Overview
The
2012 series Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. explores major historical events through the ancestries of prominent
Americans. In Episode 8, Dr. Gates
explores the family histories of comedienne and actress Margaret Cho;
neurosurgeon and CNN medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta; and author and
television personality Martha Stewart.
Each prominent individual is either a first- or second-generation
American, and each individual’s family came to live in the United States due to
conflict in their homelands.
This hands-on, media-enhanced lesson explores why
groups of people leave their native countries, often to come to the United
States, and what major historical milestones prompted mass migrations. In the Introductory Activity, students look
at immigration to the United States from 1880-2000 and hypothesize as to the
reasons for large influxes of groups of people.
In the Learning Activity, students learn about the family histories of
Cho, Gupta, and Stewart, and explore why each person’s family left his/her
homeland and the historical milestones surrounding each departure. In the Culminating Activity, students will explore
10 events or topics that were or led to mass migrations, and they will discuss
the similarities and differences surrounding each topic/event.
Objectives
After
completing this lesson, students will be able to:
- Describe reasons behind movements of
peoples due to historical events.
- Discuss historical milestones in
India, Korea, and Poland that led to mass exoduses from each country and
compare and contrast the milestones.
- Describe the impact of migrations
using information from a map or chart.
- Analyze the
similarities and differences among mass migrations in history.
Grade Level:
9-12
Suggested Time
(2-3) 45-minute class periods
Media Resources
The Partition of India Video
A Hurried Escape Video
Leaving Poland Video
Materials
For each student:
For the class:
Web Sites
For the Introductory
Activity and Learning Activity:
The Lesson
Part I: INTRODUCTORY ACTIVITY
- Ask students whether or not they
know how or why their families came to live in America. What are some of the reasons students’
families migrated to America? (Accept
all answers.)
- Tell students that America has
historically been a beacon of hope for people around the world. Ask students why they think this is the
case. (Accept all answers, but
suggest that the level of freedom and equality in America is a safe-haven
for people around the world; historically, too, America provides
opportunities for many people to better their lives.)
- Navigate to The New York Times “Immigration Explorer”. On the right side
of the page, select “Number of residents” for SHOW. Ask students what is being represented
on the map. (The map represents how foreign-born groups settled across the
United States. With “Number of
residents” selected, it shows the relative number of people from regions
all over the world and where they settled in the United States. Data is provided in decades, starting
with 1880 and lasting until 2000.)
- Navigate to “1920” and ask students
what information they can gather from the map. (A huge number of immigrants from Russia and Eastern Europe lived on
the East Coast and in the Midwest during this decade; states bordering
Mexico started noticing an influx of immigrants from Latin America; few
immigrants moved to the southern United States or the Rocky Mountain
region.)
- Move the slider to “1880” and slowly
slide up to “1910”, stopping at each decade in between for a few seconds. Ask students to take note of what
happens to the map. (The blue and
purple bubbles, representing Russia/Eastern Europe and Western Europe,
respectively, grow significantly).
Ask students to hypothesize why this growth might have happened,
based on what they know of U.S. and world history. (Factors may have included the Industrial Revolution, reduced
costs of transatlantic travel, and conflict in Europe). Ask students to hypothesize as to what
happened to immigration into the U.S. as a result of the Great Depression.
(Suggest that due to reduced
opportunities, immigration to the U.S. affected the foreign-born
population in the U.S.)
- Distribute the Foreign-Born Trends in the United States Student Organizer. Move the slider
to each decade, starting with 1880, and allow one minute per decade for
students to list a trend they see on the map and hypothesize, if they can,
as to what caused the trend.
- Take 5-10 minutes to share trends
and hypotheses that students noticed. (Accept
all answers).
Part II: LEARNING ACTIVITY
- Contextualize the next activity by asking
students why they think immigrants come to America. (Accept all answers, but if it is not mentioned, suggest that war,
political/religious conflict, famine, etc., have all been major factors
that have driven people out of their homelands and, often, into the free
and historically prosperous land of America).
- Explain to students that using video segments
from the PBS series Finding Your Roots, you will be exploring why the
families of Margaret Cho, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and Martha Stewart left their
homelands and eventually came to live in the United States. Tell students that these celebrities’
families left their homelands for very specific reasons, as many families
and individuals have had to do in history. Distribute the Exodus and Upheaval Student Organizer.
- Tell students that they will be
watching a video segment about Sanjay Gupta’s family history. As they are watching this video segment, they
should record who left his/her
homeland and why they
left. Students should use the
Exodus and Upheaval Student Organizer to record their notes. Play the The Partition of India Video.
- After showing the segment, ask students
to identify why Dr. Gupta’s mother left India in the 1940s. (She left with her family due to the
conflict that arose as a result of the partition of India and
Pakistan. 14 million Muslims and
Hindus were displaced as a result of the partition). What did Dr. Gupta know prior to Dr.
Gates’s research? (He knew very
little; his mother was hesitant to talk about her experience). Ask students why they think she hid her
past from her son. (Accept all
answers, but suggest it was a very painful time and she did not want to
pass the pain on to her family). How
does Dr. Gupta feel about his lack of knowledge regarding his family
history? (He is very curious as to what his mother experienced during the
partition of India and Pakistan). How
did Damyanti’s grandmother feel about leaving? (She did not want to leave – it was the only home she had ever
known. She said, “I came as a bride
and I’m not leaving this place.”
She carried keys for locks holding her possessions in her
homeland. She left reluctantly,
ending up in Bombay with her family).
- Next, tell students that they will
watch a video segment explaining actress and comedienne Margaret Cho’s family
history. As they are watching this
segment, they should record who left
his/her homeland and why they
left. Students should use the
Exodus and Upheaval Student Organizer to record their notes. Play the A Hurried Escape Video. Pause at 2:35, after Cho says “…that
would be too hard to face.” How
much did Margaret Cho know about her father’s departure from his
homeland? (Like Dr. Gupta and his mother, Cho knows very little about her
father’s past. Cho believes her
father did not want to pass on the painful memories.) What does Cho’s father say is his
reason for keeping his past a secret?
(He did not want his daughter
to know what “world he went through.”)
Ask students why Cho’s father’s family escaped from what is
currently North Korea. (“Cho’s grandfather worked for the
Japanese as a station master during their occupation of Korea which began
in 1905. After Japan withdrew from
Korea at the conclusion of World War II, her grandfather was labeled a
traitor and risked being executed by North Korea’s new Communist
leadership. For the safety of Cho’s
family, they moved from North Korea to South Korea.”) When Cho learns the truth about her
father’s past, how does she feel? (She says she understands why he never
told her, because it would be too hard to face). Resume playing the segment through to the
end.
- Tell students that finally, they
will be watching a video segment featuring Martha Stewart’s family history. As they are watching this video segment, they
should record who left his/her
homeland and why they
left. Students should use the
Exodus and Upheaval Student Organizer to record their notes. Play the Leaving Poland Video. Pause at 1:31, after Stewart finishes
reading the letter. Did Stewart’s
relatives share stories about their lives in the “old country?” (No. Stewart had to draw answers out of
them. She says memories were not as
discussed in those days. She wishes
she had learned more about her grandparents when they were alive). Ultimately, how does Stewart learn
the fate of her great-grandparents?
(Research discovered a letter
from Stewart’s grandmother Helen’s husband to his family. The letter describes how they had
“clothes and shoes to send home” to Helen’s parents but that “Bolsheviks
took everything and they do not have anything.” They “sent two ship tickets for passage
to America” for Helen’s sister and brother because “their parents died and
the house burned down and they do not have anybody there in the country”).
- Resume playing the Leaving Poland Video
through to the end. When did war
break out in Poland and why? (War broke out between the “newly
independent Polish state and Soviet Russia” in 1919 shortly after the
conclusion of World War I.) Ask
students what they think happened to Helen’s parents. (Accept
all answers, but suggest that they died during the war between Russia and
Poland). What happened to
Helen’s siblings? (Six out of eight siblings ended up
settling in America). Ask students
why they think so many of the siblings resettled in America. (Accept
all answers, but suggest that the turmoil they experienced in their
homelands probably drove them to find a safe, conflict-free home in
America.)
- Tell students that they will now be
comparing and contrasting the exoduses of Cho’s, Gupta’s, and Stewart’s
ancestors. On the white/black
board, create a chart with two columns – label one column “Similarities”,
the other “Differences”. Have
students first identify the similarities among the three individuals’
families’ departures. (All left out
of necessity, due to a conflict, imminent danger, or because they were
unable to survive in their homelands; all families eventually settled in
the U.S.; all of those who left were reluctant to recall the past and what
they experienced in their native countries; all left as children/young
people). Next, ask students to list the
differences among the three individuals’ families’ departures. (The families fled at different times
[Gupta’s mother and Cho’s father in the late 1940s, and Stewart’s in the
1910s/1920s]; they each migrated from their homelands to different areas
[Gupta’s to Bombay; Cho’s to South Korea; and Stewart’s to America]). Ask students why they think there
was a delay between when Gupta’s and Cho’s relatives left their homelands
to when they migrated to the U.S. (Accept
all answers, but suggest that reasons could have been financial, emotional
or logistical.)
- Return to The New York Times “Immigration
Explorer”. On the right side of the
page, select “Number of residents” for SHOW.
Navigate to “1910”, and then “1920”.
Ask students which group(s) are most heavily represented. (Russia, Eastern Europe, and Western Europe,
with limited numbers from Latin America).
Ask students if, based on the video segments they’ve seen today,
this assessment makes sense. (Yes –
Martha Stewart’s grandmother and her siblings came to the U.S. from Poland
during this time due to the Polish-Soviet War).
Next, navigate to “1940”, and then to “1950”. Ask students which group(s) are most heavily
represented. (Russia, Eastern Europe, and
Western Europe, with limited numbers from Latin America). Ask students if, based on the video
segments they’ve seen today, this assessment makes sense. (The video segments featuring Cho and Gupta would suggest possible
migrations from Asia; however, there does not seem to be any Asian
representation.) Ask students why
they think this might be. (Accept all
answers, but make sure students understand that it is noted on the website that
Census data is limited, which could explain the absence of an Asian presence
during the 1940s and 1950s).
Part III: CULMINATING ACTIVITY
- Divide students into ten groups. Assign each
group a topic from the following list:
- The Oregon Trail
- Hurricane Katrina
- Darfur conflict
- The partition of India and Pakistan
- World War II/the Holocaust
- Puritan migration in the 17th century
- Slavery
- The U.S. Gold Rush
- The Great Famine in Ireland
- African American migration from the South in the 20th century
- Explain to students that each of the topics listed above is or led to a mass migration in world history.
- Distribute the Mass Migrations in History Student Organizer.
- Ask students to work within their groups to consider the following questions about their group’s assigned topic:
- Describe the mass migration associated with your topic, including where the people originated from and where they (for the most part) moved, if this information is available.
- What caused the mass migration?
- What are 1-2 long-term effects of the mass migration?
Students should use the Mass Migrations in History Student Organizer to record their answers.
- Have each group share their answers with the class.
Have each group record answers given by the other groups on their
Mass Migrations in History Student Organizer. Lead a group
discussion comparing and contrasting elements of each of the migrations. What is similar among the migrations? What is different? (For example: “similarities” include that each event spurred both
short- and long-term effects; “differences” include that some events involved
voluntary migration, where people sought new opportunities or a better life,
while others involved involuntary migration, where people were forcibly removed
from their homes.)
- Ask students to
summarize what they have learned today. (Accept all answers, but if the following are not mentioned, add: there are many reasons, both voluntary and involuntary, that people leave their homelands; that many historical events
have led to mass migrations of people, and these migrations have had lasting
effects on the world; and that the “melting pot” that is America can be
attributed to many things, including mass migrations throughout history.)
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