Essay Instructions: PREPARING ASSIGNMENT #8
One of the many fields of historical endeavor is research in immigration history. You need to be part of this larger ongoing process of inquiry. So for this assignment, you should identify and interview and immigrant to the United States and then write an interview paper based on what you have discovered and learned. This paper should be five-to-ten pages in length doubled-spaced (half that length, if single-spaced). Among other issues, the interview and the paper should deal with conditions in the "old country," why that person wanted to come here or had to come here, how they came, and what problems they face or faced in assimilation and acculturation. In your paper, you should compare and contrast this individual's experience with the New Immigration of the late 19th and early 20th century and with recent immigration streams. Your immigrant can come from anywhere in the world, and what you find is what you find, whether or not your immigrant's experience conforms to the generalizations. There is no right answer. Again, as you prepare this work, please review the information in "Preparing Assignment #8" located in the About the Course page.
One of the key themes in the course is immigration. The United States is a nation of immigrants - every single individual in American society is either an immigrant or a descendant of immigrants who came here in either the recent or distant past. There are no exceptions. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, part of the larger era studied in this course, the general immigration patterns to the United States changed from population streams originating largely, though not entirely, in northwestern Europe and Africa to others originating largely, though not entirely, in central, eastern, and southeastern Europe. This was the so-called "New Immigration," which became ever more controversial in the larger society and ended for the most part in the 1920s for reasons that remain debated. Books written after that time sometimes stated that the immigration experience in American society was essentially over. But not so. In the latter part of the 20th century, a complex series of national and international changes dramatically accelerated immigration to the United States to roughly the levels of a century before, and immigration again became a controversial subject in American society - all of which brings us to Assignment #8, the last assignment prior to the final exam.
One of the many fields of endeavor for historians is research in immigration history. You need to be part of this larger ongoing process of inquiry. So Assignment #8, the last unit in the course, is to conduct an interview with an immigrant, write a paper on that individual's experiences, and compare that person's story with the general themes of the late 19th /early 20th century past and the very recent past and present. So as you begin the course, you need to begin thinking about Assignment #8 - and the first step is to find an individual to interview. You should begin this process early in the course -- meaning now -- not late in the course because it will take some time to identify an individual, set up an interview, and write the paper.
Here are some suggestions for finding a person to interview. Think about a friend or a friend of a friend or a friend of the family. What about a neighbor or the neighbor of someone you know? How about a relative? Do you know someone who works where you work? What about a buddy in the military? Do you remember someone from high school or college or know someone in a present class? Maybe you've struck up a friendship with someone wherever you shop or eat. Think about various institutions that could help you find someone. Places of worship often sponsor immigrants and can put you in touch. Think of offices at school or college which provide services to immigrant groups, and contact them. You will have to think and look, but it will not be hard to find someone. The person you find can come from anywhere - the only requirement is that this individual be someone who came here from another country, became a citizen or is in the citizenship process or is at least thinking about it. Someone who is here for a brief time just to go to school or work on a job is not an immigrant per se - just somewhere here for a brief time before returning home.
Here are some suggestions for your interview:
1. Be friendly, conversational, informal, and honest about what you are doing. ?
2. Before conducting your interview, develop an interview strategy - that is to say, a general approach and/or series of questions designed to elicit the information that you need for your paper. Among the things you want to know are why this individual came to the United States, the conditions in the "old country" and the individual's perceptions of the U.S., the difficulties in getting here, and the problems that he or she faced or faces in assimilation and acculturation. To do this, you will need to develop a group or series of open-ended questions so as to foster a continuing conversation or dialogue. Try to avoid questions that lead to "yes" and "no" answers. You should be flexible enough so as to let people talk about what they want to talk about, and let the conversation go where it wants to, so long as you can acquire the information that you need.
3. You need to be sensitive about the feelings of the person interviewed. Some people may feel they are outsiders even if they are citizens or in the citizenship process. Some people have come to the U.S. under the most traumatic circumstances and may not wish to recall or delve into various matters in any detail, if at all. Some immigrants may have family and friends back in the "old country" and may not wish to identify them or be identified themselves so as to protect these people or themselves from harm. Thus, in your paper, you may wish to give your individual an alias - that's ok - just let the instructor know up front that you are doing this. You should also keep in mind that anything typed into a computer or written down is essentially public domain information even if your work is meant only for yourself, the instructor, and some CU officials on a need-to-know basis.
4. In conducting your interview, you may wish to tape, but if you do, you should clear this with the individual in advance and agree to give the person interviewed the tape, once you are through with it, if they would like to have it. In deciding whether to tape or just take notes, keep in mind that people will generally be more reticent in speaking with you if they know they are being recorded. They will be more open if you take notes. So the trade-off is an accurate transcript from the tape versus fuller information if you take notes.
5. If you yourself are an immigrant, you may grant one interview to another colleague taking this course, but you are under no obligation to do so. If you are an immigrant, you may not interview yourself, but you may introduce your own experiences and views into the interview paper for comparative purposes. You may, however, interview other family members.
Under any and all circumstances, do not interview anyone you have any reason to believe is an illegal immigrant. If it turns out that in doing the actual interview, you find out that the person you're speaking to is an illegal immigrant, you should politely terminate the interview as quickly as possible, then destroy any tapes or notes you have made, and seek another person to interview. The instructor will immediately destroy any paper received discussing an illegal immigrant and you will have to repeat the entire assignment. This is a very important matter. There is one exception to this, however: if you interview an individual who came here illegally, but later became legal through various government programs, that's ok.
