Create a Comic Book Vignette of Immigration to the US

I. Review or Present Essential Questions

(1 session)

1. What are the different waves of immigration to the United States and what are the characteristics of a “wave” of immigration? (See section II below for more information.)
2. Why have people immigrated to the United States? What are the “pushes” and “pulls” of these waves of immigration? What are the typical or common reasons that people are “pushed” from their homeland or “pulled” to the United States (motivations)?
3. What are the typical challenges people experience leaving their home and home country and emigrating to the United States? What are the common or unique experiences for immigrants leaving their home?
4. How do immigrants typically adapt to their new home? How do they survive and assimilate into a new culture, and in what ways are they able to maintain their own racial or ethnic culture?

II. Research and Take Notes on a Specific Wave of Immigration 

(1–2 sessions; teachers should adjust questions as needed)

1. Research and take notes on a particular group’s major “wave” of immigration to the United States. Focus on events or pressures or causes that make so many people leave their homeland. What is happening? Why? Who or what is involved in these causes? Why are these things happening?  
2. How many people leave over time? How big is this “wave?”  Who, exactly, is leaving? What are the demographics?
3. How do people leave? By what routes or means? What is this trip like and how long can it take? What do these immigrants typically experience on this journey?
4. How are they received in the United States? What are the challenges, opportunities, struggles? How do these newcomers adapt and thrive?

Typical or traditional “waves” of immigration to the United States from colonial times through today (not all inclusive):

1. 1600s: European exploration and settlements (Spain, England, France, Dutch Netherlands) (These can all be broken down into individual sections, per teacher instructions)
2. 1600s–1800s: African forced migration
3. 1820s: Continued European immigration (dominated by German and Irish Catholics, British)
4. 1840s: Irish immigration (caused by the Great Potato Famine, Transcontinental Railroad)
5. 1840s: Chinese immigration (caused by the Gold Rush, Transcontinental Railroad)
6. 1880s: Southern and Eastern European immigration waves (Greece, Poland, Russia, Asia) (due to work and religious persecution, such as Russian Pogroms)
7. 1890s Japanese (Issei) immigration (into the Hawaii islands then to the Pacific Northwest)
8. 1890s–present: Cuban immigration (although there have been various waves of Cuban migration)
9. 1942–1964: Mexican immigration (due to the Bracero Program specifically)
10. 1960s: Jamaican immigration (which also dated to post-Panama Canal era)
11. 1975–current: Post-Vietnam War Vietnamese immigration
12. 1990s: Somali immigration (due to conflict and related issues like famine, floods, drought, etc.)
13. 2010: Haitian immigration (due to earthquake and political instability, but this also dates as far back as the 1950s)

Note: Depending on the makeup of your class, there are many other more specific immigration waves of various sizes from a number of different countries, including Haiti, Jamaica, all South and Middle American countries, India, Pakistan, and other places. Add these to your list of options as you put the assignment together for your students.

III. Create a Brief 1–2 Page “Expository Essay” in Comic Book Format, Combining Sequential Art and Text

(2–4 sessions)

1. Review examples of page designs and panel ideas in comic book narrative form.
2. Start to think of images to combine or draw with expository text using comic panel templates, referring to examples for ideas.
3. Finalize and polish 1–2 page illustrated versions of a background or explanation of a particular immigration wave with dark outlines and color, if desired. (Can use 11"×17" copy paper to keep pages together.)
4. Share in groups, compile into an anthology collection comic book, or post on walls.

Note: For some students, an accommodation can include creating the page and panel design with indications of where text should go and what could be drawn in the panel (just like some comic book writers who create a script for the artist or comic story do).