Resources on 19th Century Immigration to America: Two Perspectives

Part One: Chinese Immigration

key: ES-Elementary MS-Middle School HS-High School

Reference Materials

"Asian Americans: Immigration." U*X*L Multicultural. U*X*L, 1998. Reproduced in Student Resource Center. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Group. October, 2001. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/SRC/

"Chinese Americans". Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America. Detroit: Gale Group, 2000.

The Immigrant Experience. Peterborough, N.H.: Cobblestone Publishing Company, 1996. Vol. 1 1840-1890; Vol. 2 1890-1925.

Contains reproductions of historical documents and classroom activities around immigration.

"Irish Americans." Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America. Detroit: Gale Group, 2000.

"Irish Americans: Immigration." U*X*L Multicultural. U*X*L, 1998. Reproduced in Student Resource Center. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Group. October, 2001. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/SRC/

"Text of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, May 6, 1882." DISCovering U.S. History. Gale Research, 1997. Reproduced in Student Resource Center. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Group. October 2001. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/SRC/.

Resources for Educators: Chinese Immigration

Barth, Gunther. Bitter Strength: A History of the Chinese in the United States, 1850-1870. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1964.

A close look at anti-Chinese sentiment in California before the 1870’s.

Chan, Sucheng, ed. Entry Denied: Exclusion and the Chinese Community in America,1882-1943. Philadelphia : Temple University Press, 1991.

Chang, Iris. The Chinese in America: A Narrative History. New York: Viking, 2003.

Chang, Leslie. Beyond the Narrow Gate: The Journey of Four Chinese Women from the Middle Kingdom to Middle America. New York: Penguin, 1999.

The lives of four women, who emigrated to America from China, are examined.

Choy, Philip P., ed. The Coming Man, 19th Century American Perceptions of the Chinese. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1994.

Includes 116 editorial cartoons selected from American newspapers and magazines dating from 1869 to 1900 that depict early Chinese immigrants and reveal the hostility and tension of exclusion.

Chu, Doris C.J. Chinese in Massachusetts: Their Experiences and Contributions. Boston: Chinese Culture Institute, 1987.

Bi-lingual overview beginning with the early Chinese merchants and sailors coming to Massachusetts, right up to information about present day organizations and people.

Gyory, Andrew. Closing the Gate : Race, Politics, and the Chinese Exclusion Act. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998.

Ketchum, Liza. The Gold Rush. Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1996.

Includes a section on the Chinese involvement with the Gold Rush; one of the companion volumes to the Public Television series ‘The West’.

McClain, Charles J. In Search of Equality, The Chinese Struggle Against Discrimination in Nineteenth-Century America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.

Well documented chronicle of Chinese American efforts in California to combat discrimination in housing, employment and education through the U.S. court system. Includes useful index of cases for further research.

McCunn, Ruthanne Lum. Chinese American Portraits: Personal Histories, 1828-1988.

Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1996.

Includes brief biographies of eight early Chinese pioneers who struggled to make a contribution to American society despite exclusion.

McCunn, Ruthanne Lum. An Illustrated History of the Chinese in America. San Francisco: Design Enterprises of San Francisco, 1979.

Miller, Stuart Creighton. The Unwelcome Immigrant: The American Image of the Chinese,1785-1882. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969.

Rangaswamy, Padma. Asian Immigration to the United States: a unit of study for grades 8-12. Los Angeles, CA: Organization of American Historians, 2001.

See, Lisa. On Gold Mountain: The One-Hundred Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family. New York: Vintage Books, 1995.

The author’s great great grandfather left China for ‘Gold Mountain’ (the Chinese name for the United States) in 1867. This is the story of her family’s life and experiences between two cultures.

Takaki, Ronald. Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans. New York: Penguin Books, 1989.

This narrative history focuses on Asians and their various experiences entering and living in the United States.

Thibaut, Amy Nelson. The Chinese Immigrant Experience in the United States: A Simulation. Denver, CO: Center for Teaching in the United States, University of Denver, 1992.

A simulation game to recognize the tools of racism and the effects it has on society; appropriate for grades 7 and up and useful to accompany a unit on the Transcontinental Railroad or any lesson on prejudice.

Wong, K. Scott. Claiming America: Constructing Chinese American Identities during the Exclusion Act. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998.

A collection of essays that helps fill an important historiographical gap – stories and voices from Asian immigrants and their offspring affected by the anti-Asian sentiment of the late 19th and early 20th century.

Wong, Vivian Wu. Early Chinese Immigration and The Process of Exclusion: a unit of study for grades 8-12. Los Angeles, CA: Organization of American Historians and the National Center for History in the Schools, University of California, Los Angeles, 1998.

Teaching units based on primary sources and background materials for teachers on many aspects surrounding Chinese Americans in the late nineteenth century.

Resources for Students: Chinese Immigration

Baker, Hugh. The Overseas Chinese. London: B.T. Batsford, 1987. (MS/HS)

Reviews Chinese migration around the Pacific Rim region during the 19th and early 20th century.

"Chinese Americans", Cobblestone. Vol. 12, No. 3, March 1991. (MS)

Chinese in the Building of the West. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Globe Book Company, 1995. (MS)

Covers period from mid 19th century up to the Depression, and gives a short background of conditions in China which led some to emigrate as well as what they came to America to do. Textbook format, with key ideas, questions, activities following each chapter. Accompanied by a Teacher’s Guide.

Daley, William. The Chinese Americans. New York: Chelsea House, 1987. (MS)

Part of The Peoples of North America series; an overview of the history, culture and religion of the Chinese, the factors that encouraged their emigration, and their acceptance an an ethnic group in America throughout the years.

Deitch, JoAnne Weisman. Immigration. Carlisle, MA: Discovery Enterprises Ltd., 2000. (MS)

Anthology of documents relating to immigrants who came to America at the turn of the 20th century. Includes research activities for middle school students.

Freedman, Russell. Immigrant Kids. New York Puffin Books, 1980. (ES/MS)

Text and period photographs chronicle the lives of immigrant children at home, school, work and play during the late 1800's and early 1900's.

Hoobler, Dorothy. The Chinese American Family Album. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. (MS/HS)

Oral and written histories provide a look at the experiences of Chinese immigrants, relating stories about their homeland, the voyage and arrival to America, and the integration of each generation into this new society.

Yep, Laurence. The Journal of Wong Ming-Chung: A Chinese Miner. New York: Scholastic, 2000. (MS)

Written for the ‘My Name is America’ series, the story of a young boy who travels to California in 1852 to join an uncle during the Gold Rush. See also many of the other titles by this Chinese-American author.

Yin. Coolies. New York: Philomel Books, 2001. (ES/MS)

A young boy learns the story of his great-great-great grandfather and uncle who came to America to build the transcontinental railroad.

Videos

Ancestors in the Americas: Coolies, Sailors, Settlers. San Francisco, CA: Center for Educational Telecommunications, 2000. (62 min.).

The untold story of how Asians--Filipino, Chinese, Asian Indian--first arrived in the Americas. Film crosses centuries and oceans from the 16th century Manila-Acapulco trade, to the Opium War, to the 19th century plantation coolie labor in South America and the Caribbean.

Becoming American: The Chinese Experience. Princeton. N.J.: Films for the Humanities and Sciences, 2001. (3 parts, 89 minutes each)

Three part series first shown on PBS traces the Chinese in America.

Carved in Silence. San Francisco: National Asian American Telecommunications Assn, 1995. (45 min.).

The story of Angel Island with recreated scenes of interrogation and detainment in the actual barracks.

Chinese-American Heritage. Wynnewood, PA: Schlessinger Video Productions, 1997. Video. (25 min.).

Introduction to the vast land and culture of China as well as the immigration of Chinese Americans and the traditions they observe today.

The Chinese Americans. New York: MLIW21, 1999. (90 min.)

The lives and experiences of a cross section of Chinese American immigrants from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

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Part Two: Irish Immigration

Resources for Educators: Irish Immigration

Dezell, Maureen. Irish America: Coming into Clover. New York: Doubleday, 2001.

Diner, Hasia R. Erin’s Daughters in America: Irish Immigrant Women in the 19th Century. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983.

Fanning, Charles, ed. New Perspectives on the Irish Diaspora. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2000.

A collection of essays on Irish migration and social issues.

Gribben, Arthur. The Great Famine and the Irish in America. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1999.

Handlin, Oscar. Boston's Immigrants. Rev. ed. Boston: Little Brown, 1991.

Originally written in the 1940s, still the classic work on (particularly Irish) newcomers to Boston in the 19th and early twentieth centuries.

Ignatiev, Noel. How the Irish became White. New York: Routledge, 1995.

Presents a colorful look at Irish immigrants up to the Civil War, and examines the concept of "whiteness" and how it was applied in changing ways to different social and ethnic groups in the nineteenth century.

Macnamara, Daniel George. The History of the Ninth Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, June 1861-June 1864. New York: Fordham University Press, 2000.

Reprint of an 1899 publication.

O'Connor, Thomas H. The Boston Irish: A Political History. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1995.

O’Donovan Rossa, Jeremiah. Irish Immigration in the United States: Immigrant Interviews. New York: Arno Press, 1969.

A reprent of an 1864 publication of Irish immigrant interviews.

Way, Peter. Common Labour: Workers and the Digging of North American Canals, 1780-1860. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993.

A look at Irish workers before the railroads, as these men and their families became America's first floating proletariat, subject to gang labor conditions, moving far and wide across the landscape.

Resources for Students: Irish Immigration

Bartolitti, Susan Campbell. Black Potatoes: the Story of the Great Irish Famine, 1845-

1850. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001. (MS)

Beller, Susan Provost. Never Were Men So Brave: The Irish Brigade During the Civil War. New York: Margaret K. McElderry Books, 1998. (MS)

"Irish Americans" Cobblestone, March 1994. Peterborough, NH: Cobblestone Publishing.

Levine, Ellen. --If Your Name Was Changed at Ellis Island. New York : Scholastic Inc., 1993. (ES)

Describes, in question and answer format, the great migration of immigrants to New York's Ellis Island, from the 1880s to 1914. Features quotes from children and adults who passed through the station.

O’Hara, Megan. Irish Immigrants, 1840-1920. Mankato, MN: Blue Earth Books, 2002. (ES)

Parker, Lewis K. Why Irish Immigrants Came to America. New York: PowerKids Press, 2003. (ES)

Part of the ‘Coming to America’ series; describes the economic and social conditions that motivated Irish people to emigrate.

Videos

A Heritage Within. Turning Tide Productions: 1986. (55 min.).

A multicultural look at a New England milltown. Segments include labor history of the mills, family history of immigrants to Holyoke, discrimination faced by immigrants, and a celebration of cultures (Irish Amer., French-Amer. and Puerto-Rican).

Irish-American Heritage. Wynnewood, PA: Schlessinger Video, 1997. (25 min.) (ES/MS)

The Irish in America: Long Journey Home. Burbank, CA: Buena Vista, 199?. 4 videocassettes (6 hours)

Out of Ireland: the Story of Irish Emigration to America. New York: Shanachie Entertainment, 1997. (95 min.)