Immigration Webquest

The USA is, of course, a nation of immigrants. The great immigration waves of the past have left their mark on the country and its people, and there is no sign that the American Dream might be losing its attractiveness anywhere near in the future. Your task today is to make use of the fantastic resources available online to find out more about why people came to America in different times.

Please use today’s lesson to complete at least two of the following tasks in the given order. The best way to do this is to keep a Word window open and type your findings into it. Please use your own words and do not copy and paste.

Then send yourself your own document and continue working on this task at home over the weekend.

Task 1: Basics

Browse through this timeline about The Peopling of America to get an overview of what ethnic groups arrived when and why. For each period, please note down what particular information surprised you most.

Then find out what exactly Ellis Island is. Can you find your family’s name in the database?

Task 2: The Immigration Explorer

The New York Times published a fascinating tool, the Immigration Explorer. Play around with it a little, then answer the following questions:

• What exactly can the Immigration Explorer show you?
• At what point was the All Countries Map the most colourful? Do you have an explanation for this?

Task 3: Immigration by Force – the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Using the maps here and the resources here and here, find out

• where slaves originally came from and who sold them
• how many Africans were transported into what is now the United States (and where the others ended up)
• what it was like to be kidnapped, sold and taken across the Ocean

Task 4: German Immigration to the USA

Read through this chronology of German immigration and note down

• the main reasons that drove German emigrants to come to America
• five important cultural achievements the German immigrants brought to the country

Special Task for the Quick and/or the Tech-Savvy:

Social Explorer provides more detailed information. See if you can work out how to produce a meaningful demographic slideshow for New York.

Special Task for the Adventurous Listener:

In 2004, the New York Times ran a series on recent immigrants. Here‘s the main site. I recommend the interactive feature with many voices telling their stories and very evocative pictures for practising listening.

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