Title:  Boyle Heights: America in the Mirror Subject:  History, Language Arts Author:  Susan Anderson, Roosevelt High School Date:  April, 1998 Unit:  Boyle Heights

Teaching Unit

Introduction for Teachers - U.S. History Unit

Using this project during the course of a traditional U.S. History course has many advantages. It can be done in smaller pieces and therefore student time at the computers can be spread out over a longer period of time and the teacher will not have to worry about “logjams” at the computers. The other advantage is that studying local history as a mirror of the events, movements, and ideas of the larger national history makes history more “real” and personal for students. When they can see that the national trends and patterns are reflected in their community, the national becomes more interesting. Of course, the disadvantage is that every community’s history is different and unique and the teacher will have to do more “digging” to help students find local materials. What follows is an example of how our community of Boyle Heights experienced and reflected in its own unique way some of the national events of the twentieth history. Of course, your town or city will have its own unique reflections.

• Students will be able to locate, synthesize, and interpret information about the country of origin of their group from primary and secondary sources.
• Students will understand and identify the cause of immigration from their group’s country of origin as either predominantly “push” or “pull.”
• Students will be able to trace the route generally taken by immigrants from their country of origin to the U.S.
• Students will be able to read and interpret census information.
• Students will learn how to use a scanner.

• Students will analyze the major political, economic, and social developments that have shaped the history of the United States and the history of other contemporary countries. (LAUSD - Standard 9)
• Students will make sound historical interpretations by asking historical questions, evaluating data, and analyzing different points of view. (LAUSD - Standard 13)
• Students will read, interpret and analyze maps, globes, models, diagrams, graphs, charts, tables, pictures, and political cartoons. (LAUSD - Performance Standard)

Collection of census information for local area, world maps, atlases, library access for research, scanner or access to a scanner.

This lesson is intended to be used as an opportunity for students to apply their knowledge of the effects of immigration on U.S. society to the study of local experiences. Because of a happy convergence of national and local history, Boyle Heights’ influx of immigrants began where immigration is usually studied, namely 1860-1920.

1. Teacher and class will examine and interpret census bureau information from one model year and make a list of information that can be extracted and interpreted from it.

2. Students will research and identify cultural and ethnic groups that arrived in Boyle Heights during this time period.

3. From the collection of census information, students will evaluate data and determine which decade or decades saw the arrival of their assigned group into Boyle Heights.

4. Students will research and analyze the events that were taking place in their group’s native country and see if they can identify the causes of immigration.

5. Students will search for first hand accounts of immigrants to Boyle Heights, Los Angeles, or California and try to ascertain the most common route traveled by immigrants from that country.

6. Students will draw the route of immigration on a world map.

7. Students will scan maps and store images on a disk.

Oral presentation of analysis of census information, research on the causes of immigration, and completion of the mapping assignment. The Oral Presentation Rubric from LAUSD will be used to evaluate presentations.

The Perry Castaeda Library Map Collection - a large listing of cartographic resources: http:www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/map_sites/map_sites.html

It is wise to have a zip disk so that the teacher can have a copy of student maps archived. If students want to keep a copy of the map they should bring a disk. It is important that students carry their disks in a plastic jewel case. We learned the hard way that carrying disks loose in backpacks can cause the metal piece to loosen. Then, when it is put into the computer and pulled out it can scratch and destroy the hard drive. A costly mistake to make!

• Students will understand the effects of Executive Order 9066 on Roosevelt High School.
• Students will understand the impact of the removal of the Japanese on the Boyle Heights community.

Students analyze the American participation in World War II, including the character of the war at home and abroad.

• Roosevelt High School yearbooks for the years 1941-1943
• Oral history questions
• Tape recorder, tape, or camcorder

1. Teacher and class will discuss the issuance of Executive Order 9066 and the issues of constitutionality that the order raises.

2. Students will examine Roosevelt High School yearbooks and draw conclusions about the effects of the internment on the Roosevelt High School student body.

3. Students will search for articles in the school’s virtual museum database and analyze the information that they find in the school newspaper articles and the articles from community newspapers.

4. Students will visit the Japanese Garden that was rebuilt on campus last year and compare it with the pictures in the 1932 yearbook.

Students will write an editorial for the school newspaper “looking back” at the Japanese internment and analyze its effect on Roosevelt High School and the Boyle Heights community. The editorial will be evaluated using a modified format of the LAUSD Rubric for Written Product: History/Social Science.

Objectives:

• Students will analyze the Civil Rights movement’s effects on Roosevelt High School and the Boyle Heights community.
• Students will analyze the Civil Rights movement’s issues, philosophies, strategies, and techniques.
• Students will analyze the Chicano Movement as a local reflection of the national movement.
• Students will evaluate the Chicano Moratorium and the effects of those events on the Boyle Heights community.
• Students will explore and evaluate the relationship between the student “Blow-Outs” at Roosevelt High School and the broader Chicano Movement throughout the Southwest.

• Students will evaluate federal civil rights and voting rights developments since the 1950s. (California Content Standards 11.9)
• Students will make sound historical interpretations by asking historical questions, evaluating data, and analyzing different points of view. (LAUSD Standard 13)

• Copy of “The Spiritual Plan of Aztlan” - a document created at the National Chicano Youth Liberation Conference in Denver in 1969
• Excerpts describing the East Los Angeles student walk-out from Chicano historians Rodolfo Acuna, Occupied America, and Carlos Munoz, Jr. Youth, Identity, Power: The Chicano Movement
• Newspaper accounts of the walk-outs from the L.A. Times and the Eastside Journal.
• Further excerpts from Munoz on the formation of MECHA and his account of the end of the student movement.

1. Students will share a packet of readings and work individually or in groups, as they choose. They will read the material and take notes.

2. The packet directions will require that students, upon completion of their reading, arrange the articles in chronological order and discuss them with other group members.

3. Students will complete an accompanying worksheet which asks them to identify each article as a primary or secondary source. Then, in the “Remarks” section, they are to record any comments they have about the accuracy or validity of the article, the author’s political stance, etc.

4. Students will be asked to respond to the following prompt:

   Your history book devotes two sentences to the “Blow-Outs” that took place here at Roosevelt and at four other East L.A. high schools. Since we know the event was much more important than that, your job will be to write the account as it should appear in your textbook. Describe the incident in sufficient detail to convince your reader that the “Blow-Outs” were a significant historical event for everyone, not just the students and alumni of the high schools involved.

In peer editing groups, students will critique the accounts each has written. The groups will select the best, most persuasive of these and the teacher will send the material on to the publisher of the student textbook. The LAUSD rubric will be modified by the class and used to evaluate student work.