Immigration and Migration and the Making of a Modern American City

Objectives

The unit will utilize fictional film and contemporary television show excerpts about the experience of immigrants and migrants as a vehicle for analysis of the global city concept. Students will examine the films' portrayal of who the immigrants are in London and Los Angeles, why immigrants migrated, where immigrants live in these global cities, how their labor is utilized, and the varying experience of immigrants depending on race, class, gender and nationality. In addition to film analysis, students will augment their study with primary source oral histories, maps, photos and secondary source analyses of both film theory, urban history, and the history of immigration and migration to these global cities. Students will develop skills in reading and comprehending scholarly secondary sources and analyzing a variety of primary documents. This unit aims to aid students in interpreting and forming arguments around these sources so they personally connect with globalization's impact on immigration/migration. The culminating project enables students to further incorporate sources into their own historical arguments, thereby moving away from such traditional positions around immigration as: we are all immigrants in a nation of immigrants, immigration is a "problem", the unexamined belief in the promise of equal opportunity, and the inevitability of cultural assimilation, to positions reflecting a deeper appreciation of how global capitalism has shaped the varying experiences of immigrants and the receiving population in the global city.

AP World History teachers should note that this unit is useful in satisfying the particular requirements of the course. In fact, the film analysis of immigration and migration to L.A. and London outlined here will serve as a focused case study enabling students to develop historical understanding and to conceive arguments that will come out of delving into each city's unique history and national and imperial pasts. Students will then be able to compare and contrast the histories of global migration to L.A. and London and see connecting threads of the continuity and change over time in world history. In addition, themes such as development and interaction of cultures, (i.e. encounters between immigrants and the receiving population) the development of economic systems, (industrialization, deindustrialization, and the recent shift to a service economy) globalizing, (the global assembly line) and networks of communication and exchange (i.e. film as communicator of ideas) are clearly addressed. Finally, Social Studies Common Core and Pennsylvania Core Standards 8.5.11-12G in which students "integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g. visually, quantitatively, as well as in words) in order to address a question or solve a problem" ⁴ especially applies due to the focus on visual sources in this unit.