Our Neighbors, History and Cultural Exchanges

Created Feb. 7, 2024 by Kathryn Shaughnessy

NHPRC QIH Assignment Title:

Our Neighbors, History and Cultural Exchanges

Note: 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   

NHPRC QIH Assignment Creator:

Created by NHPRC Teacher Participant/Creator Jennifer Suri. (C1, July 2017 – June 2018) Ms. Suri has been teaching in both private and public schools for 29 years. She has been the Assistant Principal of Social Studies at Stuyvesant High School since 2000. She earned her B.A. in History from Barnard College and her M.A. in History at Brown University. Ms. Suri currently teaches Global Studies. She has published curriculum materials on the teaching of Islam and on 9-11. Both of these subjects are her continued areas of interest and research.

Summary/ Description Overview:

 Created by NHPRC Teacher Participant/Creator Jennifer Suri for her Global Studies class; Adaptable to other grades. New York City is a city of immigrants. Every neighborhood has a history connected to the wider history of immigration and migration. This assignment asks students to document some of the changes to their neighborhood from 1965 to present.  Why 1965? This was the year President Johnson passed the Immigration and Naturalization Act which abolished the previous quota system based on national origin. This brought about major changes in the numbers and groups immigrating to the United States.

Purpose/Learning Goal

1.  To apply historical thinking (complexity, causality, change over time, contingency, context). 

2.  To create a project that connects world history to immigration history and neighborhood/city history.

Objectives

  • Students will learn about their family’s history in their particular neighborhood.

  • Students will learn how to use the New York Public Library Digital Archives.

  • Students will learn about and assess the impact of the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 on New York City.

Task/Assignment/Activity

You will be partnered with a classmate from the same neighborhood and you will work together to produce a poster board to share your findings with the class.

As a part of your research you will need to:

1.    Ask your parent/guardian: when did your family move to your neighborhood? Why did they move there and not somewhere else?

2.    Find a long time resident of your neighborhood. Ask them:  How has neighborhood changed? What hasn’t changed?

3.    Examine demographic data on your neighborhood from 1965 and 2016. What do you notice? Explain.

4.    Share photos of structures in your neighborhood from the 1960’s. Indicate if they still exist. Share photos of your neighborhood today and compare them to ones you are able to find from the 1960’s.

5.    Create an engaging a informative poster board to share your findings about your neighborhood with the class.

Questions you might answer (these are suggestions. You can make additional observations):

  • Who lives in the neighborhood now and then? (ethnicity, age, income)

  • What kinds of grocery stores are there now and then? (corner delis? Whole Foods? Gourmet? Ethnic foods?)

  • Are there restaurants and how have they changed?

  • Are there parks? How has the park changed? What kind of equipment (playground or recreational) equipment is in the park now and then?

  • Entertainment venues: bars, movie theaters, bowling lanes now and then??

  • Homes and apartment buildings? New ones and ones that one longer exist?

Extensions:

Can you write about your family’s ties to the neighborhood. When did they move there? Why did they move there? What do they like/dislike about it? Whatever else adds value to your thesis or an understanding of your neighborhood that they can add. If you are not writing about your own neighborhood, ask your family about the neighborhood you are reporting on. What are their impressions of it? Have they seen it change?

Project Outcomes

  1. A map (can be hand drawn or printed) of the neighborhood

  2. An interview with someone who has lived or been in the neighborhood regularly both now and in 1968. Basically someone who can speak to how the neighborhood has changed in their opinion.
  3. Documents to tell the story of how your neighborhood has or has not changed in 50 years. Photos, restaurant menus, telephone listings, newspaper articles, and more.
  4. A one to two-page reflection in which you describe what you have learned about your neighborhood, your family’s connection to the neighborhood, and how it has changed in the past fifty years.
  5.  Bibliography

Required Resources

New York Public Library Digital Archives

Librarian will visit our class to assist with archival and digital research strategies, helping to connect New York City documents to their neighborhoods.

Visit the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building of the New Public Library as well to learn about the resources available to you and how to use them

More Resources and tutorials from the NHPRCQIH LibGuide:

  •  Libraries and Archives Tab – info to assist you in making an appointment to visit a local Library or Archive  (https://campusguides.stjohns.edu/NHPRCQIH/NYCLibsArchives)

  •   NYC Resources Tab – for demographic data  (https://campusguides.stjohns.edu/NHPRCQIH/NYCResources)

Assessment/Rubric

Suri Neighborhood Project Rubric

 



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