Introduction
Students access data at the United States Census Web site. They find tables that are appropriate for their study of immigration and construct bar graphs and/or charts for use in projects or essays. 

Preparation:
Look at the "Historical Census Statistics on the Foreign-born Population of the United States: 1850-1990."  There is a helpful introductory paper at this site as well. Choose the tables appropriate for your study of immigration.

Procedure:
Students access the US Census web page and go to the "Historical Census Statistics on the Foreign-born Population of the United States: 1850-1990." This page is a working paper prepared by the US Census Bureau and contains 22 tables related to immigration to the United States between 1850 and 1990. 

Choose the tables most appropriate for your study of immigration. Among some of the most useful for determining basic trends in US immigration: 

Table 1.  Nativity of the Population and Place of Birth of the Native Population: 1850-1990
Table 2.  Region of Birth of the Foreign-Born Population: 1850-1930 and 1960-1990.
Table 3.  Region and Country of Area of Birth of the Foreign-Born Population: 1960-1990
Table 4.  Region and Country or Area of Birth of the Foreign-Born Population, With Geographic Detail Shown in Decennial Census Publications of 1940 or Earlier: 1850 to 1930 and 1960-1990.

Most sections of Tables 1-4 show all information in total numbers. Students can apply their math skills by creating charts or graphs in Microsoft Excel (or other spreadsheet software) to explain various trends. They can also practice converting these absolute population numbers into percentages and create pie charts or graphs with these percentages. (Table 2 contains many of these percentages already calculated.)

Activities for Table 1
This table shows the number of foreign-born and native-born from 1850 through 1990. The great immigration periods between 1890-1930 and 1970-1990 can be observed through this table. 

Students can analyze this data by determining the percentages of native vs. foreign-born for each census. Although the censuses of 1980 and 1990 show the greatest foreign-born population, analysis will reveal an even greater percentage in the earlier immigration period between 1890-1930. These percentages can be used to construct pie charts for the years 1850-1990 that show the comparison between numbers of native and foreign-born in the United States.

Activities for Table 2
This table shows the regional numbers and percentages of immigrants between 1850-1990.   (Note: if you plan to have students calculate percentages for other charts, encourage them to do their own calculations, rather than using the numbers calculated here.) The data in this graph shows the spike of European immigration between 1890-1930 and the spike in Asian and Latin American immigration between 1980-1990. 

Students can use this data to construct bar graphs or pie charts showing the change in regional immigration between 1850-1990. 

Activities for Table 3
This table shows the large increase in numbers of immigrants from Asia and Latin America between 1960-1990. It also demonstrates the relative decline in emigrants from European countries and the relatively few immigrants from African nations. 

Students can analyze the change in regional emigration by constructing pie charts for each region: Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania, and Latin America. Since data exists for the years 1960, 1970, 1980, and 1990, students can construct five of these pie charts in order to see the change in regional emigration. Students can also break down the trends more precisely by choosing various countries from each of the five regions. For more application of mathematical skills, students can determine the percentage increase and/or decrease for various regions. 

Bar graphs can be constructed from this data as well. Students can analyze trends by region or by country. Where there are great increase or decreases in a ten-year period, students can construct hypotheses or questions to address why these dramatic changes occurred. For example, in the Dominican Republic, the number of people born in this country who immigrated to the United States increased between 1960 and 1970 from 11,883 to 61,228-a near 600% increase. Why the sudden increase in these numbers? Other countries saw growth in immigration during this time, but not nearly such exponential growth. 

Activities for Table 4
This chart shows data similar to that found in Table 3 for the years 1960-1990 (though with a bit less detail). It also includes data between 1850-1930 as well. 

Students can do the same activities they did for the data from Table 3 for the data found in Table 4. The data show that most immigration occurred from Ireland and Germany in the last decades of the 19th century and that immigration patterns shifted at the turn of the century to include more people from Italy, Russia, and Poland. Here students clearly see the division in years between the two waves of immigration. 

Students can construct bar graphs or pie charts to show the various waves of immigration in these years. Since this table contains no percentages, students will need to convert the data into percent before constructing these charts or graphs.

Extension Activities:
Students might gather data on immigration in their town or state, create graphs, and compare the national averages with the local numbers.

Students might also create polls about immigration, and graph the results they gather; these results could be compared with Gallup Poll results at http://www.gallup.com (do a site search, keyword "immigration"). 

Lesson by Chris Davis, who teaches English and history at Clark Magnet High School in Glendale, California. He holds a B.A. in history and English from the University of California, Riverside and a masters degree in history from the California State University in Los Angeles.  A native Californian, he is a third-generation immigrant with family from Russia and England. 

Lesson Plans
These lesson plans for grades 7-12 are available in .pdf format and as regular Web pages (HTML). If you prefer a printed, preformatted copy of the plans, you'll want to choose the .pdf option; to view and print the .pdf version, you'll need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader. For additional information about downloading Acrobat, visit the PBS TeacherSource Help page. 
 

Suggestions:
To adapt or modify the activity for various levels or abilities, the activity can be done as group writing the poem, using audio and/or video.  Pictures can also be used to make the activity more visual as well as adding in sound effects. Using a poem in a song or with music can also be incorporated into the activity.

Multi -Disciplinary:

• Develop a rubric using the standards and CPI as suggested below.

• American Visas - United States Immigration, consular, nationality law network
• Angela's Ashes - A Memoir  Born in Brooklyn in 1930 to recent Irish immigrants Malachy and Angela McCourt, Frank grew up in Limerick after his parents returned to Ireland because of poor prospects in America.
• A Positive Light - hocked by the horrid little houses in nearby slums, this six year old from an affluent family dedicated her life to radically improving the  social culture of America.
• Census - United States Census - informative websites and many links for additional information.
• Emigration - individuals who had made the journey from Europe to America 
• Immigration - Complete text of December 11, 1995 document. The rate of U. S.

immigration in the 1990s is about one-third the rate of immigration at the beginning of this century. 
• ISN - Immigrant support network
• The National Immigration Forum - The Forum advocates and builds public support for public policies that welcome immigrants and refugees and that

are fair and supportive to newcomers in our country.

• ExplorAsource - Search by grade, subject and topic to find a variety of educational resources and materials to support state standards. Be sure to hit the 'standard search' button after entering the grade and subject.
• MarcoPolo - Standards-based Internet content for K-12 education. Search MarcoPolo for web links to top sites in several disciplines. Also, lesson plans, activities, and other teacher support materials to aid in integrating Internet content in the classroom
• The New York Times Learning Network - The Teacher Connections section provides daily lesson plans on current events topics and a lesson plan archive on a variety of subjects. All lessons are correlated to state standards. Recommended for grades 6-12.
• PBS TeacherSource - TeacherSource correlates Language Arts, History, Math and Social Studies lessons to state standards. Type "poetry" on the keyword search line and hit enter.