Some people in the United States tend to think of immigration as something that happened in the past—something their grandparents or great-grandparents did. But immigration is still building our nation today.

Why do immigrants leave their home country to come to the United States? Most come to build a better future for themselves and their families. Their experience often begins with learning English, going to school or work, and adopting new customs and new ideas.

In this lesson you'll meet four teen immigrants from different countries and learn why they came to the United States and what challenges they faced.

Goals
Here are the big ideas you will learn about in this lesson:

• The United States attracts immigrants from every part of the world.
• Immigrants to the United States may face many challenges.

Strategies
You will be using many reading and writing strategies to complete this lesson. The key strategies that you will focus on are:

• Using background knowledge
• Determining important information
• Making inferences
• Categorizing basic facts and ideas
• Constructing summaries
• Making connections

• overcome
• prejudice

In this lesson, you will meet four teen immigrants from different countries:

• Luincys from the Dominican Republic
• Fatima from Tanzania
• Mohammed from Guinea
• Michael from China

Click "View" on the left to see a map showing the location of each teen's home country.

Think about why teens and their families might leave their home countries to come to the U.S. Write two to three ideas about why you think they would come and two or three of the challenges they may face.

Most immigrants who come to the United States want to feel comfortable and at home in their new country, but they face many challenges. For immigrants who do not speak English as their native language—the language they learned as children—learning English is one of the biggest challenges to overcome. Young people who come to the U.S. have to start school immediately, often before they can speak much English. Three of the teen immigrants you meet in this lesson had to learn English in the United States; Fatima was the only one who already spoke English.

This video shows how one teen immigrant, Luincys, struggled as she tried to learn English. As you watch, think about how Luincys responded to not knowing the English language in school. Click "View" on the left to watch the video.

How was Luincys affected by not being able to speak English in school?

Many immigrants face prejudice because they have a different culture and English is not their native language. As you watch these two videos, think about the kinds of prejudice that Mohammed and Fatima experienced.

Click "View" on the left to watch each video.

What were the prejudices that Fatima and Mohammed faced? Do you think they experienced some of the same challenges? Write two to three sentences to explain your answer.

Luincys, Michael, Mohammed, and Fatima all worked hard to become Americans, overcoming the challenges they faced. They now all speak English at school, wear American fashions, listen to American music, and keep up-to-date on American culture.

But they also keep some of the traditions they grew up with. For example, they speak their native languages at home with their parents, eat traditional foods, or practice traditional ways of dressing. Fatima, for example, wears her hijab [hih-jahb]—a head cover, like a scarf—every day, just as she did back in Tanzania. In this video, Luincys talks about living "50 percent American, 50 percent Dominican."

Michael is very excited to experience America, mix with Americans, speak English, and learn American culture. His mother, however, does not speak English and feels more comfortable living in Chinatown with other Chinese immigrants, sharing Chinese culture. In this video, Michael talks about living in a Chinese community in America while becoming an American.

What does Michael like about American culture? How does he feel about Chinese culture?

The videos you have seen and the text you have read describe why teen immigrants come to the United States, the experiences they have, and the challenges and prejudices they must overcome.

Now show what you have learned so far about immigrants and the challenges they face by answering these three questions. Be sure to save all your answers before you go to the next screen.

In this lesson, you have seen the challenges that four recent teen immigrants faced as they tried to fit into American society. Now you will read about four well-known people and learn about their experience with immigration.

Click "View" on the left to open the reading passage.

After the reading, list some of the challenges that immigrants to the U.S. may have had to overcome.

You will now check your understanding of the vocabulary words for this lesson by placing them in sentences. Click "View" on the left to begin the activity.

Before moving to the next screen, choose two words from the vocabulary list and write a new sentence for each word.

Vocabulary words: immigrant, immigration, native, overcome, prejudice

As you have learned from the videos and the reading, immigrants face many challenges in their new country, including learning the language and customs and facing prejudice from native-born people. Think about how many parts of life these challenges affect. In this activity, you will put daily activities into different categories to show which challenge they represent.

Click "View" on the left to begin the activity. Your teacher will review the answers with you.

Then, before moving on to the final assignment, you may want to watch this lesson's videos again or reread the passage.

Learning English

Video: 2m 27s

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Facing Prejudice: Mohammed

Video: 1m 58s

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Facing Prejudice: Fatima

Video: 1m 35s

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Keeping Traditions Alive

Video: 0m 35s

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Becoming an American

Video: 1m 45s

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Hidden Immigrants

Document

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In this lesson, you have learned about the challenges and prejudice immigrants face in the United States, and how they overcome both to succeed as Americans. You will now write an essay that shares what you have learned and what you think about it.

Begin by reviewing your notes. Click "review my work" above and view or print out the screen that pops up.

Final Assignment Instructions

• Download American Stories: Teens and Immigration—Final Assignment (PDF).
• Choose one of the topics in the PDF and write an essay.
• Organize your response so that it includes at least three supporting details that you have learned from the reading passage, video(s), and other materials in this lesson.
• Use at least three vocabulary words (or a form of the words) as part of your supporting details. For example, for the word jump, you could use jumps, jumped, or jumping.