Immigration from Asia Post-1970: A Guide for Pre-Service Teachers

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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/

A woman stands points to one of several suits hanging in front of a closed garaged door.

 

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

Outdoors in a parking spot between two parked cars four men play cards at a table.

 

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 corner store with two large signs reading Tropical Hookah facing each steet above the door.

 

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 store window containing pillows and chairs with ornate fabric designs.

 

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/

A barber cuts a gray-haired man's hair in front of a mirror with an ornate border.



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

A small store advertises Abaya and Gifts in English and Arabic.

 

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/

Small store front with a sign above the door reading Nails.

 

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/

Sign in front of a building reads Makka Hi Fruit Market then Arabic script below that Halal Food Vegetable.

 

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/

A shop called Number 1 Al's Auto Care Fix (english and arabic) is painted outside with pictures of different car parts

 

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/

A small building has a sign reading Al-Qamar pizza and grill with pictures of pizzas on the windows

 

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/

Ice cream stand decorated with a large ice cream cone.

 

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/

One-story white building with a "Masjidun-Nur" sign and green minaret designs.

 

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/

Store front with chalkboard in front of the store reading "A Collectible Clothing Boutique. A Place for Something Unique."

 

 

 

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

A man in a hoodie sits on a parked scooter with a large insulated backpack on his back

 

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

An ornate white building with carved designs and figures.

 

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/

Elephant sculpture in front of temple.

 

 

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/

A small building with a OK Boss Asian Grocery Store sign. The sign also has a cartoon of a cowboy feeding a horse some green leaves.



 

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

Store front with Chinese characters. Porcelain cups can be see in the window. In the foreground 2 women get into a car.

 

 

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

Building with an International Institute of Shinsundo Shinsun Yoga sign with image of a person doing yoga.

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

The women sit at tables with each other. The venue appears to be sunny and outdoors. Many of them have suitcases and backpacks with them.

 

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

Elderly men gather around an outdoor table in New York City. Four of them sit across from each other on either side of the table on park benches and the rest of the men stand and observe.

 

 

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

Three employees taking, assembling, and packaging orders. There are two customers waiting to pick up their orders and two customers placing their orders.

 

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

A small group of Filipino women sell headbands and other goods at their booth on a street in New York City

 

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

A family gathers around tables at a Filipino restaurant to celebrate a baptism.




 

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/

The float has lots of roses and flowers around the bottom and a crown floating at the top above a group of young girls who sit on the float and wave.

 

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

Photo taken in 2023 of a brick building with two signs on it written in Vietnamese indicating where to enter for pizza or for laundry service.

 

 

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

Photo taken in 2006 of the same brick building as above on Saunders Street in Camden, New Jersey. Two signs on the outside of the building written in Vietnamese indicating where to enter for the mexican restaurant and for laundry service

 

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

At the corner of Broad street and Market Street in Newark, New Jersey a small group of Korean musicians perform for the public. They stand next to the crosswalk lights and one of them plays a guitar.

 

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/

Sign over the entrance to Assi plaza where there is an Asian grocery store as well as a Korean and Chinese specialty store. The sign includes Chinese, English, and Korean writing.

 

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

There are street vendors, resting pedestrians, and people walking by in front of a Chinese pharmacy.

 

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

People walk past the GV Trading store on the corner of a street in Chinatown. Someone rides theirbike past

 

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

 

Pedestrians walk in front of a store with a red awning reading K.L. Seafood Corps in Chinatown

 

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

Pedestrians walk in front of Huan Jin Vegetable store front in China Town

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

A small crowd of people walk in front of a store front titled Dahing Seafood Market.

 

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

Store front reading Vivi Bubble Tea with a pink background. A statue of Marge Simpson sits on a bench in front of the store.

 

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

Front of building reading NG Fook Funeral Services. Construction equipment surrounds the building.

 

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

A man sits cross-legged on a chair in front of a store called New China Beauty Salon.

 

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

Fish arranged on tables in the market as a few people in the background survey the various fish.

 

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

Crates of spinach, radishes, scallions, and other green vegetables sit in the foreground with prices. A few men stand behind the produce wearing gloves and interacting with the produce.

 

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

A man lens on a fire hydrant in front of a store in China Town. A woman walks behind him.

 

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

A woman walks past a store-front building in China Town carrying a bag

 

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/

A group of 12 people organized in two lines, the frontline kneeling and the back line standing behind. Participants are wearing traditional clothing.

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 Happened to the Fenians After 1866?

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Fenian Prisoner, 1857, New York Public Library
Question

What happened to the Fenians after 1866?

Answer

The Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) was established in 1858 in Ireland and the United States as a secular, revolutionary movement committed to armed struggle against Great Britain in order "to make Ireland an independent democratic republic" as members pledged when taking the society's oath. In 1859, the American wing—"equal, if not senior, partners in the trans-Atlantic organization," according to historian Hereward Senior—became known as the Fenian Brotherhood, a name derived from the Fianna, the militia of the warrior Fionn MacCumhail of Gaelic legend.

Modeled on earlier Irish revolutionary organizations by revolutionaries who had fled Ireland following the failed rising of 1848, the Fenian Brotherhood and the IRB emerged following a decade during which the population in Ireland had declined from 8.5 million to six million due to famine, disease, and mass migration, especially to the U.S. In a resolution agreed upon at the first Fenian Congress in the U.S., held in Chicago in November 1863, Fenians expressed "intense and undying hatred towards the monarchy and oligarchy of Great Britain" that, they charged, had "ground their country to the dust, hanging her patriots, starving out her people, and sweeping myriads of Irishmen, women, and children off their paternal fields, to find refuge in foreign lands."

...Fenians expressed "intense and undying hatred towards the monarchy and oligarchy of Great Britain."...

Although the Fenian Brotherhood remained in existence until 1886, its most notable North American exploits, a series of failed military raids into Canada, occurred in 1866. After 1866, the IRB center of gravity moved to Ireland, although in 1870 Fenians undertook another series of raids into Canada. Following 1870, as the Fenian Brotherhood declined in importance, the group Clan na Gael developed into the most prominent Irish-American revolutionary organization, and during the second half of the 1870s, the latter group became allied with the IRB. Throughout this period, the words "Fenian" and "Fenianism" were applied to the IRB as a whole and to revolutionaries not connected with the original Fenian Brotherhood. Historians have noted significant unintended consequences in Canada of the Fenian raids and have contended that Fenianism influenced later Irish nationalist movements of the early 20th century.

Canadian Incursions

In 1866, the Fenian Brotherhood conducted three military incursions into Canada after plans for an insurrection in Ireland had fallen apart due to British raids against the IRB in Dublin in September 1865 that had resulted in arrests and dispersal of the leadership. With many Irish-American veterans of the American Civil War in their ranks, the Fenians decided to seize territory in British North America and proclaim an Irish Republic. They hoped their raids would encourage the United States to follow with troops in order to establish the St. Lawrence River as its northern border or even to annex the whole of Canada.

During the Civil War, tensions had heightened between the U.S. and Great Britain when the latter, after declaring its neutrality in the conflict, allowed Confederate diplomats passage on British ships and sanctioned the building in England of Confederate cruisers that later destroyed Union merchant ships. American hostility to Great Britain increased in October 1864 when a Confederate band, after crossing the Canadian border, robbed banks in St. Albans, Vermont, stole horses, set fire to houses, and shot a citizen before returning to Canada. After a local Canadian court released the raiders on a technicality, voices in the American press called for an invasion.

In 1865, an ephemeral movement to annex Canada called for outright attacks and coercive economic pressure

The movement in 1865 in the U.S. for the annexation of Canada, characterized as ephemeral by historian Donald F. Warner, included calls in the press for Union and Confederate armies to unite to attack Canada and schemes of politicians to coerce annexation through economic pressure. Although expressions of U.S. interest in annexing Canada died down following the end of Civil War hostilities, the Fenians nevertheless hoped that their planned invasion would revive the annexation movement and draw British troops to North America leaving Ireland vulnerable.

Plan of Attack

The plan of attack, devised by the Fenian secretary of war who had been a U.S. Army major during the Civil War, called for multiple invasions: across the Vermont-Canadian border; from Malone and Potsdam in New York to the Canadian towns of Cornwall and Prescott, then north to Ottawa and Montreal; across Lake Michigan and Lake Huron to Stratford and London in order to gain control of an important railway terminal; and incursions to capture Toronto and major waterway and railway centers. The Fenians had some reason to believe that the U.S. government would recognize an Irish republic on captured British soil, as President Andrew Johnson and his Secretary of State, William Seward, anxious not to antagonize Irish-American voters, reportedly stated that the U.S. would "acknowledge accomplished facts," in the words of historian William D'Arcy, when they were informed by a Fenian delegation about the group's vague intentions to seize territory in Canada. No official U.S. commitment, however, ever was committed to writing.

Fenians misjudged both U.S. and Canadian politics and history.

Canadian historians have concluded that in addition to misreading the response of U.S. politicians, the Fenians also misjudged the Canadians. Their invasion plan was formulated, Hereward Senior has written, "without much regard for Canadian history or the contemporary political scene." W. S. Neidhardt has pointed out that Fenian plans to win over key elements of the Canadian populace "were based on completely false assumptions." Contrary to their beliefs, most Canadians of Irish descent were Protestants from Northern Ireland, not Catholics like the Fenians. Furthermore, for many Irish Catholics, "Canada offered a reasonably good government, a fair legal and adequate educational system, and an opportunity to maintain a decent standard of living." Most Canadians who had experienced the Famine in Ireland during the 1840s were unlikely to risk their present situation to support the Fenians' scheme.

Across the Border

The first Fenian operation of 1866 occurred in April when a small force raided Indian Island in New Brunswick as part of a plan to invade the nearby island of Campobello in order to establish a base for a later landing in Ireland, for launching cruisers to attack British commercial vessels, and as a diversionary tactic designed to keep British troops in North America preoccupied while revolutionaries in Ireland attempted a rising. By declaring themselves a republic at war with Great Britain, the Fenians hoped to attain the status of belligerents, rather than pirates, and thus not risk violating U.S. neutrality laws. A concerted effort by Canadian militias, well-armed British naval vessels, and the American military, however, confounded Fenian plans with only a few shots fired during confrontations and no reported casualties.

Some nine combatants from each side were killed in battle, however, during the second Fenian invasion of 1866, which began in the early morning of June 1 as a Fenian force of nearly 1,000 men traveling on canal boats that were towed by tugs crossed the Niagara River near Buffalo and landed at a dock just north of the Canadian village of Fort Erie, which they proceeded to occupy. Two days later, following a victory at Ridgeway over ill-prepared Canadian volunteer forces—the ease of disrupting the Campobello plot apparently had led to complacency among Canadian troops—the Fenians, aware that a large Canadian force was approaching, retreated back across the Niagara River, where U.S. naval forces belatedly called into action arrested them. Three days later, President Johnson issued a proclamation characterizing the Fenians as "evil-disposed persons" and their actions as "proceedings which constitute a high misdemeanor, forbidden by the laws of the United States as well as by the law of nations."

The final Fenian raid in 1866 took place one day after Johnson's proclamation, on June 7, when a band of less than 1,000 raiders starting out from St. Albans crossed the Vermont border and planted an Irish flag near the Canadian village of Pigeon Hill. Fenians subsequently occupied Pigeon Hill and three additional Canadian villages before fleeing from a Canadian cavalry corps that chased them back to the border. Under political pressure during a congressional election year, Johnson issued executive orders to release Fenians arrested in the raids and return arms that were seized, and intervened with British authorities to try to get Fenian prisoners in Canada and Ireland released. Although 25 of the invaders were tried and convicted, all but one—a man who died in prison—were pardoned by 1872.

After elections of 1866, Fenian influence on American politicians waned, but more attacks on Canada would follow.

After the congressional elections of 1866, the Fenians no longer were able to exert a significant influence over American politicians. Plagued by factional fighting, financial troubles, police informers, and opposition from the Catholic Church, they did not attempt another Canadian raid until May 24, 1870, a date chosen to coincide with Queen Victoria's birthday. On that day, President Ulysses S. Grant issued a proclamation warning U.S. citizens "against aiding, countenancing, abetting, or taking part" in reported "sundry illegal military enterprises and expeditions" aimed "against the people and district of the Dominion of Canada."

A Fenian force of less than 200 men crossed the border the next day despite warnings from a U.S. marshal that Canadian riflemen in well-chosen positions on an overlooking hill awaited their arrival. Although four or five Fenians died in the subsequent battle, as the Fenians fled, their commander, John O'Neill, berated them for cowardice. O'Neill himself then was arrested by the marshal. On the following day, a group of more than 450 Fenians gathered in Malone, New York and advanced over the border. In a skirmish with Canadian forces the next day, one Fenian was killed before most retreated to Malone. Despite entreaties by their general for further action, most of the Fenians remained convinced that they had no chance to win and the general was arrested. The Canadians suffered no serious casualties during the 1870 raids. In October 1871, O'Neill, having resigned from the Fenian Council, led a group of three dozen men across the Canadian border into Manitoba in an unsuccessful raid that an advocate for the independence of the Red River Colony had proposed, but which the Fenian Council had rejected. Historians have credited the Fenian raids with encouraging a nationalistic spirit in Canada and spurring the movement to confederacy.

Aftermath

Despite failure in North America, the Fenians, after shifting their focus of attention to Great Britain at the end of 1866, "helped to work a change in the traditional English attitude toward Ireland," according to historian Brian Jenkins. Locating themselves in London, Fenian leaders, supported financially by Irish-American contributions, adopted a strategy of guerrilla warfare. In a proclamation published in the Times of London in March 1867, they announced the formation of an Irish Republic and Provisional Government. During that month, Fenians fought police and soldiers in clashes throughout Ireland in an attempted rising. In November, three Fenians, executed on the basis of doubtful evidence for the murder of a police officer who had been escorting captured Fenian leaders to prison, were heralded in the press as the "Manchester Martyrs." In December, 12 Londoners were killed in an explosion designed to facilitate the escape from prison of a Fenian armaments organizer.

In response to fears of the British populace stimulated by the return of Irish revolutionary activity, the new Liberal Party Prime Minister, William Ewart Gladstone, in 1869 and 1870, successfully enacted laws to disestablish the Church of Ireland and address longstanding Irish land tenure issues. Gladstone acknowledged that Fenianism had "produced that attitude of attention and preparedness on the whole population of this country which qualified them to embrace, in a manner foreign to their habits in other times, the vast importance of the Irish controversy." Gladstone's actions, historian Oliver P. Rafferty has written, were intended "to alienate Fenian opinion, and enable the mass of the Irish people to differentiate their aspirations from those of the revolutionaries." Subsequently, the Irish Protestant barrister Isaac Butt advocated home rule for Ireland as an alternative to an Irish republic, stating that Fenianism "taught me the depth, the breadth, the sincerity of that love of fatherland that misgovernment had tortured into disaffection and . . . exaggerated into revolt." While a number of leading Fenians supported the home rule movement and entered into mainstream politics, under an agreement characterized as the "New Departure," Fenians also maintained their revolutionary commitment to create through insurrection an independent Irish republic.

Rafferty has contended that "the Fenian idea of the necessity, or inevitability, of armed insurrection passed into Irish historical lore and conditioned the thinking of, perhaps, the majority of those who staged the 1916 insurrection." In a recently published history of the rise of Irish nationalism during the period between the 1880s and the Easter rising of 1916, M. J. Kelly has asserted, "Historians have largely neglected the activities of the Irish Republican Brotherhood in the 1880s, tending to focus on the two great flash-points of 1867 and 1916." In his revisionist history, Kelly has looked anew at a "second generation of Fenians, qualitatively distinct from their fathers and uncles," who developed "a fresh separatist dynamic based on the nurture of a distinctly Irish culture" and significantly influenced subsequent Irish nationalist political activity and ideals.

Bibliography

W. S. Neidhardt, Fenianism in North America (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1975), 4, 13, 41–42.

Hereward Senior, The Fenians and Canada (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1978), 24; Donald F. Warner, The Idea of Continental Union: Agitation for the Annexation of Canada to the United States, 1849–1893 (Lexington, Ky.: University of Kentucky Press, 1960), 48.

William D'Arcy, The Fenian Movement in the United States: 1858–1886 (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 1947; reissue, New York: Russell & Russell, 1971), 84.

James D. Richardson, comp., A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789-1897 (Washington, 1899), 6:433, 7:85.

Brian Jenkins, Fenians and Anglo-American Relations during Reconstruction (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1969), 216.

Oliver P. Rafferty, The Church, the State and the Fenian Threat, 1861–75 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999), 110, 154, 155, 158.

M. J. Kelly, The Fenian Ideal and Irish Nationalism, 1882–19 (Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 2006), 15, 16.

Robert Kee, The Green Flag: The Turbulent History of the Irish National Movement (New York: Delacorte Press, 1972).

Hereward Senior,The Last Invasion of Canada: The Fenian Raids, 1866–1870 (Toronto: Dundurn Press, in collaboration with the Canadian War Museum and the Canadian Museum of Civilization, 1991).

American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives, "Fenian Brotherhood Collection," (accessed September 14, 2008).

Densho: The Japanese American Legacy Project

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"Densho" means "to pass on to the next generation." In this quest, this website offers an archive of more than 668 oral histories presented in countless hours of video interviews on Japanese American incarceration during World War II. Materials also include approximately 12,000 historical photographs, documents, and newspapers. Visitors to this website should keep in mind that Densho is continually engaged in expanding its resources and adding more interviews, photographs, and documents, so be sure to check back periodically to discover new content!

Access to archival materials requires free registration. Once registered, users may select materials according to 32 topics, including immigration, community, religion and churches, education, race and racism, identity values, resistance, economic losses, redress and reparations, and reflections on the past.

Materials available without registration include lesson plans and information on "Causes of the Incarceration," "Civil Rights and Japanese American Incarceration," "Sites of Shame: Japanese American Detention Facilities," and "In the Shadow of My Country: A Japanese American Artist Remembers." The website also offers 90 multimedia materials providing historical context, a timeline, a glossary, and a list of related sources in print and online.

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The Jewish Americans

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women on strike
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This PBS documentary provides many useful resources for teaching the long and influential history of Jewish Americans. At the heart of this video production is the struggle between identity and assimilation. While Jews in America often faced struggles integrating into new communities, their story is common to other immigrant groups and at the same time a "quintessentially American story."

The site is divided into six main sections. Educators will be particularly interested in the historical background offered in Jewish Life in America (which is divided into eleven subsections), the 30 video segments from the documentary, four lesson plans in For Educators, and links to online resources for teaching Jewish American history.

One noteworthy section of the site is Share Your Story. By allowing Jewish American viewers to submit recipes, immigration stories, or family traditions, this site provides an interactive platform that could enhance any classroom. Students can investigate, research, and conduct interviews with family or friends of Jewish heritage and submit their investigations online. Teachers will also find that the video segments, textual information, and online submission tool can work well together to compliment thematic units on immigration, ethnic identity, and moments in history specific to the Jewish experience.

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The History of America(ns)

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Photo, Oil painting Immigration Scene, Oct. 2007, Carol M. Highsmith, LoC
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As the presidential campaigns of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney move into full swing, both men have to stake out positions on many issues. From health care to economic revival to the environment, Obama and Romney make promises and set priorities.

So far, one of the defining issues of 2012 has been immigration: How should the U.S. handle illegal immigration and possible immigration reform?

Put the issue into perspective for your students by providing them with resources on immigration in U.S. history. The U.S. today rests on the heritages of many different peoples — from a land populated by native peoples to a country founded by colonists to a world power that both welcomed and restricted immigration at different times.

Where to start? Historian Alan Gevinson outlines the ups and downs of immigration from the 1870s to the 1920s in Ask a Historian, but remember that the arrival of newcomers to North America began much earlier! Who were the ancestors of prehistoric peoples like the Mississippi Moundbuilders? Check out the website Peopling North America for some theories.

The original English colonists may not have seen themselves as immigrants, but they were certainly newcomers to an already-peopled land. A lesson plan on Jamestown explores early contact between English and the Powhatans.

Other early Americans came to the English colonies against their will. Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americas: A Visual Record can introduce students to the brutal separation of Africans from their homelands and their sale to the Americas. What regulations managed the slave trade? When was it stopped in the U.S.?

As the U.S. developed and its boundaries expanded, national views on immigration have shifted multiple times. In Lesson Plan Reviews, we look at lesson plans on Asian immigration through Angel Island, Jewish immigration, and living conditions in tenements after the Civil War. (For more on Jewish immigration, visit our Beyond the Textbook feature.)

Browse more than 100 Website Reviews for primary sources on the lives of immigrants throughout U.S. history. Or find suggestions for teaching about immigration in Ask a Master Teacher.

Child Labor in America, 1908-1912: Photographs of Lewis W. Hine

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Image for Child Labor in America, 1908-1912: Photographs of Lewis W. Hine
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Furnishes 64 photographs taken by Lewis W. Hine (1874–1940) between 1908 and 1912. Images document American children working in mills, mines, streets, and factories, and as "newsies," seafood workers, fruit pickers, and salesmen. The website also includes photographs of immigrant families and children's "pastimes and vices."

Original captions by Hine—one of the most influential photographers in American history—call attention to exploitative and unhealthy conditions for laboring children. A background essay introduces Hine and the history of child labor in the United States. This is a valuable collection for studying documentary photography, urban history, labor history, and the social history of the Progressive era.

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Science & Tech.

Isleton Tong

Description

In this four-minute episode of PBS's "History Detectives," Charlotte Brooks, speaks about the relationship between Chinese immigrants and the white populations with which they came into contact in the U.S. Topics covered include the transition from violence to non-violent discrimination, the simultaneous romanticization and distrust of the Chinese, the lack of Chinese legal standing, and the way in which the arrival of Japanese and Filipino immigrants altered the social standing of the Chinese.

Teachers should be aware that the term tong is never defined within the talk. It essentially refers to Chinese organized crime groups within early Chinatowns. The violence and disparity of the anecdotes called to attention in this discussion render it better suited to middle or high school students, rather than an elementary audience.

Brooks holds a BA in Chinese history, as well as a MA and PhD in American history. She currently teaches at Baruch College, and primary academic interests include Asian American history, politics, and community in California.

Connecticut Farmhouse

Description

Elyse Luray of PBS's History Detectives speaks to immigration historian Daniel Soyer at New York's Lower East Side Tenement Museum about the forces that brought Russian Jews to the U.S. and the conditions many immigrants encountered in tenement housing.

Deutschheim State Historic Site [MO]

Description

The Pommer-Gentner house, built in 1840, is a sterling example of high-style German neoclassicism and is furnished to reflect the earlier settlement period of the 1830s and 1840s. Behind the house, visitors will tour a period garden and a small half-timbered barn containing an exhibit of 19th-century tools. The Strehly house, built in stages from 1842 to 1869, has a traditional German vernacular front. It once contained a full-service printing company that produced a German-language newspaper. About 1857, Carl Strehly built a winery next to the house that today displays one of a few remaining carved wine casks in the Midwest. Grapevines, planted by the Strehlys in the 1850s, can still be seen running the length of the backyard. Deutschheim's varied collections of German Americana are represented by galleries of changing artifacts and photographs.

The site offers tours, exhibits, occasional recreational and educational events.

Ponzi's Scheme: True Story of a Financial Legend

Description

Professor Mitchell Zuckoff follows the life of Italian immigrant Charles Ponzi (1882-1949), legendary con man who set up the Securities Exchange Company, which promised investors massive returns on their investments based on the buying and trading of international postal reply coupons. The scheme, begun around 1918, collapsed in 1920 after the Boston Post revealed it to the public. The presentation includes slides.

Audio and video options are available.

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