMMIGRATION TO AMERICA

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INTRODUCTION:

For immigrants in the early 20th century, the route between homelands in Europe and Asia and new homes in the United States was not always direct.  One reason for this was that the United States government required newcomers to pass through immigration stations before they were permitted to enter this country.  The two major stations were located near the places where most immigrants arrived in this country--New York City on the Atlantic coast and San Francisco on the Pacific.  The Ellis Island station in Upper New York Bay opened in 1892.  An immigration station on Angel Island in San Francisco Bay opened in 1910.  During the first 25 years of the 1900's federal immigration officials at Ellis Island handled more than twelve million immigrants.  Most of these immigrants came from Southern and Eastern Europe.  The Angel Island station served mostly Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino immigrants.

TASKS:

1. You will be experiencing how your ancestors felt when they decided to immigrate to this country and face its challenges and opportunities.  You will be assigned a role of an immigrant or an immigrant processor in a simulation on immigration issues.  If your assigned role is an immigrant, you will be provided with an ID tag, an immigration checklist, and a loyalty oath.  The other roles assigned will be that of a processor or official, interpreter/guide, doctor or judge.  An appropriate approach to these roles would be to recognize that these officials were proud of their jobs and liked helping new immigrants enter the United States as they themselves or their ancestors had entered.  However, these people were also human.  Many did not accept some groups they considered "inferior" or whose customs and religious faiths differed from their own. Prejudices sometimes would cause unfair treatment of certain immigrants.  This is to be kept in mind when interpreting the role you have been assigned.

2.  You will interview a family member who immigrated to the United States from another country.  If you do not have any family members who have immigrated, then talk with parents, grandparents, etc. to find out what information they remember about family members who had immigrated.  Below are some sample questions that you might consider using for your interviews.

· What was the primary reason you immigrated to this country? 

· When did you come to the United States?

· Where was your home before you moved to the United States?

· What did you do in your homeland before you moved here?

· Where did you first settle when you came to this country?

· Did you know English when you came here?  What other languages did you speak?

· What was the trip to the United States like?  Did you come over land, by boat, by plane, etc?  Was the trip hard or easy?  Were you ever worried or frightened?

· What were your first impressions about the United States? Did your first experiences live up to what you had hoped for?

· Did you experience any racism or prejudice when you moved to this country?

3.  Write a three page report describing the processing procedures that you learned about from your experience with the immigration simulation and your interviews.

4.  As a group you will visit four (4) of the sites below and evaluate them with the following criteria and note the appropriate bibliographic citations for each.

· Who developed the site and what proof is there on its authenticity of material.

·  How current is the information?  Is information comparable to printed material?

RESOURCES:

Use the following sites for your research.

http://www.ellisisland.org/

http://www.historychannel.com

http://cmp1.ucr.edu/exhibitions/immigration_id.html

http://wwwald.bham.wednet.edu/museum/museum.htm

http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/immigration/

http://www.riverdeep.net/current/2001/08/082001_ellisisland.jhtml

http://www.loc.gov/rr/print/list/070_immi.html

CONCLUSION:

History is a factor in considering the future of U.S. immigration policy.  The United States was a vastly different country during the period of 1880-1920.  Today, immigration policy will serve as an important part in our country's international relations.  What image will the United States present to the world in the 21st century on the immigration issue?  Will an "open door policy" or a "quota system" be the answer to this question?  What social, economic, and political issues will arise in response to future immigration policy decisions?

Georgia Moretti Ellars                                                                           July 5, 1997

Last Update January, 2005 by Trisha Armstrong