Family Immigration History Project

Created Feb. 7, 2024 by Kathryn Shaughnessy

NHPRC QIH Assignment Title

Family Immigration History Project

 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 Nancy Condon (C2, July 2018 – June 2019) has taught Social Studies for the past 15 years at the Academy of American Studies, the flagship school of the Gilder Lehrman Institute. Though originally from England, she primarily teaches United States history as well as a National History Day research class. In addition to teaching, Nancy is also the advisor to the History Club and the Model United Nations team. After graduating from Queens College with a BA in History and a Masters in Education, Nancy has attended Gilder Lehrman Institute summer programs and worked with CUNY Collaborative Programs to develop and pilot a Debating U.S. History curriculum.

 

Summary/ Description Overview

Created by NHPRC Teacher Participant/Creator Nancy Condon for her Grade 10 US History course; Adaptable to World History and to other grades. The goal of this scaffolded project is for students to research their own family immigration history looking into the reasons they left their home country and why they chose to settle in the United States. You will be required to do multiple stages of research, including interview, origin country research, US research, and geographic research before handing in a final project in your choice of format – essay, poster board or website – to connect family immigration, and US History to world history events. 

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 push/pull factors in their personal family immigration history.

 

Project Tasks

You will be required to do multiple stages of research before handing in a final project in your choice of format – essay, poster board or website. I will collect assignments as you work through the project to keep you on track and give you feedback and suggestions as you work.

 

Part I: Interview

Choose one family member that was born in another country and finally settled in New York City to interview in order to learn about their immigrant experience. Use the question guide to focus your interview but realize that you should add follow up questions where necessary to get a fuller understanding of the experience.

Prior to your interview, you should give your interviewee the Pre-Interview Survey to preview their immigrant experience and get some basic background information.

With permission from your interviewee, record your interview so that you can refer back to it if necessary at a later date.

Interview Question Guide

Before you conduct your interview, you should review the question guide and consider any areas you would like to develop more than others. Prepare some additional questions that you would like to add in order to get a clearer picture of the interviewee’s experiences as a migrant.

Somebody has given up their time to tell you about their life and their experiences. It is your responsibility to be an active listener. Be prepared to ask clarifying questions and/or probing questions when necessary. 

Clarifying questions:

·         Can you give an example of _____?

·         What does _____ mean?

·         When did that happen?

 

Probing questions:

·         Can you tell me more about _____?

·         How did that make you feel?

·         How did you decide _____?

 

 The questions, below, are for the purpose of guidance only. You may ask some or all of them, as well as additional questions you create. The interviewee can refuse to answer any questions. Respect their privacy if that occurs.  You may wish to use Note-Taking Template .

 Basic information:

  •   In what town or city were you born? What country?

  •   How old were you when you left your homeland? What year did you leave?

  •   How did you travel with? (Parents? Siblings? Husband/wife? Friends? Alone?)

Homeland Details:

  •    Describe your homeland? What language(s) are spoken in that country? What is the predominant religion?

  •   What are some of the traditional foods? What foods did you eat? Was there a traditional form of dress?

  •   What did you do for fun in your homeland? What do you miss the most? 

Decision to migrate:

  •  Why did you leave your native country? (Push factors)

  •  Why did you choose to travel to the United States? (Pull factors) Why New York in particular?

  •  What were your expectations of the United States and/or New York? Where did these expectations develop from?

  •  How did you think life would be different in the United States compared to your homeland? 

The Migration Experience:

  •  Describe your journey to the United States. How long did it take? What route did you take?

  •  Did you encounter any obstacles on your journey?

Arrival in the United States:

  •  Describe your first impression of the United States. What was your first experience upon arrival? Was it different than you expected? Explain

  • What challenges did you face adjusting to your new life? Did you have to learn a new language? Did your eating habits change?

  •  Did you experience discrimination in the United States/New York? Did you have any similar problems in your homeland?

  • What is the biggest difference between your homeland and New York? 

Life in the United States:

  • Are there any experiences or opportunities in New York that were not available to you in your homeland?

  • Explain what you consider to be a major accomplishment in your life so far?

  • What does it mean to you to “be an American”? Do you feel mostly American now or something else?

  • How have you retained you native culture? How has it changed?

  • How was your life growing up different to that of your child(ren)? Do you think you or child(ren) will ever forget the native culture you grew up with (language/food/dress)? How does that make you feel?

Be sure to thank the person you interviewed for their time in answering your questions and offer to show them you final project once it is complete.

 

Part II: Home country research

Once you have the background of your family member’s experience, you should conduct your own research using as many primary sources as possible to corroborate the information you learned from your interview. Using newspapers as a first point of entry, what was happening in the country your family member lived in at around the time that they left? What caused them to leave (push factors)?

Things to consider in this research:

  •   Economy

  •   Conflict/war

  •   Political upheaval

  •   Social problems

Be sure to keep a record of your findings and a bibliography of the sources you used to research from.

 

Part III: United States research

Now that you know the reasons your family member left their home country, why did they choose the United States, specifically New York City, to settle in? In the same manner you looked into the push factors, what was going on in the United States at the time your family member arrived that made them decide it would be a good place to settle (pull factors)?  Try to be specific to the city and state they originally arrived in if that was not New York. As an extension, you could then include reasons they later moved to New York City from their city/state of origin.

Similarly, things to consider in you United States research:

  •   Economy

  •   Political stability

  •   Opportunities

Part IV: Geographical Research

The final part of your research before you create your final project is geographical. Use a map to find out specifically where you family member originated from and where they finally settled. In addition, if they made stops along the way, locate those on a map as well. If the country from where they originated has different geographic borders now than when they left, you should be looking for historic maps. (For example, if they were born in Yugoslavia, you should be looking for historic maps that reflect the borders of that country). You will need to create maps showing the journey for your final project. 

Part V: Project creation

Your final project will include a narrative of your family members immigrant experience, supplemented with the research you conducted on what the country was like, historically, when they left and what the United States was like when they arrived. You will also need to include a map showing the beginning of the journey and the endpoint, with any stops made along the way. You must also include images in your final project. There should be at least one of your interview subject, as well as any others that can help build a more visual story of their journey. Pictures from their homeland and where they settled in New York would be appropriate.

You can present your information in any format that you choose, for example: essay, poster board, or website. Please check with me before starting if you decide upon a different format. 

Project Checklist:

_____ Collect signed release form from your interviewee

_____ Review interview questions and develop additional questions that you would like ask

_____ Conduct interview and keep notes

_____ Edit your interview notes and develop a story of your interviewee’s experience

_____ Conduct homeland research, corroborating information gathered from your interview, adding additional information learned

_____ Conduct United States research, corroborating information gathered from your interview, adding additional information learned

_____ Research historical and current maps to trace route of migration

_____ Create final project

            _____ Homeland before migration (from research and interview)    

            _____ Migration experience (from interview)

            _____ United States/New York at time of migration (from research and interview)

            _____ Map of migration route (Story map or Google map)

            _____ Images to support interview and research

  

Required Resources

Potential Interview Questions:  Provided above 

Immigration – general

Interviewing

Map Creation

New York

Homeland

  

More Resources from the NHPRCQIH LibGuide:

Genealogy Tab –   assistance with family tree and Genealogy resources

Oral History Tab –  links to local NYC Oral History Projects for contributing.

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

National and Global Resources Tab -- to assist you in looking at historical push-pull factors, newspapers and primary resources from country of origin 

Assessment/Rubric

 Condon: Family Immigration Project Rubric

 

Attribution

 This NHPRC Teacher Participant assignment was created by Nancy Condon

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States


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