1. Oral interviews

The theme of this interview is to find out from recent immigrants their impression of the United States. What do they like and dislike about the United States? What do they miss about their native country?

If you do not know any classmates, neighbors, friends, or family who have recently moved to the U.S. from another country, then try to find someone who has moved to your area from another part of the U.S.

• Where did you used to live?
• Describe the place you left.
• What is your impression of the U.S. (or your town)?
• How is it different from where you grew up?
• Why did you come to the U.S.?
• What do you like most and what do you like least about your new home?

Make sure you take notes during your interview. You may even want to record the interview using a tape recorder. Notes or a tape recording will give you a "record" of your subject's memories and thoughts. Your subject is the person you have interviewed.

2. Mapping Your Community

The goal of this activity is to create a demographic map of your community. As a class, you will need to gather data about recent immigrants to your community. You may also want to find out if people from other states in the United States are moving to your area.

• Look around your local area--are there new stores or restaurants in your community that cater to people from a certain country?
• Visit the public library--ask the librarian to help you locate books that would have information on recent immigrants to the United States organized by region. The librarian might also be able to help you find information on where people are moving within the United States.
• Run a search on the World Wide Web using www.excite.com--type in a word or related words, for example, "recent immigrants to Illinois," click "search" and see what happens.

1. Stick push-pins into your local area.
2. For foreign-born immigrants: locate each country of origin and mark it with a push-pin. Tie a piece of green thread onto the push-pin. Stretch the thread to a push-pin marking your area and tie it. You now have a visible line showing a connection between that country and your area. Do this for all countries of origin.
3. For people moving within the United States: locate the different places people have moved from and mark them with push-pins. Attach red thread to these push-pins and tie them off to push-pins marking your area.

Compare your visual diagram--illustrating recent trends in immigration to the United States and migration within the United States--to Side by Side 1890 - 1920 which gives data on immigration and migration trends at the beginning of the twentieth century.

3. Researching Cultural Diffusion

Using your map of your community, find out what kind of cultural contributions new immigrants are making to your community by researching their countries of origin. You might research:

• foods
• music
• languages
• arts & crafts

Try and include this information on your map.

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© Illinois State Museum 31-Dec-96