A Nation of Immigrants: Understanding Our Own Family Backgrounds
Have you ever thought about where your family comes from? Unless you are full blooded Native American, your family had to come from somewhere other than America. Even if you are Native American you can still trace the lineage back to where the first Americans crossed over the land bridge connecting Asia to North America through Alaska.
Today you are going to explore your own background as well as learn why people make the decision to immigrate.
Vocabulary
Before exploring your own background, please copy down these terms in your notebook. We will be coming back to them constantly for the rest of the year so it is important to understand what they mean.
Immigration: the action of coming to live permanently in a foreign country.
Ethnicity:the fact or state of belonging to a social group that has a common national or cultural tradition.
Illegal Immigrant:a foreigner who has entered or resides in a country unlawfully or without the country's authorization.
Visa:an endorsement on a passport indicating that the holder is allowed to enter, leave, or stay for a specified period of time in a country.
Green Card: (in the US) a permit allowing a foreign national to live and work permanently in the US.
Race vs. Ethnicity
You may have heard these two terms before and you may know that they relate to each other but for our purposes it is important to understand their differences. Please read the short article below to help you gain an understanding of the differences between Race and Ethnicity.
Once you have read the article, please write your own definitions for race and ethnicity in your notebook. (Be prepared to have your notebook checked by me on Wednesday.)
Your Own Background
For the second part of the lesson you may work with each other to brainstorm facts about your family history but please make sure that you all pass in separate assignments.
Now, please open a pages document or google docs, which ever one you prefer. On the google doc please write as much as you possibly can about yourself and your family. You can share this with others or you can keep it to yourself if you would like. Please include the following:
Race
Ethnicity
Cultural traditions you celebrate (holidays)
Traditional Meals your family still eats
Original location of your family before coming to the U.S.
Religion (if you have one. If you do not, feel free not to include this part)
Physical Characteristics
Favorite Music (traditional or modern)
Favorite Art
Favorite TV Show
Favorite Movie
Any characteristics that make you unique. (Places you identify with such as ELHS as a Red Eddie)
When you are done, please copy and paste your answers into this link: www.wordle.net/create
This will create a collage of all the words and show which ones you said the most. You need to do this using Chrome otherwise you cannot download adobe which is what makes it work!!
If the Wordle does not work, or if you would rather draw, you may draw your own culture shield to represent who you are as a person and where you family background stems from! Below is a picture of my own family crest that represents the McLean's.