How Angelique Molloy Teaches Immigration

Southern California provides an ideal backdrop for teaching immigration. Everywhere my students look, they are able to see the presence and impact of immigrants upon Los Angeles. A number of my students' family members are immigrants and they are quite proud of the fact that the United States is a nation of immigrants. By teaching immigration, I am able to foster the celebration of immigrants' positive impact upon our society as well as the themes of tolerance and multiculturalism.

The 4th grade social studies curriculum focuses on California history. We begin, thousands of years ago with nomads from Asia who crossed over land bridges onto the North American continent. My students are able to see that these early nomadic people were actually the first immigrants in the New World. Beginning with these early hunters who were in search of food, I encourage my students to look at people's reasons for immigrating. Next, we study Spanish explorers and conquistadors and look at their impact upon the New World-this time in search of land for colonies and riches. Later, the California Gold Rush period provides a backdrop for California's first large-scale influx of European and Asian immigrants in search of gold and entrepreneurial opportunities.

So, with California history as our starting point, the students are ready to embark upon an in-depth immigration unit. Using a variety of immigration related books, the students become better acquainted with the theme of immigration. I find that my fourth graders respond best to fictional picture books because they are able to visualize the stories and imagine themselves from the perspective of the characters. In addition, they greatly enjoy nonfiction titles that are rich with photographs and images of artifacts. In class, the students also respond to the titles and complete a variety of summary and main idea activities. Meanwhile, at home, students discuss their ancestry with their parents. In class, we celebrate our diversity through parents sharing and presenting their cultural traditions, as well tasting a variety of cultural foods, listening to ethnic music and looking at art from around the world. In addition, we are able to take field trips to destinations such as Los Angeles' original pueblo, Olvera Street, and Chinatown.

The culminating project for the immigration unit begins with each student interviewing an immigrant. I help to provide my students with a variety of tips in order to conduct a fruitful interview. Following the interview, the students reveal their findings with the class by sharing their interviewees' stories and photographs. Based upon the students' findings from their interview, they create narrative essays written from the perspective of the interviewees. In addition, the students write poems representing the experiences of immigrants. During the writing process, I encourage each student to imagine themselves in the shoes of his/her interviewee. Using empathy, the students imagine the emotions and feelings of immigrants.

From the immigration unit, it is clear that the students learn so much about the difficulties and challenges immigrants go through. Most importantly, they learn that immigrants contribute to our society in many ways. At our culminating Immigration Celebration event, parents and interviewees attend in order to hear the students recite their essays and poems, as well as to see the students' art projects.

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