What is it?

Immigration is a hotly contested issue that brings up strong reactions on both sides. Immigrants form communities that are integrated with communities of other immigrants and Americans who were born in the U.S. They live in cities and in rural areas and in all regions of the country. Increasingly they come from all over the world. This guide supports students as they examine sources related to immigration from Asia and look for connections and commonalities between these communities and their own.      

Key points:

• This activity will take one 90-minute period or two 45-minute periods. It is appropriate for a high school U.S. history or government classroom, but can be modified for a variety of learners.
• Students will analyze, interpret, and evaluate primary sources. 
• Students will learn more about the variety of immigrants who have made their home in the United States. 
• Guiding Question: What can we learn about photographs of immigrant communities from Asia in the U.S.?  

Introduction

Immigration is a commonly taught topic in United States history courses especially in the 19th century through the early 20th century, but there are fewer resources available on immigration from the 1960s to the present day. In addition, the resources that exist mostly focus on immigration from Mexico and Latin America. Immigration from Asia has been a major portion of immigrants to the United States especially since 2000. Immigrants from China, India, the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, South Korea, Bangladesh among many other nations are not a monolith. Some came under visas designed to attract immigrants for specific professional jobs while others are refugees fleeing civil war or repressive governments. Economic hardship in their home countries was also a “push” factor. These immigrants have settled in many different areas in the United States as well changing communities in a variety of ways as immigrants have always done. This is a nuanced history and in this guide students will examine primary sources consisting of photographs from the communities where immigrants from Asia have settled in the United States. Using close analysis students will find patterns and themes so that they better understand the impact and contributions of this growing segment of immigrants. 

Hook/Bellringer

Post the following question on the board: According to the American Immigration Council there are 44.9 million immigrants (foreign-born individuals) living in the United States, can you guess the top five countries these individuals come from?

This could be set up via a number of online quiz tools like Kahoot or just on the white board with paper obscuring the answers. An unlabeled bar graph indicating the percentages below would work well too. 

Provide students with a “bank” of possible countries. Such as Germany, Italy, Brazil, China, Russia, Mexico, Argentina, Cuba, India, Nigeria, Egypt, Philippines, Australia, El Salvador.  

1. Mexico (24 percent of immigrants)
2. India (6 percent)
3. China (5 percent)
4. Philippines (4 percent)
5. El Salvador (3 percent)

Give the students a chance to guess and reveal answers as they are named. If they can not name all of them, give them 5 or so chances, and then reveal the rest of the answers. 

Note that after Mexico the next three countries of origin are Asian countries. It might also be helpful to point these countries out on a map. 

Brief discussion: What about this list surprises you? Are there countries that are higher than you thought? Lower? 

Inform the class that immigration from Asia has been increasing as a percentage of overall immigration to the United States. It wasn’t until the 2000s that more than one Asian country was even a top ten country of origin for immigrants to the U.S. In the next activity they will learn more about how immigration from Asia has changed the United States. 

Primary Source Analysis - Community Connections

The primary sources below are all photographs that depict Asian immigrant communities in the United States. They include photos of people engaged in a wide variety of activities including playing cards, selling and buying clothes, getting a haircut, playing chess, buying food, celebrating, socializing. There are also a variety of buildings including markets, restaurants, houses of worship, clothing stores, nail salons, laundromats, pharmacies, hardware stores and more. Together they provide a glimpse into the variety of ways individuals from the largest continent on earth have made their homes in the United States. The goal of engaging with these sources is for students to make connections between the activities that occur in their communities with what they see in these photographs of immigrant communities. 

1. Make the photos available to students either through links or by printing them out and arranging at different stations in the classroom. 
2. Have students select three photographs and complete the Primary Source Analysis Tool for each. [A Library of Congress Teacher’s Guide for analyzing photographs can be found here.]  Further tips for examining sources:
   1. Encourage students to slow down and examine the photos carefully
   2. Zoom in on the photos and take note of details. 
   3. What words do they see - either in English or another language?
   4. What products are for sale in the stores?
   5. Are there people in the photos? What do they appear to be doing?
3. Once they’ve completed their 3 analysis sheets, put them in pairs and small groups. Working together they will come up with connections between the photos and their own communities. Encourage students to think creatively. There might not be a Hindu temple in their community, but what places of worship are there? People might not gather to play cards, but what do they do for leisure and to socialize? Have one student per group compile a list of these Community Connections. 
4. After working in their groups for 15 minutes, the groups can share out with the class the connections they made. 

Primary Sources

 Kim, a Korean immigrant, showing a suit to Michael, Jinny's, Broadway, Gary, IN | Library of Congress | www.loc.gov/item/2022650724/

Vietnamese immigrants playing cards outside Tan Phat Noodle House, 3301 Westfield Ave., Camden, NJ 2015 | Library of Congress | www.loc.gov/item/2020698722/

Hookah lounge in Hamtramck, Michigan. Known in the 20th century as a vibrant center of Polish-American life and culture, Hamtramck has continued to attract immigrants, especially Yemenis and Bangladeshis. Hookah lounges are places where patrons share communal hookahs, or water pipes | Library of Congress | www.loc.gov/item/2020722865/

A Middle Eastern-themed interior design shop in Hamtramck, Michigan. Known in the 20th century as a vibrant center of Polish-American life and culture, Hamtramck has continued to attract immigrants, especially Yemenis and Bangladeshis | Library of Congress | www.loc.gov/item/2020722860/

A barber named Hani gives a customer, Ali, (both gave only their first names) a haircut in Hamtramck, Michigan. Known in the 20th century as a vibrant center of Polish-American life and culture, Hamtramck has continued to attract immigrants, especially Yemenis and Bangladeshis | Library of Congress | www.loc.gov/item/2020722862/

Store in Hamtramck, Michigan, selling clothing, including burqas, or enveloping outer garment worn by women in some Islamic traditions. Known in the 20th century as a vibrant center of Polish-American life and culture, Hamtramck has continued to attract immigrants, especially Yemenis and Bangladeshis | Library of Congress | www.loc.gov/item/2020722864

Nail-care shop in Hamtramck, Michigan. Known in the 20th century as a vibrant center of Polish-American life and culture, Hamtramck has continued to attract immigrants, especially Yemenis and Bangladeshis. In 2015, its city council became the first city council in the United States with a majority of the members of the Muslim faith | Library of Congress| www.loc.gov/item/2020722863/

The Makka Hi Fruit Market in Hamtramck, Michigan. Known in the 20th century as a vibrant center of Polish-American life and culture, Hamtramck has continued to attract immigrants, especially Yemenis and Bangladeshis. In 2015, its city council became the first city council in the United States with a majority of the members of the Muslim faith | Library of Congress | www.loc.gov/item/2020722869/

A colorful tire shop in Hamtramck, Michigan. Known in the 20th century as a vibrant center of Polish-American life and culture, Hamtramck has continued to attract immigrants, especially Yemenis and Bangladeshis. In 2015, its city council became the first city council in the United States with a majority of the members of the Muslim faith | Library of Congress | www.loc.gov/item/2020722824/

The Al-Qamar pizza parlor in Hamtramck, Michigan. Known in the 20th century as a vibrant center of Polish-American life and culture, Hamtramck has continued to attract immigrants, especially Yemenis and Bangladeshis. In 2015, its city council became the first city council in the United States with a majority of the members of the Muslim faith | Library of Congress |  www.loc.gov/item/2020722826/

Burk's Igloo ice-cream stand in Hamtramck, Michigan. Known in the 20th century as a vibrant center of Polish-American life and culture, Hamtramck has continued to attract immigrants, especially Yemenis and Bangladeshis. In 2015, its city council became the first city council in the United States with a majority of the members of the Muslim faith - original digital file | Library of Congress |  www.loc.gov/resource/highsm.60598/

Masjidun-Nur, a Muslim place of worship in Hamtramck, Michigan. Known in the 20th century as a vibrant center of Polish-American life and culture, Hamtramck has continued to attract immigrants, especially Yemenis and Bangladeshis. In 2015, its city council became the first city council in the United States with a majority of the members of the Muslim faith | Library of Congress | www.loc.gov/item/2020722828/

Clothing store in Hamtramck, Michigan. Note the welcoming sign in three languages in the window. Known in the 20th century as a vibrant center of Polish-American life and culture, Hamtramck has continued to attract immigrants, especially Yemenis and Bangladeshis. In 2015, its city council became the first city council in the United States with a majority of the members of the Muslim faith | Library of Congress | www.loc.gov/item/2020722866/

Crivijit, originally from India, working for Uber, Myrtle Ave. at Wyckoff Ave., Brooklyn | Library of Congress | www.loc.gov/item/2021653446/ 

The Hindu Temple and Cultural Center, near the town of Madrid in Boone County, Iowa | Library of Congress |  www.loc.gov/item/2016630539/

One of several elaborate carvings outside the Hindu Temple and Cultural Center, near the town of Madrid in Boone County, Iowa | Library of Congress | www.loc.gov/item/2016630538/

The OK Boss Asian grocery stores in Windom, Minnesota. As of 2020, Asian restaurants and stores proliferated in small, southern Minnesota towns | Library of Congress | www.loc.gov/item/2020723773/

Chinese food shops in the Lakewood neighborhood, Chicago, Illinois | Library of Congress | www.loc.gov/resource/afc1981004.145/?sp=1

Yoga studio in the Lakewood neighborhood, Chicago, Illinois | Library of Congress | www.loc.gov/resource/afc1981004.145/?sp=11

 Chinese women playing cards. Bayard St. and Baxter St., Chinatown, Manhattan | Library of Congress |  www.loc.gov/item/2022642962/

Elderly men playing Chinese chess. Columbus Park, Bayard St., Chinatown, Manhattan | Library of Congress | www.loc.gov/item/2022885526/

Jolllybee, Filipino Restaurant, 609 8th Ave., Manhattan | Library of Congress | www.loc.gov/item/2021643708/

Filipino street vendors, 67-12 Roosevelt Ave., Queens | Library of Congress | www.loc.gov/item/2022885550/

Baptism celebration, Kabayan Bistro, a Filipino Lounge, 6909 Roosevelt Ave., Queens | Library of Congress | www.loc.gov/item/2024696323/

The Fil Am float, representing the Filipino American Association of Portland & Vicinity, Inc., passes by in the Fred Meyer Junior Parade, one several events in Portland, Oregon's, annual Rose Festival | Library of Congress | www.loc.gov/item/2018699497/

Vietnamese laundromat and Pizzeria, Saunders St. at N. 27th St., Camden, NJ, 2023 | Library of Congress |  www.loc.gov/item/2024695773/

Vietnamese laundromat and Mexican Taqueria, Saunders St. at N. 27th St., Camden NJ, 2006 | Library of Congress |  www.loc.gov/item/2020702024/

Korean musicians, Broad St. at Market St., Newark, NJ | Library of Congress | www.loc.gov/item/2021635295/

Entrance sign at the Assi Plaza Asian grocery and Korean and Chinese specialty store in the Flushing neighborhood of the New York City borough, or county-like jurisdiction, of Queens | Library of Congress | www.loc.gov/item/2018701181/

Scene in Lower Manhattan's Chinatown neighborhood in New York City | Library of Congress | www.loc.gov/item/2018699994/

Scene in Lower Manhattan's Chinatown neighborhood in New York City | Library of Congress | www.loc.gov/item/2018699995/

Scene in Lower Manhattan's Chinatown neighborhood in New York City | Library of Congress | www.loc.gov/item/2018699996/

Scene in Lower Manhattan's Chinatown neighborhood in New York City | Library of Congress | www.loc.gov/item/2018699997/

Scene in Lower Manhattan's Chinatown neighborhood in New York City | Library of Congress | www.loc.gov/item/2018699998/

Scene in Lower Manhattan's Chinatown neighborhood in New York City | Library of Congress |  www.loc.gov/item/2018700000/

Scene in Lower Manhattan's Chinatown neighborhood in New York City | Library of Congress | www.loc.gov/item/2018700001/

Scene in Lower Manhattan's Chinatown neighborhood in New York City | Library of Congress | www.loc.gov/item/2018699941/

Fish market in Lower Manhattan's Chinatown neighborhood in New York City | Library of Congress | www.loc.gov/item/2018699985/

Produce stand in Lower Manhattan's Chinatown neighborhood in New York City | Library of Congress | www.loc.gov/item/2018699986/

Scene in Lower Manhattan's Chinatown neighborhood in New York City | Library of Congress | www.loc.gov/item/2018699987/

Scene in Lower Manhattan's Chinatown neighborhood in New York City | Library of Congress | www.loc.gov/item/2018699988/

Some of the hundreds of participants at the 10th-annual Hmong New Year Celebration in downtown Chico, California, pose | Library of Congress | www.loc.gov/item/2013631121/

General Tips for Teaching Controversial Subjects

• Center activities on primary sources. Primary sources are tangible evidence that allow students to engage directly with history. These primary sources in particular were preserved and digitized by the Library of Congress because they were deemed important to the history of the United States.
• Discussion and analysis of these sources can be wide ranging, but within each class those discussions can always be turned back to the source itself.
• The sources are also, by definition, only pieces of a puzzle. They bring us closer to understanding the past but there is always room for doubt and uncertainty.  
• Questions, Observations, and Reflections should come from students. These are primarily student-directed learning activities. It is the instructor's role to create a space for inquiry and empower students to drive the inquiry.
• It may help to remind students at the outset that it is normal for different individuals to come to different conclusions, even when we are looking at the same sources. Further, it would be strange if we all agreed completely on our interpretations. This can normalize the strong reactions that can come up and enables educators to discuss the goal of historical research, which is to hopefully go beyond the realm of individual  perspective to access a fuller understanding of the past that takes multiple perspectives into account.
• Teaching historical topics that involve violence and other trauma can be traumatic for some students as well. Providing students with previews of what content will be covered and space to process their emotions can be helpful. The following video series from the University of Minnesota contains further tips for teaching potentially traumatic topics: https://extension.umn.edu/trauma-and-healing/historical-trauma-and-cultural-healing.

What is it?

“Westward expansion” is a topic covered in many U.S. history textbooks and one that appears in most every state's social studies standards. At the same time, most states also mandate that students be taught to consider history from multiple perspectives or points of view. But what does it mean to consider multiple perspectives about westward expansion? What would it mean to consider the point of view of Native Americans who were the most directly affected by the process called western expansion? A change of perspective might reveal a great deal. As historian Daniel Richter notes in his book, Facing East From Indian Country, “if we shift our perspective to try to view the past in a way that faces east from Indian country, history takes on a very different appearance.” Historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz makes a similar point in her 2015 An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States, “Writing US history from an Indigenous peoples' perspective requires rethinking the consensual national narrative. That narrative is wrong or deficient, not in its facts, dates, or details but rather in its essence. Inherent in the myth we've been taught is an embrace of settler colonialism and genocide.” This guide provides teachers with resources to analyze Library of Congress primary sources so that students can account for Indigenous perspectives that “faced east” in their analysis of westward expansion, colonialism, and land rights.

Key points:

• The activity outlined here will take one 90-minute period or two 45-minute periods. It is appropriate for a high school U.S. history classroom, but can be modified for a variety of learners.
• Students will analyze, interpret, and evaluate primary sources. 
• Students will learn about Native peoples responses to the settlement of the western U.S. and gain new perspectives to better understand "Westward Expansion".

Approach to Topic

Even the term “westward expansion” assumes a facing-west point of view rather than a perspective of someone already living in the west. While U.S. history textbooks now include more topics related to Native people, these topics are typically presented as a subset of a larger story about westward expansion. For example, in McGraw Hill’s United States History and Geography, the chapter on westward expansion, “Settling the West,” contains a section titled “Native Americans”, but it comes after two other sections: “Miners and Ranchers” covering the California gold rush and cattle ranching in the west, and “Farming the Plains” which deals with white settlers seeking farmland in the west. Framing and organizing the topic this way presents Native people as obstacles or complications to the westward movement of settlers. This framing also implies that westward expansion was more or less inevitable rather than a series of deliberate choices, an idea often closely linked with the concept of “manifest destiny” as a divinely-ordained establishment of the United States.

The textbook narrative obscures the fact that the taking of Native people’s land was an intentional project backed by the U.S. federal government. Instead of emphasizing the deliberate dispossession of Native land, students usually read about a series of general breakdowns in relations between two groups, settlers and Native people. For example, the 1867 Indian Peace Commission is presented under a subheading of “Doomed Plan for Peace” while the 1887 Dawes Act is presented as a largely positive plan to help Native Americans that simply “failed to achieve its goals.” In other places the purposeful destruction of Native resources is described in the passive voice, such as “The buffalo were rapidly disappearing.” In response to these textbook depictions, teachers can encourage students to analyze how these topics are framed in their textbooks and think about how they might look from another point of view.

To teach students to consider the multiple perspectives on westward expansion, it is also important for teachers to think critically about their own relationship to place and support their students in doing the same. The history of “westward expansion” involved a series of events where Native people were displaced, removed from their land, and coerced into signing disadvantageous treaties many of which were later broken by federal, state, or territorial governments. As scholars Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang have written:

In order for the settlers to make a place their home, they must destroy and disappear the Indigenous peoples that live there. Indigenous peoples are those who have creation stories, not colonization stories, about how we/they came to be in a particular place - indeed how we/they came to be a place . . . For the settlers, Indigenous peoples are in the way and, in the destruction of Indigenous peoples, Indigenous communities, and over time and through law and policy, Indigenous peoples’ claims to land under settler regimes, land is recast as property and as a resource. Indigenous peoples must be erased, must be made into ghosts.

In teaching this topic to students, it is therefore necessary to not make Native people into the “ghosts” that Tuck and Yang reference and to understand that Native people did not disappear, indeed they refused to, despite the repeated efforts of governments and settlers.

One challenge to including the perspective of Native people at this time is that colonial record-keeping disproportionately documented the perspectives of white men in positions of social authority this is part of the same disappearing process described by Tuck and Yang. Though the sources are sometimes more difficult to locate, resources do exist to help teachers actively include the perspectives of Native people and share it with students. Many Native people throughout the past and up to the present day have continued to assert their points of view in spaces visible to the wider U.S. public. Their voices are sometimes visible within colonial sources, including through a process of reading against the grain. Indigenous people have vigorously defended against settler land theft and continue to invest in their cultural, governmental, artistic, linguistic, and social systems today, despite centuries of colonial disruptions.

This guide will focus on two examples of Indigenous people who advocated for Indigenous rights in the early 1900s: Zitkala-Ša (also known as Gertrude Simmons Bonnin)  and Charles Eastman (also known as Ohiyesa). Both were important figures in the Society of American Indians, an organization established by Native intellectuals from across the country in 1911. The members of the SAI, in scholar Philip J. Deloria’s words, “worked actively to preserve elements of Native cultures and societies from destruction.” Through their words and actions teachers can locate an alternative to the westward expansion point of view and make a different history more apparent.

Description

Zitkála-Šá
Zitkála-Šá (pronounced Zeet-KA-la-sha) was Yankton Dakota, born on the Yankton Indian Reservation in South Dakota in 1876. Like many thousands of Native children at the time was also forced to attend a boarding school far away from her home. At eight years old, Zitkála-Šá left Yankton and her family to attend the Indiana Manual Labor Institute in Wabash, Indiana over 700 miles away. At the institute she was given the name Gertrude Simmons (later Gertrude Simmons Bonnin) which she also used at various points in her life. Zitkála-Šá would attend the boarding school for three years and there learned to play violin and piano. She returned to Yankton, and then went back to the institute three years later. Upon graduation, she took a position as a music teacher at the school. Zitkála-Šá/Gertrude Simmons became an expert at navigating two cultures. Some scholars have seen Zitkála-Šá as a person who assimilated into white-U.S. culture, but more recently scholars have emphasized how she used these cultural skills to support and defend Native people and culture. As historian Tadeusz Lewandowski writes in his biography of Zitkála-Šá, she “fought the dispossession of Indians with every tool of white society she had mastered.”

In her life, Zitkála-Šá rose to prominence as a musician, writer, and political advocate. An accomplished violinist, she performed at the White House for President William McKinley in 1900 and as a soloist at the Paris Exposition that same year. A prolific writer, Zitkála-Šá’s presented depictions of American Indians that emphasized family and community in books such as American Indian Stories and presented her own experiences in personal essays for Harper’s Monthly and The Atlantic Monthly.

In perhaps her most famous work, The Sun Dance, Zitkála-Šá translated the sacred, ceremonial dances performed by various Native groups across the Americas - dances that had been declared illegal by the federal government - into an opera. Working with composer William F. Hanson, Zitkála-Šá used her training in western music and her knowledge of Native culture to demonstrate the beauty of these dances in a form that would draw the attention of the larger U.S. public.

For more background on how The Sun Dance opera came to be written by Zitkála-Šá and Hanson have students listen to an excerpt from this interview with Zitkála-Šá P. Jane Hafen from the podcast Unsung History https://www.unsunghistorypodcast.com/zitkala-sa/. The excerpt on The Sun Dance is from 21:16 to 25:53. 

Questions to ask about this source: In what ways was The Sun Dance a product of western culture and in what ways was it a product of Native American culture? How does it demonstrate Zitkála-Šá’s understanding of two cultural worlds?

Zitkála-Šá also used her cultural expertise to lobby the government directly on policies that affected Indigenous people and in particular advocated for the government to protect Native people and culture.

Primary Source #1
“She is Watching Congress,” Evening Public Ledger, February 22, 1921 https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045211/1921-02-22/ed-1/seq-20/

Primary Source #2
“Sioux Princess Closely Watches Indian Welfare,” The Richmond Palladium and Sun-Telegram, February 26, 1921 https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86058226/1921-02-26/ed-1/seq-15/

Questions to ask about these primary sources:

• Although white reporters regularly used stereotypical and condescending terms to refer to Zitkála-Šá (i.e. describing her as a “Sioux princess” who was “watching Congress”), she chose to present herself in traditional Native clothing. What might have been her reasons for this choice?
• How might this decision have fit with her goals to influence Congress on Native issues?
• Compare these photos to a photo of Zitkála-Šá in western clothing: https://www.nps.gov/people/zitkala-sa.htm
• Why might she choose one form of dress over another depending on the situation?
• How might her choice of clothing affected how audiences viewed her?
• How might her choice of clothing made it more likely for white audiences to listen to her?

Along with other members of the Society of American Indians, Zitkála-Šá advocated for Native Americans to receive the full benefits of United States citizenship including the right to vote. Scholar K. Tsianina Lomawaima argues that the Society for American Indians saw citizenship as a tool to defend Native people from dispossession and protect their land. The Dawes Act, also known as the General Allotment Act of 1887, converted Indigenous territories from collective management and converted that territory to private, transferrable land deeds for individual land tracts based on western land ownership. As a result of the Dawes Act, Indigenous people lost 90 million acres of land in less than fifty years.

Under the Dawes Act, Native people whom the US government did not see as “competent” had their land (called an “allotment”) held by the US government. Though Native people were already citizens of their Native nations and did not necessarily want US citizenship, Zitkála-Šá saw U.S. citizenship as one possible form of protection against land loss. She not only advocated for citizenship for Native Americans but also for women to receive the right to vote. In this source from 1918, Zitkála-Šá addressed the National American Women's Suffrage Association and tied together the causes of the women’s vote and the vote for Native Americans:

Primary Source #3:
Maryland Suffrage News, June 15, 1918
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn89060379/1918-06-15/ed-1/seq-5/

Question to ask about this primary source:

• Why might Zitkála-Šá have decided to speak to the National American Women's Suffrage Association?
• What were her goals? [For more resources on Native American women advocating for womens’ suffrage, see the guide on Native Women and Suffrage]

In 1924, partially as a result of the lobbying of Zitkála-Šá and the Society of American Indians, the Indian Citizenship Act was passed. This concluded the process of making all Native people born in the United States citizens. Although it is important to note that states could restrict the Native people’s right to vote and states such as Utah and New Mexico did just that. Zitkála-Šá continued to speak out on Native issues to both national and local groups. For example, in 1928 in Bismarck, North Dakota she gave a talk on the history of Native people and the current Native issues to the Rotarians, a community-based organization.

Primary Source #4:
“Rotarians Hear Famous Woman at Weekly Meeting,” The Bismarck Tribune, June 14, 1928. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85042243/1928-06-14/ed-1/seq-7/

Questions to ask about this primary source:

• According to the newspaper article, what did Zitkála-Šá tell the Rotations about the history of Native people?
• Why do you think the article addresses Indigenous participation in the World War?
• What did she say about the current situation faced by Native people?
• Why do you think she chose to emphasize these issues?

Charles Eastman
 As was the case with Zitkála-Šá, Charles Eastman’s upbringing involved direct experience with white society, his Dakota nation, and a variety intertribal communities. He too developed skills to move within and between these social spaces. Born in 1858 near Redwood Falls, Minnesota to a Dakota woman named Winona who died in childbirth, he was given the name “Hakadah.” He fled with his family to Canada following the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862. As an older child, he was given the name Ohiyesa (pronounced oh-he-yes-suh and meaning “the winner”) after a victory in a lacrosse match. When he was 15, his father — who had been estranged from the family — returned and demanded that Ohiyesa live with him in Dakota Territory near present day Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Ohiyesa’s father had converted to Christianity and taken the name “Jacob Eastman”. His father changed Ohiyesa’s name to “Charles Alexander Eastman” and enrolled him in white schools. Similar to Zitkála-Šá, Eastman grieved about the separation from the culture he was born into while, at the same time, he also excelled in his new environment. After secondary school, he attended college at Beloit College and then Dartmouth, and eventually earned his degree in medicine from Boston Medical School in 1890.

Eastman sought to use his training to help Native people so shortly after earning his degree, he accepted a position on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. On December 29, 1890, only a few weeks after Eastman’s arrival, 500 soldiers of the United States 7th Cavalry confronted a band of 350 Miniconjou Lakota Indians that included women and children and fired on the unarmed group killing more than 150 people. It is important to emphasize that this incident, which would become known as the Wounded Knee Massacre was not an isolated incident but part of a pattern where U.S. military forces, often commanded by officers with little to no knowledge of Native people and irrationally paranoid about their safety fired on defenseless Native groups that included unarmed men, women, and children with deadly results. Soldiers and travelers took souvenirs and graphic photographs document the carnage. At Pine Ridge, Eastman helped treat the few who survived. For more on the Wounded Knee Massacre read this entry from the Encyclopedia of the Great Plains: http://plainshumanities.unl.edu/encyclopedia/doc/egp.war.056

In addition to his career as a physician, Eastman wrote about Native American people and culture in a way that both defied the stereotypes prevalent among whites at the time and also countered the prevailing notion that Native Americans were a disappearing people and culture. In this account, Eastman related a visit to the Objibwe of Northern Minnesota.

Primary Source #5:

As I approached the island next morning. I saw a pretty procession of birch-bark canoes converging upon it. This was evidently a gathering of the clans whose highway is the blue water, and the graceful canoe their sole means of transportation. Invariably the man sits in the bow of the light craft, his wife at the stern, and the children by pairs between so low that only the tops of their black heads are visible. All the household effects are carried, except the dogs, who are obliged to run along the shore and swim the narrows from island to island.

The whole family, even little children, paddle the canoe, and such skill, confidence and safety I have never seen elsewhere. "When the wind rises and the water is so rough that no one can be found willing to venture out in launch or row boat, these people may be seen skimming the big waves like aquatic birds. Along the shore I saw women here and there, setting their gillnets for the wily pike and bass. Most of them do this as an every-day duty. In camp, some were making nets, others working upon their birchen cones, preparing the bark and the cedar bindings, or soaking the strappings and boiling pitch to glue the seams.

Majigabo's immediate village was the meeting-place, and there was the "sacred ground" where they initiate new members into their lodge, consecrate some of the children, celebrate old rites, and commemorate the departed. There were feasts galore of the delicious wild rice, venison, dried moose meat, bear steaks, and sturgeon. Maple sugar packed in small birchen boxes called "mococks" was plentiful and of the finest flavor. Here is one chief just beyond sight of the smoke of the locomotive, in the heart of a wilderness already penetrated by the whistle of the saw-mill, who still preserves many of the ancient usages of his forefathers.

 Charles Eastman, “My Canoe Trip Among the Northern Ojibwe Indians of Minnesota The Oglala light. [volume], May 01, 1911. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/2017270500/1911-05-01/ed-1/seq-13/

Questions to ask about this primary source:

• What year did Eastman write this account? 
• In what ways does the account reveal the persistence of Indigenous intellectual traditions and technologies despite colonial pressures to assimilate? 
• How does this reshape the narrative about westward expansion present in your textbook?
• In what ways did Eastman emphasize family, community, and land relations in his description? Why do you think he did that?

In the Classroom
The primary sources above can be incorporated into a unit that also covers westward expansion. Teachers can use this opportunity to have students reflect on how the term “westward expansion” only considers some perspective while leaving others out — namely the perspectives of those in the “west” who are “facing east”.

In the classroom, students can be prompted to reflect on these east-facing perspectives:

• In a 5 minute think-pair-share activity, students can think of their own response, talk it through with a partner, and then “share out”.
• Then students can be asked how they could learn about the missing points of view - what kind of evidence or sources might provide these perspectives? Again students can come up with ideas in another 5 minute think-pair-share activity.
• The class can then transition into analyzing the primary sources included in this guide.  Communicate to students that this is one way to consider multiple points of view. Referencing their list of other points of view to consider and what evidence might be used, teachers can and should acknowledge that not all points of view are being considered nor will they be able to analyze and consider all of the evidence, but the sources they will examine do provide a valuable perspective that is not present in most textbooks.
• Put the students in groups of 3-4 and give them a selection of 2-3 sources.
• As the students examine the sources, prompt them with the guiding questions included above with each primary source.  For more scaffolding, teachers may have students fill out primary source analysis sheets for one or more of the sources: https://www.loc.gov/programs/teachers/getting-started-with-primary-sources/guides/
• After examining the sources, ask the students to discuss in their groups: What issues related to Native people were Charles Eastman and Zitkála-Šá most concerned with?  What perspective do these sources provide on westward expansion? How does the term “westward expansion” hide other perspectives, namely the struggle of Indigenous people over their homelands and livelihood? What would an east facing version of this story look like?

Extension/enrichment ideas: Students could research further into the history of the Society of American Indians or any of its prominent members such as Rev. Sherman Coolidge, Arthur C. Parker, Angel DeCora, Francis LaFlesche, or Marie Bottineau Baldwin. Using this research students could then develop a multimedia digital project that presents a “facing east” history of westward expansion. As part of this project students should reflect on what they would want to communicate about this point of view, to show that “westward expansion” was not inevitable and to show how Native people persisted and refused to simply disappear. Primary sources like those above and others from the Library of Congress could be featured in a website or slide presentation. As part of the project, students might also research the history of their own communities and the Native people who lived there in the past and live there in the present.

Teaching history inevitably means teaching about topics that generate strong reactions from a wide range of people. While not every reaction can be anticipated, the following tips can provide a strong basis for a rationale for your learning activities:

General Tips for Teaching Controversial Subjects

• Center activities on primary sources. Primary sources are tangible evidence that allow students to engage directly with history. These primary sources in particular were preserved and digitized by the Library of Congress because they were deemed important to the history of the United States.
• Discussion and analysis of these sources can be wide ranging, but within each class those discussions can always be turned back to the source itself.
• The sources are also, by definition, only pieces of a puzzle. They bring us closer to understanding the past but there is always room for doubt and uncertainty.  
• Questions, Observations, and Reflections should come from students. These are primarily student-directed learning activities. It is the instructor's role to create a space for inquiry and empower students to drive the inquiry.
• It may help to remind students at the outset that it is normal for different individuals to come to different conclusions, even when we are looking at the same sources. Further, it would be strange if we all agreed completely on our interpretations. This can normalize the strong reactions that can come up and enables educators to discuss the goal of historical research, which is to hopefully go beyond the realm of individual  perspective to access a fuller understanding of the past that takes multiple perspectives into account.
• Teaching historical topics that involve violence and other trauma can be traumatic for some students as well. Providing students with previews of what content will be covered and space to process their emotions can be helpful. The following video series from the University of Minnesota contains further tips for teaching potentially traumatic topics: https://extension.umn.edu/trauma-and-healing/historical-trauma-and-cultural-healing.