Ethnic Studies Unit 5

Essential Questions:

• How did colonialism, migration, and global conflict impact ethnic communities in the United States and abroad? 

• How did industrial and social developments impact ethnic communities?

Texts:

• The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois - Ch. 1 & 2 pdf

• "Letter from Birmingham Jail" by Martin Luther King Jr. | UPenn version (easier to print)

• A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America by Ronald Takaki (reference text)

• American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang 

• Poems at Angel Island

Topics:

• Foundations of American Identity

  • "The New Colossus" poem by Emma Lazarus

  • "The Star-Spangled Banner" U.S. National Anthem by Francis Scott Key

  • Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America

  • "Ethnogenesis" by Henry Timrod 

  • "America" by Claude McKay

  • "Song of Myself" by Walt Whitman

• 1900-1950

  • African-Americans Establishing Place

    • Migratory Patterns

    • Life in the Deep South

    • The Harlem Renaissance

  • Latinx

    • Mexican-American 

    • Bracero Program

    • Cuba

  • Asian American - The Asian American Education Project - Lesson Plans and Resources

    • Angel Island Immigration Station & Poems

    • Japanese Internment

    • McCarthyism and Profiling

  • European American

    • Italian

    • Irish

    • Jewish

    • Polish 

• 1950, 1960s & 1970s: Civil Rights Era & Vietnam War

  • Black History Milestones Timeline from History.com

  • Emmett Till 

    • The 1955 murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till helped spark the civil rights movement. 

    • His mother, Mamie, held an open-casket funeral to “let the world see” his mutilated body.

  • Maintaining Native American Community & Culture

    • Native American - tribal sovereignty

      • established in 1832 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Worcester v. Georgia

      • Tribal Sovereignty History and the Law from the Native American Caucus

      • from Smithsonian's NK360 FAQ page

    • Indian Reorganization Act of 1934

    • Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978

  • Asian Americans in Politics - The Asian American Education Project - Lesson Plans and Resources

• 1980s & 1990s

• Artists and artistic movements among ethnic groups - literature, visual art, music, film, etc.

• Immigration

  • Immigration Act of 1917

  • Immigration Act of 1924 (Johnson-Reed Act) - "The Immigration Act of 1924 limited the number of immigrants allowed entry into the United States through a national origins quota. The quota provided immigration visas to two percent of the total number of people of each nationality in the United States as of the 1890 national census. It completely excluded immigrants from Asia."

  • Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952

  • Immigration Act of 1965

  • Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (Simpson-Mazzoli Act)

  • Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act 1996

  • Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) 2012 - fact sheet from the American Immigration Council

• Annotation & Note-Taking

  • • Summarizing, paraphrasing, quoting, questioning, commenting

    • Questioning

    • Reflecting

    • Analyzing - patterns, perspectives, comparisons/contrasts, defining

    • Synthesizing - consideration, explanation, integration

      • What are the relationships between your sources?

      • What's the relationship between your sources and your own argument?

Unit Skills: 

• Examine and discuss how migration and immigration impacted ethnic groups in the United States.

• Examine and discuss the impact of various 20th century historical events, cultural movements, and leaders, with respect to various ethnic groups.

• Examine and discuss the impact of various economic, political and social policies and practices in the United States with respect to various ethnic groups during the 20th century.

• Examine and discuss how 20th century industrial and social developments impacted various ethnic groups.

• Explore and discuss literature and art from various ethnic groups in the United States during the 20th century. 

• Rank and justify your top five most influential 20th century literary works with respect to a particular ethnic group in the United States. 

• Gather, analyze and organize information related to your research topic.

• Paraphrase, summarize, quote, question, and comment on information, ideas, and craft/style in primary and secondary source materials.

Formative Assessment(s):

• Journal Writing

• Notes / Annotations - Research notes, outline, thesis --> check-ins for research in preparation for Unit 6 summative assignments 

• Discussion (in-person or online)

• Historical Timeline notes - studying and completing a historical timeline as we go

• Reflection

Summative Assessment(s):

• Online Discussion Board - grammar, capitalization, punctuation, spelling, explain a primary source artifact you found related to your research, pose a question it makes you think of, respond to someone else's post with your thoughts/comments - rubric

• Online Discussion Board - grammar, capitalization, punctuation, spelling, explain a literary/artistic piece you found related to your research, pose a question it makes you think of, respond to someone else's post with your thoughts/comments - rubric

Enduring Understandings:

• A variety of factors contributed to the growth of industrial production and eventually resulted in the Industrial Revolution, including:

  • Proximity to waterways; access to rivers and canals

  • Geographical distribution of coal, iron, and timber

  • Urbanization

  • Improved agricultural productivity

  • Legal protection of private property

  • Access to foreign resources

  • Accumulation of capital

• The development of the factory system concentrated production in a single location and led to an increasing degree of specialization of labor.

• The rapid development of steam-powered industrial production in European countries and the U.S. contributed to the increase in these regions’ share of global manufacturing during the first Industrial Revolution.

• The development of machines, including steam engines and the internal combustion engine, made it possible to take advantage of both existing and vast newly discovered resources of energy stored in fossil fuels, specifically coal and oil. The fossil fuels revolution greatly increased the energy available to human societies.

• The “second industrial revolution” led to new methods in the production of steel, chemicals, electricity, and precision machinery during the second half of the 19th century.

• Railroads, steamships, and the telegraph made exploration, development, and communication possible in interior regions globally, which led to increased trade and migration.

• The rapid urbanization that accompanied global capitalism at times led to a variety of challenges, including pollution, poverty, increased crime, public health crises, housing shortages, and insufficient infrastructure to accommodate urban growth.

• A range of cultural, religious, and racial ideologies were used to justify imperialism, including Social Darwinism, nationalism, the concept of the civilizing mission, and the desire to religiously convert indigenous populations.

• Migrants often created ethnic enclaves in different parts of the world that helped transplant their culture into new environments.

• Receiving societies did not always embrace immigrants, as seen in the various degrees of ethnic and racial prejudice and the ways states attempted to regulate the increased flow of people across their borders

• Large numbers of international migrants moved to industrializing northern cities, while many Americans moved west of the Appalachians, developing thriving new communities along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers.

• As cities became areas of economic growth featuring new factories and businesses, they attracted immigrants from Asia and from southern and eastern Europe, as well as African American migrants within and out of the South. Many migrants moved to escape poverty, religious persecution, and limited opportunities for social mobility in their home countries or regions.

• Urban neighborhoods based on particular ethnicities, races, and classes provided new cultural opportunities for city dwellers.

• Increasing public debates over assimilation and Americanization accompanied the growth of international migration. Many immigrants negotiated compromises between the cultures they brought and the culture they found in the United States.

• In an urban atmosphere where the access to power was unequally distributed, political machines thrived, in part by providing immigrants and the poor with social services.

• Corporations’ need for managers and for male and female clerical workers as well as increased access to educational institutions, fostered the growth of a distinctive middle class. A growing amount of leisure time also helped expand consumer culture.

• By 1920, a majority of the U.S. population lived in urban centers, which offered new economic opportunities for women, international migrants, and internal migrants.

• Some Progressive Era journalists attacked what they saw as political corruption, social injustice, and economic inequality, while reformers, often from the middle and upper classes and including many women, worked to effect social changes in cities and among immigrant populations.

• Although the New Deal did not end the Depression, it left a legacy of reforms and regulatory agencies and fostered a long-term political realignment in which many ethnic groups, African Americans, and working class communities identified with the Democratic Party.

• Migration gave rise to new forms of art and literature that expressed ethnic and regional identities, such the Harlem Renaissance movement.

• Official restrictions on freedom of speech grew during World War I, as increased anxiety about radicalism led to a Red Scare and attacks on labor activism and immigrant culture.

• In the 1920s, cultural and political controversies emerged as Americans debated gender roles, modernism, science, religion, and issues related to race and immigration.

• Immigration from Europe reached its peak in the years before World War I. During and after World War I, nativist campaigns against some ethnic groups led to the passage of quotas that restricted immigration, particularly from southern and eastern Europe, and increased barriers to Asian immigration.

• The increased demand for war production and labor during World War I and World War II and the economic difficulties of the 1930s led many Americans to migrate to urban centers in search of economic opportunities.

• In a Great Migration during and after World War I, African Americans escaping segregation, racial violence, and limited economic opportunity in the South moved to the North and West, where they found new opportunities but still encountered discrimination.

• Migration to the United States from Mexico and elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere increased, in spite of contradictory government policies toward Mexican immigration.

• Imperialists cited economic opportunities, racial theories, competition with European empires, and the perception in the 1890s that the western frontier was “closed” to argue that Americans were destined to expand their culture and institutions to peoples around the globe.

• Anti-imperialists cited principles of self-determination and invoked both racial theories and the U.S. foreign policy tradition of isolationism to argue that the U.S. should not extend its territory overseas.

• The American victory in the Spanish–American War led to the U.S. acquisition of island territories in the Caribbean and the Pacific, an increase in involvement in Asia, and the suppression of a nationalist movement in the Philippines

• WWII: Mobilization and military service provided opportunities for women and minorities to improve their socioeconomic positions for the war’s duration, while also leading to debates over racial segregation. Wartime experiences also generated challenges to civil liberties, such as the internment of Japanese Americans.

• During and after World War II, civil rights activists and leaders, most notably Martin Luther King Jr., combatted racial discrimination utilizing a variety of strategies, including legal challenges, direct action, and nonviolent protest tactics.

• The three branches of the federal government used measures including desegregation of the armed services, Brown v. Board of Education, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to promote greater racial equality.

• Continuing resistance slowed efforts at desegregation, sparking social and political unrest across the nation. 

• Debates among civil rights activists over the efficacy of nonviolence increased after 1965.

• Feminist and gay and lesbian activists mobilized behind claims for legal, economic, and social equality.

• Latino, American Indian, and Asian American movements continued to demand social and economic equality and a redress of past injustices.

• Despite an overall affluence in postwar America, advocates raised concerns about the prevalence and persistence of poverty as a national problem.

• Environmental problems and accidents led to a growing environmental movement that aimed to use legislative and public efforts to combat pollution and protect natural resources. The federal government established new environmental programs and regulations.

• Liberal ideas found expression in Lyndon Johnson’s Great  Society, which attempted to use federal legislation and programs to end racial discrimination, eliminate poverty, and address other social issues. A series of Supreme Court decisions expanded civil rights and individual liberties.

• In the 1960s, conservatives challenged liberal laws and court decisions and perceived moral and cultural decline, seeking to limit the role of the federal government and enact more assertive foreign policies.

• Some groups on the left also rejected liberal policies, arguing that political leaders did too little to transform the racial and economic status quo at home and pursued immoral policies abroad.

• The 1970s saw growing clashes between conservatives and liberals over social and cultural issues, the power of the federal government, race, and movements for greater individual rights.

• Immigrants from around the world sought access to the political, social, and economic opportunities in the United States, especially after the passage of new immigration laws in 1965.

• Several laws and Supreme Court cases impacted opportunities and rights for ethnic minority groups.

• Literary and artistic movements, as well as individual writers and artists, explored and expressed the experiences of different ethnic groups in the United States.