Asian American History and the Making of the U.S. Immigration System

Teaching Strategies

Objects hold our memories of the past. They can share our dreams of the future. We collect and display them, hide them away, or give them as gifts. Yet, such objects also raise questions. Do we know the whole story? How and to whom do we tell our histories?

-Erika Lee⁴¹

This quote is the first thing you read when opening up the book “Smithsonian Asian Pacific American History, Art, and Culture in 101 Objects.”⁴² Erika Lee, co-writer of Angel Island: Immigrant Gateway to America, starts the forward with these powerful words and describes the significance of things, but not in terms of their financial value, but their value as physical representations of our lives which mark that we were here. Through her words, one can see the importance of objects as a treasure trove of both information and inquiry. To hold something and examine it, to turn it over in your hand and look closer, is to see a time and place where such things existed and to move one step closer to understanding the people who existed in those times and places.

The overall teaching strategy in this unit is active and experiential learning through hands-on activities. Students will participate in hands-on, project based activities that allow them to engage with some type of artifact. In other words, each activity will have them either create something based on an artifact they touched or participate in another type of physical activity, such as dancing and singing or make something with their hands, like a pattern for a piece of fabric.

This unit consists of a group of lessons which highlight an aspect of Asian or Pacific Islander culture that is tangible in order to answer the essential question: What are the ways to celebrate Asian American & Pacific Islander cultures? Students will either handle an artifact (or replica) and/or create an artifact. There will be postcards, fabrics, food, spices, and poems.

Additional and alternative materials could be used as objects in this unit, so please do not see this limited grouping as the only possibility. The goal is to put things in students’ hands. There could be a lesson on the history, geography, and variety of chopsticks and allowing students to try them.  Teachers could allow students to learn surf lingo and practice moves on a surfboard (i.e. towel or yoga mat on the floor). Students could paint a cherry blossom tree using a stamping method/ wood block or paper that the students made in the style of the first paper that was made in China. From origami to playing Kumu Hula Says (Simon Says) to hula dancing, a luau as a celebration of Asian American and Pacific Islander culture using actual objects can be an amazing learning opportunity for students!