A Nation of Immigrants?

This lesson plan is to accompany the Teaching Tolerance magazine article "Our Challenge as a People [1]"

Framework:
In his speech in Philadelphia on March 18, 2008, Barack Obama said of white Americans: "Their experience is the immigrant experience – as far as they're concerned, no one has handed them anything." Obama's observation points to a complex reality of American culture. Many white Americans know their immigrant origins, and others have only a vague idea of their family's origins. Yet the immigrant narrative – a narrative of success through hard work in the face of hardship – is often invoked by white people regardless of their family history. And many people who see the migrant story in their own history are nevertheless quick to reject new immigrants to this country.

In this lesson, students will begin with an analysis of Obama's statement, then analyze their own history textbooks to see how these books shape America's view of the immigrant narrative.

Objectives:
• Explore the text and intent of President-elect Obama's speech on race, "A More Perfect Union"
• Examine a classroom text using an assessment tool
• Use Table of Contents, Chapter Summaries, Index, and other visual and organizational prompts in their history textbooks to sort and find information.
• Judge the ways textbooks position groups differently in our national historical narrative and assess how this positioning affects our understanding of ourselves.

Materials
Copies of President-elect Obama's speech, "A More Perfect Union"

• Video [2]
• Text [3]

At least 4 copies of a history textbook currently used at the school
A copy of the Textbook Assessment Worksheet [4]

Procedure
1. Have students read "A More Perfect Union" individually or as a class.

2. When students have finished reading the speech, ask for general impressions. What did students think of the speech? Were there particular parts that connected with you? Were there parts that made you uncomfortable or statements with which you disagreed?

3. Write the following paragraph on the board or display on an overhead:

"Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch."

4. In whole class or small group discussion (or as an individual quick-write) ask students to answer the following question.
Most white Americans are natural-born citizens and not immigrants -- so what do you think Obama means when he says "their experience is the immigrant experience"?

5. Break the class into at least four groups and distribute copies of the Textbook Assessment Worksheet to each student. Assign each group one part of the assessment and make sure each group has at least one textbook. Instruct students to answer the questions in their assigned section of the assessment using their textbook. Review how to use the table of contents, index, subject headings, and chapter summaries as means to quickly locate information.

6. Allow at least 30 minutes for students to work in groups. Reconvene when all groups have completed their portion of the Textbook Assessment. Ask each group to assign a presenter or to assign each question a presenter and share what they have found with the rest of the class. Students should record answers from other groups on their Textbook Assessment worksheet.

7. As a class, ask students to revisit and probe more deeply into the original question:
- Most white Americans are natural-born citizens and not immigrants, so what do you think Obama means when he says "their experience is the immigrant experience?" Has your answer changed? Why?
- Do you think the experience of white Americans is any more an "immigrant experience" than any other ethnic group? Why?
- Did your assessment of your history textbook give you any insight as to why Obama would make this statement?
- How is the "immigrant experience" of whites the same as, or different from, the experience of people currently coming to the U.S.? Do the differences matter? Why?
- Much of the talk of race your textbook – and in American society – revolves around the concept of "white" people. What does this term mean? Who do you think created classifications such as "white," "black" or "Latino?" Why?
- Besides the "immigrant narrative", what other narratives are possible in an American history textbook? What words would you use to describe the African Americans or Native American experience? What do you think of the coverage of these narratives in your textbook?

Extension Activity
Are there narratives your students would like to see covered in greater detail in your textbook? Do they want to know more about African culture before 1500, more about how Puerto Rico came under U.S. control or more about the political structures of Cherokee society? As a follow-up to this activity, you can ask students to identify passages in the textbook that didn't satisfy them – then get them to work in teams to re-write those passages. Acting together as historians, each group can re-write a page of their textbook, or add a sidebar on an important topic – with citations to show how they know what they know.

Standards
This lesson supports content standards in U.S. history [5], civics [6], historical understanding [7], language arts [8] and life skills [9].