Challenges & Opportunities of Teaching Early American Immigration

As we point out in this module, 99% of all Americans today are either immigrants or the descendents of immigrants. In addition, most of the questions surrounding immigration in the nineteenth century are still with us today. For these reasons, you should take this opportunity to explore this topic in both a historical and contemporary context.

You might also consider breaking away from a strict chronological approach and process this module in combination with our second immigration module: Immigration: Era of Restriction. Some of the activities we recommend in that module, such as the personal immigration history exercise, would be more effective if the material from this module is still fresh in your students’ minds.