Teaching Immigration through Personal Connections
By Margaret M. Chin, associate professor of sociology at Hunter College and Graduate Center, City University of New York
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Pace University |
Students in New York City are never far removed from
immigration. When I teach the first-year honors seminar
The Peopling of New York at Hunter College (offered
each semester by a rotating group of faculty), I find
it perfectly logical for my students to learn about
immigration by interviewing family and friends who happen
to be immigrants. I ask students to interview an immigrant
acquaintance and to write a short paper discussing their
interview. The assignment requires students to explore
their subjects' migration and adaptation processes and
to reflect on what they learned from the interview experience.
The exercise is beneficial on a number of levels. From an educational standpoint, it teaches students sociological techniques in gathering oral histories and interviewing, and it supplements textbook discussions of immigration history. Particularly for students who are children of immigrants or immigrants themselves, it reinforces how each of their heritages is unique but also common to the U.S. immigrant experience. And for students whose families did not immigrate recently, it personalizes the contemporary immigrant experience and encourages exploration of their family histories to find similar stories.
A primary goal of the course is to help students appreciate the complexities of contemporary immigration. Students are often surprised that immigrants come from every racial, educational, and class background. They come to recognize that today's immigrant population is diverse and often portrayed inaccurately. They learn to discuss immigration policy more thoughtfully and ultimately become more reflective participants in society.
Exploring Sociological Techniques
Sociological research uses many methods to gather information about the past. In academic classes, students usually read and interpret historical documents, census records, and written laws to develop an understanding of the United States' collective immigration history. But these assignments can often seem impersonal. To supplement these tasks, I require students to interview parents, grandparents, or other relatives or friends about their immigration experiences. This oral history-based interview helps students engage on a more personal level with the information they cull from the course texts.
Our study of historical and contemporary immigration patterns informs the open-ended interview script. In class, we work together to craft a set of questions common to all interviews. Within certain guidelines, each student is allowed to customize the script. We review the wording so it is friendly and nonthreatening (for example, to avoid suggesting judgment of interviewees who might have been undocumented at the time of immigration or might have left a professional job for a lower-status position). I encourage students to write down and ask as many follow-up questions as possible while being flexible enough to reorder questions on the spot if interviewees "go off on a tangent."
Students are often amazed at their own ability to conduct interviews. Talkative students stop to listen, and shy students find their voices as they quiz their interviewees. In turn, interviewees respond positively to the students' interest in their lives. They frequently remark that these conversations are the first time they have shared their feelings about the immigration experience with anyone. Thus the interviews can be a rewarding exercise for everyone involved.
Complementing Classroom Materials
| Interview Questions |
We design interviews
to help students learn about immigrants’
lives in their homelands and in the United States,
as well as about the move itself. Students ask
more personal questions of interviewees whom they
know well. General questions include:
- How did you come to the United States? Why did
you choose to immigrate?
- Did you consider moving somewhere else instead?
Why?
- Did you come to the United States to meet family
members? If so, whom?
- Which family members are in the United States
with you now? Which ones came with you at the
time of immigration?
- Which family members are still in your homeland?
How did you decide who would make the trip?
- What kind of work did you do in the homeland,
and what work do you do in the United States?
- In what kind of neighborhood did you live before
immigration, and where do you live now?
- What was your life like before you immigrated,
and how is it different now? Describe a typical
day before you moved and a typical day now.
—Margaret M. Chin
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Learning about historical and contemporary immigration
can seem like memorizing a list of rules and regulations
and a catalog of ethnic groups, some of whom have found
more success than others in the United States. Students
often overlook the sometimes subtle differences between
periods and groups and tend to view those who do not
succeed as exceptions to the rule. But as my students--often
the children of white, black, Latino, and Asian immigrants
from places as widespread as Tajikistan, Jamaica, Ecuador,
and Korea--share their interviews with each other, they
find many deviations from the narrative of uncomplicated
success. Individual interviewees' experiences add a
personal dimension to our learning and enliven class
discussions.
As students present their interviews, the class compares and contrasts interviewees' experiences with the immigration and settlement experiences of earlier majority-European and later majority-Asian and majority-Latino immigrant groups. More often than not, the decision to immigrate, the immigration process, and immigrants' dreams for the future are far more nuanced than what our textbooks suggest. Because of variations in socioeconomic background and other factors, each interviewee describes different worries about what and whom they left behind and what they would encounter in the United States. A variety of factors--English language capabilities, legal challenges to entry, work documentation, and family circumstances--affect the adaptation process, resulting in different opportunities being available to different groups. The interviews help students develop a deeper understanding of these nuances than textbook learning alone.
Learning about Themselves
Students reflect in class on what they discovered through the interview process. While all students learn about the many decisions that lead to a monumental move to the United States, students who interview close relatives often learn for the first time about aspects of their family's experience. Immigrants can be forward-looking as they try to adjust to their new country, and as a result, they may not discuss their immigration experiences with anyone, even the children who may have accompanied them on their journeys. This is not because they want to forget the past, but because it is not a typical topic of discussion for families focused on surviving each day.
Immigrant students are often shocked at details stemming from their interviews. Speaking to family members allows them to learn about themselves and connect with their personal heritage. Most students leave the interviews feeling proud of what their parents or grandparents did to give them better futures, including relinquishing higher-status jobs or more stable lives in exchange for broader opportunities.
Students often express surprise at learning that their parents were in an arranged marriage, that their families had been wealthy or extremely poor before immigrating, or even how the confluence of immigration laws helped bring their families together or keep them apart. Familiarity with family history often brings students closer to their families and gives them a greater understanding of their current situations. Moreover, most students in the class admit that after conducting the interviews, they are more open to learning about their heritage, especially in relation to ethnic and racial history in the United States.
New York City is full of immigrants, and even students who are not themselves immigrants encounter people who are every day. My students often wonder what stories these people might tell. After taking The Peopling of New York, students are drawn to learning more about the city's immigrants, and they often continue their learning through discussions with family members and even with strangers. As an educator, I find it refreshing to hear about this continual success of the course and its methods.
