What does it mean to be an American?

We will be spending the rest of the spring learning about immigration in the United States from the late 1800s onward in social studies. This unit will build awareness of the history of immigration in our country and explore the impact of immigration on the diversity and changing face of America. We will begin by looking at our own classroom and our diverse backgrounds, and then move more into the history and current issues surrounding immigration.



Unit Highlights:

* Migrant Worker Service Learning Project - The 8th grade students in the immersion program at Hamilton MS have asked us to join them in a service learning project that will benefit workers at a local migrant labor camp. We have already started learning about the migrant labor experience, and will be creating informative posters and skits to teach the other kids at JSIS about the issues. We will also be doing a sock drive that will supplement a food drive the students at Hamilton will be doing. Students are already working hard gathering ideas and starting to organize for the sock drive (sock drive scheduled to begin May 6th or 7th)

* Ellis Island Simulation - Students will each take on the role of either an immigrant or immigration officer from Ellis Island in the early 1900s. Immigrants will be creating personal passports and will complete a set of immigration papers they will present to the officers. The officers will also create a mini profile (similar to the passports) and will be responsible for turning our room into the Ellis Island immigrant receiving rooms. On Friday, May 8th, our immigrants will arrive at Ellis Island and our officers will evaluate the documentation and determine who will be allowed to stay, and who will need to return to their home countries, based on a realistic evaluation process.

* Civics CBA - As a state requirement, students will also complete civics Classroom Based Assessment. Students will research two positions on a public issue and then write a persuasive paper, stating a position on the issue and how it relates to a right or the common good. Currently there is a lot happening in our nation with immigration reform, so we will be choosing an issue based on what is currently happening in Washington DC. We will investigate the Dream Act 2009, unless there is new breaking news about a different reform plan over the next few weeks.

* Immigrant Interview - As the culminating project for this unit and for the year, students will select a family member, friend, neighbor, or a member of the JSIS staff who is a first generation immigrant, and conduct an interview about their experience. Students will then create posters that share this personal story of immigration, and compare this experience to that of an early immigrant at Ellis Island. On Friday June 5th we will have an informal poster sharing time around the room from 10:15 to 11:25. Families are welcome to come and participate in this event if you would like.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

New York Times Articles

Deportation Delayed for ‘Dream Act’ Campaign Focus

By JULIA PRESTON
Published: July 2, 2009

Immigration authorities have postponed for one year the deportation of Walter Lara, an immigrant from Argentina who said he had come to the United States illegally with his parents when he was 3, officials said. Mr. Lara, an honors graduate of high school and community college in Miami, was the focus of a campaign by supporters of proposed legislation known as the Dream Act, which would grant legal status to young illegal immigrants who have lived for years in the United States. Lawmakers including Senator Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, wrote a letter on his behalf. Mr. Lara was scheduled to be deported on July 6.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/03/us/03brfs-DEPORTATIOND_BRF.html?scp=2&sq=&st=nyt


Graduation Dreams

Editorial
Published: June 23, 2009

We were caught between exhilaration and despair on Tuesday as we watched more than 500 young people in caps and gowns gather in a park a few steps from the United States Capitol. It was a graduation, but it wasn’t. There were awards, but no diplomas. And while there was talk of bright futures, the speeches were threaded with notes of impatience and defiance and made clear that those hopes were in no way assured.

That is because all of the students are in this country illegally. They were rallying to support the Dream Act, a bill in Congress that would open a path to citizenship for undocumented high school graduates who complete two years of college or military service.

These students came here as minors, hitched to their parents’ aspirations for a better life. But once they graduated from high school, they found their choices restricted to the same dead-end jobs and shadowed lives that their parents live.

The Dream Act, their best hope, has languished since it was first introduced in 2001, welded in recent years to comprehensive immigration reform bills that have gone nowhere. The all-or-nothing comprehensive strategy holds that if a bipartisan immigration bill doesn’t contain the right mix of sweeteners like the Dream Act to offset hard-line enforcement measures, it won’t attract enough votes to pass.

That strategy hasn’t worked but backers are hoping that President Obama will lead the way. The youthful grass-roots advocates from more than a dozen states who rallied on Tuesday share that hope, but they also know they are running out of time. They are getting older, and their window of eligibility for relief is closing.

One speaker, Walter Lara, 23, who graduated from college with honors, was caught by immigration in Miami. He is scheduled to be deported to Buenos Aires on July 6.

Just to talk with him and his fellow advocates who came up with him from Florida is to see an inspiring wealth of potential — with no place to go. They are from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Peru. They all went to community college. But because they are here illegally, they got no financial aid or in-state tuition (they paid $800 per class, instead of $250) or loans or work-study jobs.

They want to go into international relations, psychology, chemistry, engineering, mass communications, political science. But one is a handyman; the others work in restaurants and as church volunteers. The drive to Washington took them 18 hours. They looked tired, solemn, defiant, hopeful in the way young people have that banishes cynicism. They seemed incredulous that a message they grew up with — work hard, stay in school, study and you will succeed — does not apply to them.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/24/opinion/24wed2.html?scp=3&sq=dream+act&st=nyt
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