Debating Contemporary Immigration and the Uses of History
For this exercise you have two tasks:
Part 1: Compare the ways that history is used in the two secondary sources on contemporary Latino immigration.
Part 2: Using primary sources, evaluate the arguments of the two secondary sources.
Part 1: Comparing Secondary Sources
Compare the views of these two scholars by answering the following questions. Be sure to find specific examples in the selections to support your answers.
What issues that surround Latino immigration to America does each author address?
What comparisons does each author make to historical immigration groups?
In what ways might these authors respond to each other’s work?
Based on what you have learned, what examples from American history can you think of that would support or refute each author’s argument?
Secondary Source 1
Jason Richwine, “The Congealing Pot” (2009)
Source: Richwine, Jason. “The Congealing Pot.” National Review August 24, 2009, pp. 37–39.
Secondary Source 2
Leo Chavez, The Latino Threat (2008)
Source: Chavez, Leo. The Latino Threat: Constructing Immigrants, Citizens, and the Nation. Redwood City, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2008. 3–4.
Part 2: Using Primary Sources to Evaluate Secondary Sources
How does each document address the issue of assimilation and identity?
Based on these documents, what pattern do you see in how Americans historically have responded to the arrival of new immigrant groups?
Which of the primary sources do you think Richwine and Chavez would find most useful, and how might they use them to support their arguments?
Which of the secondary sources do you think is best supported by the primary source evidence?
Primary Source 1
Benjamin Franklin, Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, etc. (1755)
Source: Franklin, Benjamin. Observations Concerning the Increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, etc. Boston: Printed and Sold by S. Kneeland in Queen Street, 1755. 224.
Primary Source 2
Senate of California to the Congress, “Memorial of the Senate of California to the Congress of the United States” (1878)
Source: “Memorial of the Senate of California to the Congress of the United States.” Chinese Immigration; Its Social, Moral, and Political Effect. Report to the California State Senate of Its Special Committee on Chinese Immigration. Sacramento, Calif.: State Office, F. P. Thompson, Supt. State Printing, 1878. 60, 62–64.
Primary Source 3
Henry Cabot Lodge, “The Restriction of Immigration” (1891)
Source: Lodge, Henry Cabot. “The Restriction of Immigration,” North American Review 152, no. 410 (January 1891): 28, 30, 32–33.
Primary Source 4
Nathan Glazer and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Beyond the Melting Pot (1963)
Source: Glazer, Nathan and Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Beyond the Melting Pot: The Negroes, Puerto Ricans, Jews, Italians, and Irish of New York City. Cambridge, Mass.: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press and Harvard University Press, 1963. 12–14, 20.
