8th grade: My place in history

Created Feb. 7, 2024 by Kathryn Shaughnessy

NHPRC QIH Assignment Title:

8th grade culminating project: theme – my place in history   NOTE: [1] This assignment was created by the participant educator named below as part of the Queens Immigration History curriculum development project funded by a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission division of the National Archives (grant #DH-50022-16).  For more information on this grant project, please visit the Queens Immigration History website  at https://queensimmigrationhistory.wordpress.com    

Assignment Creator:

NHPRC Teacher Participant/Creator: Michael Freydin is chairman of the Greater Metropolitan New York Social Studies Conference, national chairman of the Fund for the Advancement of Social Studies Education, and board member of Association of Teachers of Social Studies/UFT, and of the Middle East Outreach Council. He teaches American History and Global History at Stephan Halsey JHS157 in Rego Park, Queens. He has developed and presented curricula at the NCSS, Smithsonian American Art Museum, National Museum of African-American History and Culture, GMNY, LICSS, CityLore, New York  State Historians Society, and NYSCSS. He has written 9th grade curriculum for NYC DOE, and completed the Astor Fellowship at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

Purpose/Goal

  1. Apply historical thinking (complexity, causality, change over time, contingency, context).   
  2. To delve into a different culture, and your own, by eliciting information from an informant about his or her home culture and his or her experience of our culture. To look at global processes of immigration, labor, consumption, and so on from the viewpoint of someone from another culture and place. To see some similarities and differences in the culture. 

Writing Situation:

Throughout this year we have been studying how the United States related to its immigrant and native populations. We have evaluated our own place in history, and in our nation’s history. As we continue this year, you will be documenting your history, through various projects. For this project, your will describe why your family left their country of origin. How does the movement of your family connect to any major historical event?  You might already know this history from family lore, or you may interview someone in your family. Find someone who immigrated (or otherwise came) to the United States from another country when he or she was at least 16 years old, and who is willing to talk with you for at least an hour. Your informant may be a family member, a friend, a relative, someone you meet in your neighborhood. 

Task/Assignment/Activity

Interview your informant for at least an hour. You may consult your informant again later if you want to, and he or she is willing. You may want to record the interview, so you can focus on the conversation without having to write extensive notes. If so, ask beforehand if your informant is comfortable with being recorded, and comply with his or her wishes. Do not pressure anyone to be recorded. If your informant generalizes about what people in their culture do, or what Americans do, try to get specific examples or stories from their personal experience. The idea is learn enough to briefly outline your informant’s story, and more importantly, his or her observations about life in the country he or she came from, his or her impressions about the US, and how they are related. Ask your parent/guardian some or all of the following questions to get an understanding of their experiences:  

  1.     What nationality were you born?
  2.     Tell me about your childhood home.
  3.     Who’s the oldest relative you remember (and what do you remember about him or her)?
  4.     Tell me about some of the places where you’ve been happiest.
  5.     How did your family celebrate holidays when you were a child?
  6.     How do you celebrate these holidays now, in America? 
  7.     What did you expect America would be like before you emigrated?
  8.     What was your life in America like after immigrating?
  9.     How did people treat you when you came here?
  10.     Did you know English in your old country? If not, was it hard to learn English here?
  11.     Describe your first job in America.  What did you do with your first paycheck?
  12.     Where do you live now? Have you lived in another neighborhood?  Why do you stay here?
  13.     When did your family move to your neighborhood? Why did they move there and not somewhere else?
  14.     How has the neighborhood changed since you first arrived? What has not changed? 
    1.     What are some of the positive changes?
    2.     What are some of the negative changes?
  15.     If you could live somewhere else, where would you live? Why?
  16.     What’s special about your home? Neighborhood? Borough?
  17.     How does your family spend its free time? How is this different from the ‘old country’?
  18.     What do you think are the main misconceptions that people have about this neighborhood?
  19.     Are you friendly with your neighbors? Do your neighbors seem to know each other?
  20.     Is your neighborhood diverse? Do you prefer a diverse neighborhood or one that is more uniform?
  21.     What nationalities make up your neighborhood?
  22.     What economic level is your neighborhood? Upper Class? Middle Class? Working Class?
  23.     How can you compare the experience of your family to others that came from the same country?
  24.     How do you think the current political atmosphere has affected your family?  Other people in your neighborhood?


Assignment Outcome

  • Required: Word Document with answers to interview questions 
  • Optional: MP3  recording of interview

Resources:

In addition to the interview Questions (provided above), you can use the following websites to help you create a visual understanding of your neighborhood in years past

  1. http://80s.nyc/ - street photos of NYC from the 1980’s
  2. https://www.census.gov/ - Demographic data present day

More resources from the NHPRCQIH LibGuides: 

     Queens Memory Project Tab – assistance with conducting open ended Interviews, and local NYC interviews

    Audacity Tab – assistance with recording

    GeoLiteracy Tab – more resources for mapping; see especially New York City Maps and Neighborhoods box
    NYC resources Tab– see especially Highlights from NYC Planning Department b

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