Korean American Digital Archive

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Thousands of primary materials, including documents compiled by Korean American organizations, personal papers, more than 1,900 photographs, and around 180 interviews, address the experiences of Koreans in the United States between 1903 and 1965 on this website. The materials run the gamut from organizational memos and other official documents to personal letters, wedding programs, birth certificates, and social security check stubs.

This material allows users to piece together the life histories of individual Korean Americans. They will find individuals like Soon Hyun, an activist in the Korean resistance movement against Japanese colonialism in 1919, who later moved to the United States and became a minister in Hawaii. Or Florence Ahn, a Korean American who became a prominent singer in Los Angeles. These personal biographies, in turn, allow users to examine the human dimension of the history of Asian Americans, and place individuals within a larger history.

WRA Photographs of Japanese-American Evacuation and Resettlement

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This site contains 6,834 digital images related to Japanese American internment during World War II. The War Relocation Authority exhibited these photographs to present the camps in a positive light.

Users can view the site three ways: "Standard" provides a collection summary; "Entire Finding Aid" lists the series descriptions in more detail; "Online Items" lists all 6,834 images complete with a thumbnail and brief description for each image.

Visitors can also search by keyword, though the search works differently depending on which view is being used. The easiest way to use the search is to choose the "Online Items" view, in which a search for "school" will list images with "school" in the description.

Images in the collection come from a number of relocation centers throughout the country, including ones in Colorado, Arizona, Wyoming, and Arkansas.

"Scope and Content" is a 250-word explanation of the site's contents with a brief paragraph about the historical significance of the photographs.

Discovering Angel Island: The Story Behind the Poems

Teaser

Learn about the experiences of immigrants detained at Angel Island and how this impacted their opinion of the US.

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Description

Students explore the immigrant experience at Angel Island through the analysis of poetry written by immigrants during detention at the San Francisco Bay island.

Article Body

Many U.S. history classrooms devote significant time to understanding the immigrant experience. In teaching the immigrant experience, however, many classrooms focus exclusively on European immigration through Ellis Island. This lesson, The Story Behind the Poems, provides students with an excellent opportunity to learn about Asian immigration through Angel Island, and the ways in which the Asian immigrant experience differed from the European immigrant experience. The topics covered in this lesson would be an excellent addition to a unit on immigration, and would couple nicely with lessons on Chinese Exclusion and nativism in the West. The lesson first provides students with excellent historical background through an on-line video about Angel Island. The lesson then positions students to better understand the Asian immigrant experience through an analysis of poetry left by Asian immigrants on the cell walls of Angel Island. The poetry analysis allows students to connect with the words of the immigrants and hone the skill of analyzing the perspective of an author in a literary piece from the past. The lesson is highly structured and provides plenty of guidance for teachers who are not experienced in using poems as primary historical documents. The lesson includes sample questions to pose with students while analyzing the poems and also provides students with a graphic organizer to help them organize their thoughts as they prepare to write a reflection on a poem.

Topic
Immigration; Asian American history; western settlement
Time Estimate
1-2 50-minute periods
flexibility_scale
4
Rubric_Content_Accurate_Scholarship

Yes The background and resources are historically accurate and contain links to supplementary materials.

Rubric_Content_Historical_Background

Yes A high-quality video introduces students to the immigrant experience at Angel Island and is also a great resource for teachers who are teaching about Angel Island for the first time. Comparative immigration timelines are also excellent resources.

Rubric_Content_Read_Write

Yes Students interpret poems and write a reflection on the meaning of the poem and the perspective of the author.

Rubric_Analytical_Construct_Interpretations

Yes

Rubric_Analytical_Close_Reading_Sourcing

Yes The poetry analysis requires close attention to meaning and intent.

Rubric_Scaffolding_Appropriate

Yes This lesson is appropriate for the students in late elementary to early middle school.

Rubric_Scaffolding_Supports_Historical_Thinking

Yes Materials include teacher guidelines for helping students analyze the poems and a graphic organizer to help students organize and focus their thoughts about the poems.

Rubric_Structure_Assessment

No Students are assessed based on in-class discussion and a written reflection about the poems. However, the lesson does not provide specific criteria for assessing performance on the reflection.

Rubric_Structure_Realistic

Yes The lesson-plan is clear and can be easily adapted to a wide variety of classroom settings.

Rubric_Structure_Learning_Goals

Yes The lesson aims to 1) teach about the Angel Island experience, and 2) provide opportunities to analyze and interpret poetry. The lesson progresses logically to these goals.

Reading and Thinking Aloud to Understand

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Article Body

This 11th-grade honors U.S. history class, using Reading Apprenticeship techniques developed by WestEd, shows students engaged in the process of reading primary source documents as a means of better understanding the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. The students in this video are in an honors classroom. The class is in an ethnically, linguistically, and economically diverse school in a high immigrant, rural community. This video provides examples of two promising practices:

  • Putting students in pairs to conduct "read aloud/think aloud" work
  • Providing students with strategic vocabulary for reading primary sources
Content

Students in this lesson are in the middle of a week-long unit on Japanese American internment. Focusing on the question of the constitutionality of relocating and interning these citizens, students read several primary source documents, including the Constitution and opinions from Korematsu vs. the United States, a 1944 Supreme Court case challenging the internment.

Read Aloud/Think Aloud

Students work together in pairs to summarize excerpts from the Constitution relevant to the internment. They take turns reading aloud to each other and talk through the process of reading. As they do, they verbalize their reading and thinking processes, defining terms, connecting the text to prior knowledge, analyzing the meaning of the text, and asking questions about difficult passages as they go.

Strategic Vocabulary

Before, during, and after her students read, the instructor signals key terms that need definition (e.g., ex post fact, bill of attainder, vested). While the read aloud/think aloud strategy helps students make sense of difficult texts, they still need assistance with advanced language and sophisticated concepts. By identifying and defining key terms for students, the instructor helps them decode the documents.

What's Notable?

Many teachers ask students to read primary source documents. But students often struggle with complex language and difficult concepts, often missing the connection with the material they are studying. What makes this class unique is the way the instructor structures the class in order to support student reading.

Civil Rights and Incarceration

Teaser

What were the consequences of and motivations for Japanese American removal during World War II?

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Description

Students analyze the consequences of the removal of Japanese Americans in the western United States to relocation centers during World War II.

Article Body

In this lesson students view and take notes on a 10-minute newsreel describing the evacuation and relocation of Japanese Americans from western states during World War II. Students analyze the movie using a handout. Questions focus students' attention on analyzing the government's case for the necessity of the incarceration. This newsreel activity and a set of introductory readings, pictures, and interviews make up the recommended core of the lesson. Most of the remaining eight activities, by contrast, illustrate the Japanese American perspective on the incarceration. Each activity is organized around a different type of primary source, including photographs, diaries, autobiographies, poetry, and theater. Classroom activities range from analyzing textual and visual sources to performing scripted dramatic readings. Some activities include potentially challenging reading material, but teachers can tailor the lesson to the needs of their students by choosing from the many options available. We think that teachers will appreciate the diversity, high quality, clear presentation, and emotional resonance of the materials provided by this lesson.

Topic
Japanese American Internment; World War II; Civil Rights
Time Estimate
1-6 class sessions (or longer)
flexibility_scale
5
Rubric_Content_Accurate_Scholarship

Yes Materials used in the lesson have been well researched. Content and materials on the Densho site are very thorough. Check out other resources and causes of incarceration.

Rubric_Content_Historical_Background

Yes Students are required to study an introductory section, The Incarceration Years, before beginning film analysis.

Rubric_Content_Read_Write

Yes Newsreel activity requires students write a film review. Optional activities may include reading primary sources and offer additional writing assignments.

Rubric_Analytical_Construct_Interpretations

Yes Constructing interpretations and evidence-based judgments about the incarceration is central to most of the activities.

Rubric_Analytical_Close_Reading_Sourcing

Yes Each activity is organized around a different type of source. Much of the lesson encourages students to think critically about what can be learned from different source materials.

Rubric_Scaffolding_Appropriate

Yes The basic newsreel and introductory activities would be appropriate for any high school class. Other activities range in difficulty, including some that would challenge Advanced Placement history students.

Rubric_Scaffolding_Supports_Historical_Thinking

Yes A variety of worksheets and suggested discussion questions are provided to scaffold student thinking.

Rubric_Structure_Assessment

No Not all activities include assessment strategies.

Rubric_Structure_Realistic

Yes The lesson provides clear directions. Detailed advice on how to use the lesson in any classroom is provided on the site.

Rubric_Structure_Learning_Goals

Yes Learning objectives are explicitly stated.

American Radicalism Collection

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This website contains 129 pamphlets, documents, and newsletters produced by or relevant to radical movements. Groups represented by one to 30 documents include the American Indian Movement; Asian Americans; the Black Panthers; the Hollywood Ten; the Ku Klux Klan, the IWW, and the Students for a Democratic Society. Additional situations covered include the Rosenberg case, Sacco and Vanzetti, and the Scottsboro Boys. Additional topics include birth control and the events at Wounded Knee. This is a small but useful resource on radicalism, political movements, and rhetoric.

USC Archival Research Center

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These varied collections document the history of Los Angeles and southern California. "Digital Archives" offer more than 126,000 photographs, maps, manuscripts, texts, and sound recordings in addition to exhibits. Nearly 1,200 images of artifacts from early Chinese American settlements in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara are available, as is the entire run of El Clamor Publico, the city's main Spanish-language newspaper from the 1850s. Photographs document Japanese American relocation during World War II and photographs, documents, and oral history audio files record Korean-American history. The archive also includes Works Projects Administration Land Use survey maps and Auto Club materials. A related exhibit, "Los Angeles: Past, Present, and Future", offers collections on additional topics, including discovery and settlement, California missions, electric power, "murders, crimes, and scandals," city neighborhoods, cemeteries, Disneyland, African American gangs, and the Red Car lines.

Chinese in California, 1850-1925

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These 8,000 items document the immigrant experience of Chinese who settled in California during the 19th and early 20th centuries. Materials include photographs, letters, diaries, speeches, business records, legal documents, pamphlets, sheet music, cartoons, and artwork.

Access is provided through nine galleries, each containing an introductory essay and 70 to 575 items. Four galleries present materials on San Francisco's Chinatown, including architectural space, business and politics, community life, and appeal to outsiders. Additional galleries deal with Chinese involvement in U.S. expansion westward; communities outside San Francisco; agricultural, fishing and related industries; the anti-Chinese movement and Chinese exclusion; and sentiments concerning the Chinese. Visitors may search by keyword, name, subject, title, group, and theme. The site will be useful for studying ethnic history, labor history, and the history of the West as well as Chinese-American history.

Museum of the City of San Francisco

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These 11 exhibits address the history of California and San Francisco. Topics include the Gold Rush of 1849; earthquakes of 1906 and 1989; the history of the city's fire department; construction of the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges; and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. These exhibits provide timelines and links to more than 200 primary documents and images, including newspaper articles, diary entries, oral histories, photographs, political cartoons, and engravings. Two exhibits are hyperlinked chronologies pertaining to San Francisco during World War II and the rock music scene in the city from 1965 to 1969.

Documents can be accessed according to subject, with more than 25 documents listed on the Chinese-American community, fairs and expositions, and labor issues. The site also contains more than 150 biographies of prominent San Franciscans.