Lesson 4 - 8 Ates Syllabus/Lesson Plan

The “8 Ates” of Immigration

Grades 7-10

 

Subjects: World History / United States History/Economics

 

Categories: History and Society

 

Standards:

Please read the New Jersey Student Learning Standards at the end of the lesson. They will help you give explicit instructions to your students and help you create rubrics most appropriate for your class.


Objectives:

Students will be able to:

  1. Determine the causes of emigration/migration.
  2. Predict the effects of the introduction of cash into a subsistence economy.
  3. Justify the reasons people deliberate and devise strategies to obtain
  4. Predict what portions of immigrants’ or migrants’ native traditions inhibit their success, survival, and assimilation into a host culture.
    1. What portions of the native cultures aid in success and survival in the American society?
  5. Create a PowerPoint or video presentation that will explain the “8 Ates” of migration/immigration.

Abstract:

Students will explore the economic and social causes of emigration/immigration.  Students will follow the “8 Ates” formula: 1. Alienate, 2. Deliberate, 3. Emigrate, 4. Separate, 5. Eliminate,        6. Appreciate, 7. Assimilate, 8. Celebrate, to help them comprehend and demonstrate the entire process. They will investigate the transition of immigrants and their descendants into becoming Americans. Students will focus on Italian immigration and Puerto Rican migration to the United States, but other Hispanic groups can be brought into the investigation. The lesson can also be applied to groups such as: Dominicans, Cubans, Mexicans, Hondurans, Peruvians, Venezuelans, inter alia.  If a teacher would like, he or she can add other ethnic groups to the project: Irish, Jews, Poles, Chinese, Vietnamese, Palestinians, or other migrant groups such as African Americans who migrated north throughout the 20th century.


Key Terms:

Cash Economy             English            Economic system in which financial transactions are

carried out in cash rather than in produce, production, things, or barter.

Communism                Latin                Economic system where everything is owned in

common (by the government). There is no private property, and the economy is controlled by central government planners who set prices and wages.

E Pluribus Unum          Latin                “Out of many, one”- a traditional motto of the United

States.

Emigrate                      Latin                To leave one country or region to settle in another.

Hispanic                      Spanish             The Spanish-speaking parts of the New World. The term

is from 1889, in American English since c. 1972.  The term is not to be confused with “Latino” which includes people from other Latin American nations who do not speak Spanish.  They speak other Romance (Latin based) languages, such as Portuguese in Brazil and French and Haitian Creole in Haiti.

Immigrate                    Latin                To enter and usually become established, especially to                            come into a country of which one is not a native for

permanent residence.

Market Economy          English            Free economic system, where the market (the buyers

and sellers) freely set the prices based on supply and demand. The system must enforce private property rights and freely arrived at contracts.

Migrate                        Latin                To move from one country, place, or locality to another.

Paesani                        Italian              Italians from the same city, province, or region.

Signori or Padroni        Italian              Italian lords of the estate—the landowners.


Background:


Italians and Hispanics Move to New Jersey

Italians make up the largest single ethnic group in New Jersey, comprising 15.00% of the population, closely followed by the Irish at 12.70%.  Both groups came to the United States during the 19th century and the early 20th century for similar reasons.  Their emigration was spurred by introductions of the cash market economies into their nations’ countrysides and peasantries. Remarkably, later arriving Hispanic migrants from Puerto Rico (4.80%), and immigrants from the Dominican Republic (3.20%), Ecuador (1.45%), Peru (.09%), and Mexico (2.50%- 1.14% are U.S. citizens) relocated to New Jersey for similar reasons. Cubans (1.00%), on the other hand, came primarily due to political oppression from the Communist Castro regime. In 2021, the aggregate of all Hispanic nationalities and ethnic groups totals over 20% of New Jersey’s population.[1]

Immigration from other Latin countries follow similar patterns as the Puerto Rican migration or Italian and Irish immigration. This lesson will allow students to examine the people’s alienation from the economy and their deliberations in the old country.  The lesson examines the actual emigration, their separation from the host population, their elimination of parts of their cultural heritage that inhibit survival, as they came to appreciate the new country.  They then assimilated into the American society. Once secure in America, they came to celebrate their ethnic background, traditions, and heritage.  Italians and Hispanics: People with similar stories– E Pluribus Unum.

 

Procedure:

  1. Have students watch the video.
    1. And/or have students read the attached essay, “Italians and Hispanics Move to New Jersey.”
    2. And/or present the essay content, using the lesson PowerPoint.
  2. Have them answer the question: What is the main cause for people to emigrate from their homelands?
    1. Answers may differ, since many causes are economic, and others result from religious or political oppression.
  • Present the PowerPoint in class comparing Italian immigration with Puerto Rican migration to New Jersey.
  1. Students will come to understand the “8 Ates” of immigration and learn to apply this structure to any immigrant group.

Italian example

  1. Alienate: The economy or culture changes
    1. The Cash-Market economy moved into Southern Italy and Sicily.
    2. The Signori/Padroni[2] refused to modernize, and their wheat became less competitive in the world market.
    3. The Signori/Padroni demanded cash instead of a percentage of the crops from peasants to use the land.
      1. Italian peasants were thrown off the land and had to move to infertile strips or into overseas adventures to France and the Americas.
    4. Deliberate: They discussed alternatives and planned strategies.
      1. Italian peasants deliberated with one another on ways to earn money.
        1. Many became migrant workers in northern Italy or southern France.
      2. They explored other ways to raise cash, leading to major societal transformations.
        1. They went to labor-markets or migrated as farm workers.
        2. Then, some became seasonal migrant factory workers.
        3. Then, they became permanent urban factory workers.
        4. Finally, they became emigrants!
      3. Emigrate: They leave their homeland.
        1. Eventually, they chose to emigrate.
        2. The Italians moved to countries, such as: Argentina, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Uruguay, and the United States.
      4. Separate: They separate from the host society.
        1. The immigrants then settled with co-nationals.
        2. Many retreat into:
          1. Italian language neighborhoods.
          2. Italian benevolent societies.
          3. Catholic parishes. e.g., St. Joseph’s Church, Hammonton, NJ was an Italian parish in rural South Jersey, established as a mission in 1880. It eventually became part of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish in Hammonton.
            1. By 1875, Italians were meeting to worship and give thanks at Antonio Capelli’s home on the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. By 1886, the worship and a festival moved to St. Joseph’s.  The Our Lady of Mount Carmel Festival is the oldest Italian festival in the United States.
          4. Eliminate: They shed parts of their culture to survive and to gain acceptance from

the host country.

  1. The Italians eliminated all parts of the Italian culture that were averse to survival.
    1. They maintained parts of the culture they needed to survive, or were not forced to eliminate, such as: strong families, Catholic faith, Italian food, and Italian music.
  1. Appreciate: They began to appreciate the new land.
    1. Immigrants came to appreciate the new American environment and myriad opportunities for upward mobility.
    2. They then took advantage of opportunities and created opportunities in a free market and a constitutional republic.
  2. Assimilate: They became American.
    1. Italians flourished in many fields such as music, sports, culinary arts, and film.
    2. Nevertheless, for Italians in the mid-20th century, these fields did not necessarily lead to upward mobility.
    3. Italian American exceptions include: Rudolph Valentino, Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini, Frank Sinatra, Ida Lupino, Mario Lanza, Dean Martin, Jimmy Durante, Joe DiMaggio, Angelo Bertelli, and Rocky Marciano.
      1. Italians in entertainment and athletic fields allowed Italians to be viewed as fellow Americans and contributed to upper mobility.
    4. Celebrate: The third generation looks back with ethnic pride.
      1. Columbus Day parades and Italian festivals
      2. Today, we see Italian Americans assimilated into the American middle class, along with high profile Italian Americans, including: Nancy Pelosi, Joe Gebbia, Kenneth Langone, Hon. Antonin Scalia, Hon. Samuel A. Alito, Jr., Mother Angelica (Rita Antoinette Rizzo), Ron DeSantis, Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone, Maria Bartiromo, and Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Puerto Rican example

  1. Alienate:         The economy or culture changes.
    1. During the early 20th century, the Puerto Rican economy moved from a subsistence agricultural economy to a commercial agricultural economy.
    2. Peasants needed cash.
  2. Deliberate: They discuss alternatives and strategies.
    1. 1940s to 1960s – Operation Bootstrap moved the economy from a commercial agricultural economy to a commercial industrial economy.
    2. Not enough jobs existed for peasants who needed to raise necessary cash.
    3. The peasants had to decide what to do.
    4. The U.S. and Puerto Rican governments arranged to relocate many peasants to U.S. farms and cities.
  3. Emigrate: They leave their homeland.
    1. Eventually, they chose to emigrate.
    2. The Puerto Ricans moved to New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, and New Jersey.
  4. Separate: They separate from the host society.
    1. The immigrants then settled with co-nationals.
    2. Many retreated into:
      1. Spanish language neighborhoods.
      2. Hispanic benevolent and aid societies
      3. Catholic parishes, g., Our Lady of Mt. Carmel was an Italian parish in Camden, established in 1903 that eventually became a Puerto Rican/Hispanic parish by the midcentury.
        1. By 1957, the parish’s Puerto Rican community launched the city’s first Parada San Juan Bautista, still attended by thousands.
  1. Eliminate: They shed parts of their culture to survive and to gain acceptance

from the host country.

  1. The Puerto Ricans eliminated those parts of Puerto Rican culture that were averse to survival.
  2. They maintained parts of the culture they needed to survive or were not forced to eliminate such as: strong families, Catholic faith, Puerto Rican music, and food.
  1. Appreciate: They came to appreciate the new land.
    1. They came to appreciate the new American environment and myriad opportunities for upward mobility.
    2. They took advantage of opportunities and created opportunities in a free market and in a constitutional republic.
  2. Assimilate: They became American.
    1. Puerto Ricans flourished in many fields such as music, sports, and film.
      1. Nevertheless, for late 20th century Puerto Ricans, these fields did not necessarily lead to upward mobility.
      2. These individuals are exceptions: José Ferrer, Jimmy Smits, Luis Guzmán, Freddie Prinze, Roberto Clemente, Chita Rivera, José Feliciano, Ricky Martin, Orlando Cepeda, Erik Estrada, Héctor Camacho, Roberto Alomar, Joaquin Phoenix, and Rita Moreno.
    2. Celebrate: The third generation looks back with ethnic pride.
      1. Puerto Rican Parades, Parada San Juan Bautista, Puerto Rican festivals.
      2. Today, we see Puerto Rican Americans assimilated into the American middle class, along with high profile Puerto Rican Americans, such as: Hon. Sonia Sotomayor, Antonia Coello Novello, Joseph Acaba, Richard Carron, Mayra Guzman-Kaslow

Homework:     Create an essay that explains the Italian or Puerto Rican road from the fields of

                        their homelands to becoming American citizens, firmly assimilated into the

                        general American society and economy.


Assessment:     Use the New Jersey Registered Holistic Writing Rubric to assess each group’s

essays and presentations.


Extension:       Place the students into 3-6 groups.  Assign each group an “8 Ates” project to research and explain why a particular ethnic group came to the U.S.  With a study of African American migration, they will explore why and how African Americans migrated to northern American states from the south. Students will identify each of the “8 Ates” for their migrant/immigrant group, create a PowerPoint, or a video presentation that will demonstrate the “8 Ates” of migration/immigration.


Directly from the 2020 New Jersey Student Learning Standards– Social Studies


Go to: Social Studies NJSLS 2020 (June) for specific Performance Indicators appropriate for your curriculum


6.2 World History: Global Studies by the End of Grade 12

Era 5. The Development of the Industrial United States (1870–1900)

Technological developments and unregulated business practices revolutionized transportation, manufacturing, and consumption, and changed the daily lives of Americans. The Industrial Revolution and immigration had a powerful impact on labor relations, urbanization, the environment, cultural values, and created tensions between ethnic and social groups.

Era 6. The Emergence of Modern America: Progressive Reforms (1890–1930)

Progressive reform movements promoted government efforts to address problems created by rapid industrialization, immigration, and unfair treatment of women, children, and minority groups. An expanding market for international trade promoted policies that resulted in America

emerging as a world power.

Era 14. Contemporary United States: Domestic Policies (1970–Today)

Differing views on government’s role in social and economic issues led to greater partisanship in government decision making. The increased economic prosperity and opportunities experienced by many masked growing tensions and disparities experienced by some individuals and

groups. Immigration, educational opportunities, and social interaction have led to the growth of a multicultural society with varying values and

perspectives.


Language Arts Learning Standards

Progress Indicators for Reading Literature


Key Ideas and Details

RL.9-10.1. Cite strong and thorough textual evidence and make relevant connections to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferentially, including determining where the text leaves matters uncertain.

RL.9-10.2. Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details and provide an objective summary of the text.

RL.9-10.3. Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme.


Craft and Structure

RL.9-10.4. Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone (e.g., how the language evokes a sense of time and place; how it sets a formal or informal tone).

RL.9-10.5. Analyze how an author’s choices concerning how to structure a text, order events within it (e.g., parallel plots), and manipulate time (e.g., pacing, flashbacks) create specific effects (e.g., mystery, tension, or surprise).

RL.9-10.6. Analyze a particular point of view or cultural experience reflected in a work of literature from outside the United States, drawing on a wide reading of world literature.


Integration of Knowledge and Ideas

RL.9-10.7. Analyze the representation of a subject or a key scene in two different artistic mediums, including what is emphasized or absent in each work (e.g., Auden’s “Musée des Beaux Arts” and Breughel’s Landscape with the Fall of Icarus).

RL.9-10.8. (Not applicable to literature)

RL.9-10.9. Analyze and reflect on (e.g., practical knowledge, historical/cultural context, and background knowledge) how an author draws on and transforms source material in a specific work (e.g., how Shakespeare treats a theme or topic from mythology or the Bible, or how a later author draws on a play by Shakespeare).


Range of Reading and Level of Text Complexity

RL.9-10.10. By the end of grade 9, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems at grade level text-complexity or above with scaffolding as needed.

By the end of grade 10, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, at grade level or above.


Italians and Hispanics Move to New Jersey

Italians make up the largest single ethnic group in New Jersey, comprising of 15.00% of the population, closely followed by the Irish at 12.70%.  Both groups came to the United States during the 19th century and the early 20th century for similar reasons.  Their emigration was spurred by introductions of the cash market economies into their nations’ countrysides and peasantries. Remarkably, later arriving Hispanic migrants from Puerto Rico (4.80%), and immigrants from the Dominican Republic (3.20%), Ecuador (1.45%), Peru (.09%), and Mexico (2.50%- 1.14% are U.S. citizens) relocated to New Jersey for similar reasons. Cubans (1.00%), on the other hand, came primarily due to political oppression from the Communist Castro regime. In 2021, the aggregate of all Hispanic nationalities and ethnic groups totals over 20% of New Jersey’s population.[3]

Earlier, after Italian unification in 1861, Italians began to arrive in New Jersey in large numbers.  Approximately ¾ of these immigrants came from the Mezzogiorno, a region of Italy stretching down the Italian peninsula south of an imaginary line that starts between Rome and Naples to Ancona on the Adriatic Sea and from Sicily. The majority of the people emigrating from Italy were impoverished peasants, living in a near subsistence economy that was moving towards a cash market economy.  The search for cash in the new economy led many Italians into the cities or to foreign lands.  They came to America in search of work in the burgeoning factories of the American Industrial Revolution.  These factories included silk and cotton mills.  Some Italians were skilled masons, stonecutters, and sculptors, and found work building many of the churches in New Jersey; women were seamstresses in the garment factories.   Many settled in large urban centers such as Trenton, Camden, Newark, Paterson, and Jersey City.  By the 1930s, Italian agrarian colonies were present in Vineland, Hammonton, and throughout South Jersey, where Italians worked on farms as seasonal laborers.  In each area where Italians were present, smaller regional communities existed, where paesani from one area or village would settle together for social or economic security.

Italians found ease and security living in ethnic neighborhoods, where many of their traditions from the Old World were often preserved. This would in some ways serve as a blessing.  As historian John Bodnar points out, immigrants will retain as much of the old traditions as needed for survival, and they will discard those traditions that cause a hindrance in their new settings.[4]  Some also argued that the traditions hindered their integration into American society. Eventually, when enough money was earned, immigrants were faced with the decision of returning to the Old World or making their lives in America permanent. A little more than half of the Italian immigrants chose to return home to Italy, nonetheless many chose to stay and made significant contributions to American society.

Following Italian immigration, as the U.S. tightened immigration laws, South Jersey farmers began to hire Puerto Rican workers as early as the 1920s.  Similar to Italian neighborhoods, a Puerto Rican enclave emerged around Linden Street in Camden.  After the Great Depression, Puerto Rican government officials increasingly encouraged migration off the island because the economy struggled. Pushing people out would relieve the pressure. Since Puerto Rico was an American commonwealth, Puerto Ricans are American citizens and could easily migrate to the mainland. Puerto Rican officials facilitated employment contracts, coordinated air transportation, and advised workers through regional offices. From the early 1940s to the early 1960s, tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans became seasonal laborers in New Jersey.

Migrants typically came from rural island areas, where they had worked in agricultural processing of sugar, coffee, or tobacco, produced home needlework, or operated light machinery. Upon arrival in the mid-Atlantic region, the majority started out on farms, while others worked for food canning companies or railroads. As U.S. citizens, Puerto Rican contract workers were not subject to deportation, and many chose to remain stateside.

Unfortunately, there were only low wages on the New Jersey farms and poor housing conditions.  Many migrants quickly left the farms and moved to manufacturing or service opportunities. Some of the population departing from the Jersey farms headed to Philadelphia and Camden, while others moved to New Jersey cities in the state’s northeast or joined the hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans in New York City, in small settlements in the Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, or returned to the homeland.

Immigration from other Latin countries follow similar patterns as the Puerto Rican migration or Italian and Irish immigration. This lesson will allow students to examine the people’s alienation from the economy and their deliberations in the old country.  The lesson examines their actual emigration, their separation from the host population, and their elimination of parts of their cultural heritage that inhibit survival. It exposes how they came to appreciate the new setting and then assimilated into the greater American society. Once secure in America, they came to celebrate their ethnic background, traditions, and heritage. Italians and Hispanics: People with similar stories- E Pluribus Unum.


Resources:


Books

Llana Barber. Latino City: Immigration and Urban Crisis in Lawrence, Massachusetts, 1945–2000, 2017.

John Bodner. The Transplanted: A History of Immigrants in Urban America, 1987.

Roger Daniels. Coming to America: A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life, 2002.

Richard Gambino. Blood of My Blood: The Dilemma of the Italian, 2000.

Jennifer Guglielmo. Are Italians White? How Race is Made in America, 2003.

Jerre Mangione. La Storia: Five Centuries of the Italian American Experience, 1993.

Edgardo Meléndez. Sponsored Migration: The State and Puerto Rican Postwar Migration to the United States, 2017.

Julio Moralez. Puerto Rican Poverty And Migration: We Just Had To Try Elsewhere, 1986.


Articles:

Teresa Delgado. “The Great Puerto Rican Migration—and Westside Story: Economic Dependency, Political Ambiguity, and Social Uncertainty Made Their Way Into the Lyrics to ‘America’ from West Side Story,” 2018.

https://kcopera.org/the-great-puerto-rican-migration-and-west-side-story/

“Italian-Americans: The History of Immigration to America”. Grand Voyage Italy

http://www.grandvoyageitaly.com/history/italian-americans-the-history-of-immigration-to-america.

Library of Congress: Immigration and Relocation in U.S. History: Italians.

https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/immigration/italian/early-arrivals/

Our Lady of Mt. Carmel and Fatima: Roman Catholic Church.

http://www.dvrbs.com/Camden-Religion/CamdenNJ-OurLadyOfMtCarmel&Fatima.htm

The Our Lady of Mount Carmel Society.

https://www.mountcarmelsociety.org/about

Juan Ruiz Toro. Puerto Rico’s Operation Bootstrap. Brown University Library

https://library.brown.edu/create/modernlatinamerica/chapters/chapter-12-strategies-for-economic-developmen/puerto-ricos-operation-bootstrap/

[1] U.S Census Bureau, 2020  https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?q=new%20jersey&tid=DECENNIALPL2020.P1

[2] Plural forms of Italian signore and padrone

[3] U.S Census Bureau, 2020  https://data.census.gov/cedsci/table?q=new%20jersey&tid=DECENNIALPL2020.P1

[4] John Bodner, The Transplanted: A History of Immigrants in Urban America (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,  1987).

Lesson 4 - Menu