By Barbara Kramarz

• Lesson I: Terminology
• Lesson II: Poetry
• Lesson III: Primary Sources
• Lesson IV: Current Events

The lessons figuring on poetry (II) and primary source material (III) encourage students to analyze past events in the Asian experience and connect them to the present. With their emphasis on the universality of human experience and the moving personal consequences of cultural dislocation, these works in both fictional and documentary form, demand participation from the reader. Like an extended family, literature through the ages provides context and continuity. Students need to recognize these universal themes are they are reflected in their own lives.

Lesson I

• Objective - Students become familiar with terms - academic and informal - that deal with issues of Asia and immigration.
• Activities
1. Add some more words and phrases to this list.
2. Create a new list of helpful words and phrases for another ethnic group.
3. Matching: number word entries, alphabetize meanings, and have students match the words and their meanings.
4. Develop your own surveying techniques. Find out which Moving Words are well-known. Graph the results. Write a paragraph stating your conclusions (cross-curricular).
5. Write a short story using Moving Words. See how well you can blend fact and fiction. Title your work.

anchor child

teenagers sponsored to come to the U.S. whose parents are still in refugee camps and dependent on their children for money. Familial needs may lead kids to illegal activities to raise money quickly.

Angel Island

immigration station in San Francisco Bay from 1910-1940 to check legal status of Chinese immigrants

bamboo joints of life

stages of life, Korean

banana

yellow on the outside, white on the inside. Term for Americanized Asians.

bend, don't break

assimilate or adjust to the challenges that life brings

bi-lingual

sometimes defined as the ability to think separately in each language

boat people

many Vietnamese left their homeland in 1975 at the end of the war. A second wave of refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos in the late 1970s fled their countries and tried to come to the U.S. by boat under great hardships.

Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882

prohibited U.S. immigration of Chinese laborers. First time U.S. denied a specific ethnic group naturalization and citizen rights.

color blind

current term favored to describe diversity in the U.S.

cross-over writer

when a minority author chooses to write about something other than minority issues

culture-burden

when immigrants, especially young ones, want to be rid of their cultural traditions

Ellis Island

major immigration station for the nation from 1892 to 1943 in New York Harbor

four treasures of calligraphy

writing materials necessary to the scholar: ink, ink stone, paper, and brushes

FOB

newly arrived immigrants, "fresh off the boat"

FOJ

newly arrived immigrants, "fresh off the jet"

Gentlemen's Agreement 1908

Japanese agree to restrict immigration of laborers to U.S. but allow family members to join males already there

glass ceiling

invisible barrier holding minorities from promotion regardless of qualifications

Gold Mountain

Chinese metaphor for the California gold rush

gye

when a group of Koreans individually contribute money and allow a member to borrow from the fund (Chinese and Japanese have similar groups)

hollow bamboo

being of Asian origin but giving up many traditions

hyphenization

when your culture of birth is hyphenated with American, for example, Asian-American

Immigration Act of 1924

cut off U.S. immigration from Asian countries

Immigration Act of 1965

allowed a quota of 20,000 immigrants from specific countries. Immediate family members allowed on a non-quota basis.

internment camps

Executive Order 9066 of 1942 deprived Japanese of their constitutional rights. 120,000 internees, 50% of them American citizens, throughout the western U.S. during WWII

issei

first generation immigrant from Japan

kibei

second generation Japanese who went back to Japan to study and then return to U.S.

Konglish

mixture of Korean and English languages

Little Buddha

urban Chinese families restrict to one child. These children can be spoiled.

Little Dragons

Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore, so called because of their economic prowess

Little Saigon

a section of Westminster, California, officially designated in 1988. Assures that Vietnamese living in Orange County have necessary services without having to use English.

minority within a minority

a minority group which has to deal not only with a majority, but also another dominant minority

model minority

general assumption that Asians will succeed in education and career choices

mosaic

current term favored to describe diverse character of the U.S.

nisei

second generation of Japanese-Americans

no no boys

Japanese responding negatively to loyalty questionnaires issued in internment camps in WWII.

Orient

referential term meaning east; suggests Europe as geographical center

one point five generation

those who are born in a foreign country and brought to the U.S. as infants. They often feel uninformed of their birthplace.

out marriage

marriage crossing one's racial or cultural heritage

paper sons and daughters

the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 destroyed many immigration records; some Chinese then purchased or created documents claiming U.S. citizenship and the right to sponsor their Chinese-born children. Those without children sold their slots, and thus immigrants arrived with identities other than their own.

parachute kids

students, especially from Asia, sent to the U.S. for education while their parents remain in the homeland

picture brides

marriage of Japanese immigrant women arranged partially through a photograph

push/pull theory

theory of immigration: "pushed" by unfavorable conditions in the homeland; "pulled" by host country's economic needs

racial uniform

physiological qualities, basis for racism

salad bowl/symphony

two terms suggested to replace the "melting pot" metaphor long used to designate racial and ethnic diversity in the U.S.

sansei

third generation of Japanese-Americans

thousand pieces of gold

term of endearment of a Chinese father to his daughter

tong

Chinese organization based on mutual need and protectiono

urban warrior

Korean immigrants with a reputation for being tough in business and unafraid to locate in high risk areas

Yappie

young Asian professional

Lesson II: Poetry from Distant Shores

• Objective - Students analyze poems with theme of dislocation.
• Activities
1. List the reasons that compel people to immigrate.
2. Read the first two pages of poems in the packet. What are these poems about? Who is writing? Who is receiving? Where is the poet? Where is the recipient? What are the universal themes in these poems? Read the eighth century poem of Li Po and answer the same questions. Read the twentieth century poem of Pat Mora and answer the same questions. Use a Venn diagram to compare and contrast three different poems. Write a paper using your diagram as a prewrite.
3. The Statue of Liberty has welcomed immigrants to Ellis Island since 1886. What monument would you have designed for Angel Island? Why? Please draw.

Dear husband, ever since you sojourned in a
     foreign land,
I've lost interest in all matters.
All day long, I stay inside the bedroom, my
     brows knitted;
Ten thousand thoughts bring me endless remorse.
In grief, in silence.
I cannot fall asleep on my lonely pillow.


With tears in my eyes
I turn back to my homeland
Taking one last look.


Mine a Meiji voice,
Crossing the Pacific sea,
It has grown husky.


Ribbons of farewell
I hold between my fingers
Feeling blood flow through.


You were still waving, beloved
When I left you
To journey to another land
A white kerchief
You held
Drenched with tears
You couldn't hep crying
I promised it'll be short
  while perhaps
And I will be back home...


My husband cuts the cane stalks
And I trim their leaves
With sweat and tears we both work
For our means.


For a little while
Encountering a person
Who was anti-Japanese,
I rubbed against a spirit
Out of harmony with mine.


A wasted grassland
Turned to fertile fields by sweat
Of cultivation:
But I, made dry and fallow
By tolerating insults.


Working together
Making effort faithfully
Till they all grow up.

Alien hardships
Made bearable by the hope
I hold for my children.

While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums,
And we went on living in the village Chokan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.

At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.

At fifteen I stopped scowing,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours,
For ever and for ever and for ever.
Why should I climb the lookout?

At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-yen, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.
You dragged your feet when you went out.

By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you,
As far as Cho-fu-sa.

My Spanish isn't enough.
I remember how I'd smile
listening to my little ones,
understanding every word they'd say,
their jokes, their songs, their plots.
  Vamos a pedirle dulces a mama. Vamos.
But that was in Mexico.
Now my children go to American high schools.
They speak ENglish. At night they sit around
the kitchen table, laugh with one another.
I stand by the stove and feel dumb, alone.
I bought a book to learn English.
My husband frowned, drank more beer.
My oldest said, "Mama, he doesn't want you
to be smarter than he is." I'm forty,
embarassed at mispronouncing words,
embarassed at the laughter of my children,
the grocer, the mailman. Sometimes I take
my English book and lock myself in the bathroom,
say the thick words softly,
for if I stop trying, I will be deaf
when my children need my help.

Lessons III: Primary Sources - Field Basic Documentation Records, File Box 90, Folder: Education Reports, Records of the War Relocation Authority, Record Group 210 Chieko Hirata

• Objective - Students experience point of view and the impact that historical events have on the individual.
• Activities
1. Found Poem - each student has the document to read and highlights words and phrases. Organized in groups, each person receives three or four strips of paper and writes a highlighted word or phrase on each paper. Students try to "find" a poem in the collective strips.
2. You are the governor of a state that held internment camps in WWII. Write a letter to a Japanese-American family that was transported to one of these camps.
3. Have students write a sentence beginning with the word "prejudice." No "be" verb allowed. Then have students rise together and each one read his/her sentence, sitting quietly after taking a turn reading.

Current Events - Newspapers, Magazines

• Objectives - Students increase awareness of multicultural reportage and perceive increasing interdependence of the global (cultural) marketplace.
• Activities
1. Political cartoon in the Los Angeles Times (4/16/96): "There is a young lady who lives in a shoe; the company makes millions, she only makes two."
2. Article on fortune cookies by Tara Mack, The Washington Post (7/9/96): "Predicting A Future We Can All Relate To"
3. Essay by Pico Iyer, Time magazine (4/1/96): "Spring Break, Here We Come"

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