1. Immigration
By Jackie White

2. Requirements for U.S. citizenship
• Imagine that you are the president of the
United States and you must determine whether
or not there should be requirements to be or to
become a U.S. citizen? If so, what should the
requirements be? If none, explain why not. Be
prepared to share your requirements with a
partner and/or the class.

3. Citizenship Test
• Take the U.S. citizenship test to
find out if you have what it takes
to become a U.S. citizen!

4. Brainstorm
• What words, phrases, or images come to mind
when you hear the word IMMIGRANT?

5. Immigration
• What does immigration
mean?
• Entering a new country to
settle permanently

6. Our Ethnic Ancestry
• We are decedents of our ancestors or
relatives from the past. Trace your family
history to the country/countries your
ancestors came from.
• We will go around the room and record
everyone’s ancestors country of origin on
the Smartboard.

7. Ethnic Ancestry
• Look closely at our class’s ethnic diversity. What
questions does this raise for you?

10. Why Come to America?
• Immigrants including our ancestors came to America for
a wide variety of reasons. What might be some reasons
your ancestors or relatives came to America?

11. Push/Pull Factors
• Push Factors- conditions
that push people out of
their homeland.
• Pull Factors- conditions
that attract people to a
new area.

12. Benito Vincenzo
• Read the story of Benito Vincenzo. Identify at least
one push factor and one pull factor from the
reading.

13. Coreno,
Italy
small village east of
Naples in southern Italy

14. Benito, his wife Carmela, and son Pasquale

15. • Sailing ship of the
1800’s took 1-3
months to cross the
Atlantic Ocean
Steamship of 1901 took less
then two weeks to cross the
Atlantic Ocean

17. New York City in 1902
Little Italy
Tall buildings

18. “Birds of Passage”
• Immigrants who
came to the U.S.
to work and
returned to their
native country to
live

19. Create a list of Push/Pull
Factors from the story

20. Document Analysis
• Activity: In groups of 2-3 read 3-4 primary source
documents and identify the factors for immigration
for each document. Be prepared to share your
research .

21. Examples of Push
Factors
• Increasing population
• Land scarce in home country
• Food scarcity
• Political instability
• Religious persecution
• Revolutions
• Poverty
• Too few industrial jobs

22. Examples of Pull Factors
• Promise of freedom (religious
and political)
• Hope for a new life
• Industrial Jobs
• Land-large amounts and
cheap
• “Streets paved with gold”
• In search of American Dream-
socio-economic mobility

24. European Immigrants
o Prior to 1890, most o Beginning in the
immigrants came from 1890s, increasing
countries in western numbers came
and northern Europe from southern and
o England, Ireland, eastern Europe
Germany and o Italy, Austria-
Scandinavian
Hungary and
countries
Russia

25. New Immigrants Old Immigrants/Native Born
After (1890) Before (1889)
1. Geographic region Southern & Eastern Europe Northern & Western Europe
(what part of
continent):
2. Countries of origin: Italy, Austria-Hungary, Britain, Scotland, Germany, &
Russia, Ireland, China, Japan, Scandanavian countries
Mexico, Caribbean/West
Indies
3. Religion: Catholic, Jewish, Buddhist Protestant
4. Reasons for coming Escape religious persecution, Gold, God, Glory
to U.S.: pogroms, rising population->
scarcity of farmland->too few
industrial jobs, gold rush

26. Journey to America
• Getting Ready for
your journey.
Imagine you are
leaving your
country, family, and
cultural traditions to
come to the U.S.
What things would
you bring with you
and why?

27. Journey to America
A) What items do you take to
remind you about your family
& your nation?
B) What items should you bring to practice
your religion?
C) What type of clothing will you bring?
D) How much money?
E) What are your hopes & dreams?

28. Journey to America
• Activity: Read a
primary source
document on what
the journey to
America was like.
• Write a diary entry or
letter to a friend or
family member in
your native country
in which you
describe your
journey to America.

29. Immigrants Journey
o Most immigrants traveled
by steamship (approx. 1
week from Europe, and 3
weeks from China)
o Many traveled in steerage,
the cheapest
accommodations in the
lower decks
o Immigrants were crowded
together, unable to
exercise or catch a breath
of fresh air (disease spread
and some immigrants died
on route)

30. What might he be pointing at? What do you think they see?
How might they have felt?

32. Ellis Island Immigration Processing Station-NY
What might this be a picture of?

33. Ellis Island Present Day

34. Ellis Island
oProcessing
location for
immigrants in New
York harbor
oImmigrants had
to pass a physical
exam, and
diseased
individuals were
sent home

36. As immigrants walked up the stairs to the Registry
room, they were closely watched by doctors. What
might the doctors have been looking for?

37. How might immigrants have felt arriving at Ellis?

38. Passing the
Medical
Inspection at Ellis
Island
(Video Clip)
http://www.history.co
m/videos/passing-the-
medical-inspection-at-
ellis-island#passing-
the-medical-
inspection-at-ellis-
island

40. What might these tools have been used for?

41. Do you think the tools were sterilized and cleaned after each
person?

42. What might this tool have been used for?

43. What are they inspecting for?
Eye exam-inspecting for
trachoma a highly contagious eye

44. What might this room have been used for?
What do you notice about this room?
How might it have felt to be in the room?

46. Who Is Acceptable? You
Decide
• 1. 22 year old male college student who has taken part in protests against
his government, but wants to attend college in the U.S. and a good job.
• 2. Daughter of a minor party official in her native land.
• 3. Musician/rock star who lost his hand in an accident.
• 4. Pregnant woman from an underdeveloped nation who wants her baby to
be born and raised in America.
• 5. Medical doctor who speaks no English.
• 6. Farmer and family who have always been poor for his ancestors, as he,
worked marginal lands.
• 7. Military officer who took part in an attempt overthrow of his country’s
government.
• 8. Nuclear physicist who helped third world country to build atomic
weapons.

47. Legal Inspection at Ellis
Island
o A government inspector checked for criminal
history
o Made sure the immigrant would be able to
work
o Also to see if they had some money (at least
$25 after 1909)

48. Manifest
• Activity:
Divide into groups of 3-5. Each
group analyze the passenger
manifest. From the manifest the
group must create a biography of
one person’s life

50. What happens after immigrants
arrive in America?

51. Difficulties Immigrants Face in America
Length of journey: 1-3 weeks on a steamship
Conditions on ship: Crowded, unable to breath, steerage class, diseases spread,
louse infested bunks, shared toilets
At Immigration Inspected, pass a physical examination, government
processing station: inspector to check documents and met legal requirements:
never convicted of a felony (rape, murder, burglary) & show
they had $25

52. Challenges of
Immigration
• Read poems about immigration.
• You, Whoever You Are by Walt
Whitman
• You Have to Live in Somebody
Else’s Country to Understand by
Noy Chou

53. You, whoever you are!...
By Walt Whitman
• All you continentals of Asia, Africa, Europe, Australia, indifferent
of place!
• All you on the numberless islands of the archipelagoes of the sea!
• All you of centuries hence when you listen to me!
• All you each and everywhere whom I specify not, but include just
the same!
• Health to you! good will to you all, from me and America sent!
• Each of us is inevitable,
• Each of us is limitless—each of us with his or her right upon the
earth,
• Each of us allow'd the eternal purports of the earth,
• Each of us here as divinely as any is here.

54. You Have to Live in Somebody Else's
Country to Understand by Noy Chou
What is it like to be an outsider?
What is it like to sit in the class where
everyone has blond hair and you have black
hair?
What is it like when the teacher says,
"Whoever wasn't born here raise your hand."
And you are the only one.
Then, when you raise your hand, everybody
looks at you and makes fun of you.

55. You have to live in somebody else's country to understand.
What is it like when the teacher treats you like you've been
here all your life?
What is it like when the teacher speaks too fast and you are the
only one who can't understand what he or she is saving, and
you try to tell him or her to slow down.
Then when you do, everybody says, "If you don't understand,
go to a lower class or get lost."
You have to live in somebody else's country to understand.
What is it like when you are an opposite?
When you wear the clothes of your country and they think you
are crazy to wear these clothes and you think they are pretty.

56. • You have to live in somebody else's country to understand.
What is it like when you are always a loser.
What is it like when somebody bothers you when you do
nothing to them?
You tell them to stop but they tell you that they didn't do
anything to you. Then, when they keep doing it until you
can't stand it any longer, you go up to the teacher and tell
him or her to tell them to stop bothering you.
They say that they didn't do anything to bother you.
Then the teacher asks the person sitting next to you.
He says, "Yes, she didn't do anything to her" and you have
no witness to turn to.
So the teacher thinks you are a liar.

57. • You have to live in somebody else's country to understand.
What is it like when you try to talk and you don't pronounce
the words right?
They don't understand you.
They laugh at you but you don't know that they are laughing
at you, and you start to laugh with them.
They say, "Are you crazy, laughing at yourself? Go get lost,
girl."
You have to live in somebody else's country without a
language to understand.
What is it like when you walk in the street and everybody
turns around to look at you and you don't know that they are
looking at you.
Then, when you find out, you want to hide your face but
you don't know where to hide because they are everywhere.
You have to live in somebody else's country to feel it.

58. Immigration Poem
• Write a poem about being an
immigrant in America at the turn
of the century. Your poem should
include reference to some of the
challenges immigrants faced being
a new comer to America.

59. Cliff Dwellers (1913)
by George Bellows
• In the early 1900s, urban areas were overcome with
people leaving rural areas and with immigrants new to
the country. The skyrocketing population created
problems in housing, transportation, water, sanitation and
safety. As problems in cities mounted, social reformers
established programs to aid the poor and improve urban
life.

60. Cliff Dwellers
• Why do you think the painting is entitled Cliff
Dwellers?
• How does the artist create the impression of cliffs?
• What aspects of city life are pictured here? (Use
evidence from the painting to support your
response)
• What might be some of the problems of
urbanization?

62. The Good Old Days, They
Were Terrible!
• Skim through “The Good Old Days, They Were
Terrible!”
• Identify a few problems associated with housing,
sanitation, water, transportation, and safety of city
life at the turn of the 19th century.

63. Challenges of
Urbanization

64. What would
you do if a fire
broke out on
the fifth floor
of this
building?
Do you think
the fire escape
was there in
1900?

65. What do you notice about the side of
this building?
What might it have been like living
inside the building?

66. What do we call all of the houses that share an interior wall
like this?
What would happen if there was a fire in one of the homes?

67. What is this type of
home called?
How many people lived
in this home?
What might it have felt
like to live inside it?

69. What is this a
picture of?
How did it work?
What would it be
like to share this
with everyone in
your tenement
building?
What would it smell
like on a hot
summer day?
Where did the
waste go?

71. New York Tenement
Museum
• http://www.tenement.org/Virtual-
Tour/index_virtual.html

72. Challenges of
Urbanization
• Draw a picture or
sketch of what life
was like living in
the cities in
America at the turn
of the century. Your
drawing how should
capture the
problems associated
with city living.

73. Personal Immigration
Experience
• Interview a family member
or friend about their
personal immigration
experience with that of
immigrants at the turn of the
19th century. See discussion
question worksheet.

74. Immigration Political
Cartoons
• Elements of Political
Cartoons
• Symbols
• Words
• Message/meaning
Identify all of the symbols
used in this cartoon?
What does each symbol
mean?
What is the message?