• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Home
  • About
    • About Current
    • Masthead
  • Podcasts
  • Support
  • Way of Improvement
  • About John
  • Vita
  • Books
  • Speaking
  • Media Requests

The Oral History of Immigrants

John Fea   |  February 3, 2010 Leave a Comment

As part of my course on Immigrant America course I have students conduct a one-hour interview with someone who has immigrated to the United States. This could be a person who has lived here for decades or a relatively new immigrant. The students are required to write an 8-10 page paper based upon the interview.

I thought about this assignment as I read this post on online oral history projects at the AHA Today blog. Maybe some day we can get these student interviews into some kind of web database in order to make them more accessible. Some of them do a very good job with them.

In conducting this project I hope my students will learn:

1). A bit more about the immigrant experience in America and how to connect personal stories to larger historical trends and patterns.

2). A bit more about how to go about conducting an oral history interview

3). A bit more about how to empathize with the stories of people who are different than them. My hope is that some of my students are changed in the course of doing this assignment.

Filed Under: Way of Improvement Tagged With: Immigration History

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Primary Sidebar

Patron Access

Way of Improvement blog banner

Episode 51: “The Politics of Tinky Winky”

January 27, 2023 By John Fea

He was Florida’s professor of the year in 2006. Today his courses would be illegal.

January 27, 2023 By John Fea

Zakaria: The nation’s policy on classified documents and “secrecy” is “out-of-control”

January 27, 2023 By John Fea

Teaching John Henry Newman’s “What is a University”

January 27, 2023 By John Fea

What is popular this week at Current?

January 27, 2023 By John Fea

More Blog Posts

Subscribe via Email



Please wait...
Please enter all required fields Click to hide
Correct invalid entries Click to hide

Footer

Contact Forms

General Inquiries
Pitch Us

Search

Subscribe via Email



Please wait...
Please enter all required fields Click to hide
Correct invalid entries Click to hide
Subscribe via Email


Please wait...
Please enter all required fields Click to hide
Correct invalid entries Click to hide