This page features lesson plans from the Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation (AIISF), Learning For Justice, educator Noreen Naseem Rodriguez, PBS, and the Smithsonian.
Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation
The Angel Island Immigration Station Foundation (AIISF) preserves the rich stories of Pacific Coast immigrants and shares them through educational initiatives and public programs. They offer a variety of curriculum guides on their website. Some examples are included below.
Conditions in China: Why Might One Leave Home Forever?
Students learn about the conditions in mid-19th/20th century China, especially southern China, analyze conditions for farmworkers, and write poems about the factors that led to emigration. |
Exclusion "Act"-ivity
Creates a scenario where students randomly receive rewards for answering questions, inform students that exclusion sometimes happens beyond their control, discusses how students feel about exclusion/inclusion and compares that to the immigrant experience. |
Leaving Home Forever: What Would You Put in Your Suitcase?
Students examine why immigrants would decide to leave their home country (primary sources related to Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island) and imagine what they would take with them (suitcase activity). |
Learning For Justice
Created by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Learning For Justice provides free resources to educators—teachers, administrators, counselors and other practitioners—who work with children from kindergarten through high school. Their curriculums center social and racial justice and the action that students and educators can take to realize change.
Cultural Relevancy in the Cafeteria
Students visit the cafeteria and learn about different dietary restrictions and cultural foods. Vocabulary includes kosher, halal, vegetarian, etc. |
Exploring Young Immigrant Stories
Students explore the meaning of immigration and storytelling. A line is set up and students approach the line with one step for each statement that applies to them. |
Who Is an Immigrant?
Students create identity concentric circles to compare and contrast their identities to their peers. students also compare and contrast their identity and experience to immigrants from a storybook. |
Noreem Naseem Rodriguez
Noreen Naseem Rodriguez is a teacher educator who focuses on preparing future elementary teachers to foster more inclusive renditions of U.S. history and citizenship. Her research interests fall into two strands: 1) understanding how the hybrid experiences of Asian American and Latinx pre- and in-service teachers inform their pedagogy and curricular enactment, and 2) examining how elementary social studies educators go beyond the textbook to engage their students in broad and meaningful examples of citizenship.
Angel Island Immigration
Students compare and contrast Angel Island & Ellis Island immigrants using the computer, shows students difficulties of immigration questions (Landed by Milly Lee), paper sons, and the road to exclusion (primary sources and historical background). |
Asian Immigrants & Refugees
Students learn about the history of Asian American immigration from the beginning through the Chinese Exclusion Act and until the 1965 Immigration Act. Activities include immigration vocabulary and a discussion on who is allowed to come to America. |
Faces of the Asian American Civil Rights Movement
Students learn about Asian Americans activists in the Civil Rights Movement (Richard Aoki, Yuri Kochiyama, Grace Lee Boggs). |
In the Face of Xenophobia: Lessons to Address Bullying of South Asian American Youth
Students work to counter racism, bullying, and xenophobia. Activities include timeline-ing, interviewing family members, and reflecting on the consequences of bullying. |
The Untold History of Filipino Farmworkers in California
Students learn about grape harvesting season, Fillipino farmworkers, the Delena Grape Strike, Cesar Chavez & labor movements. |
Snapshots of School Segregation
Students learn about Martha Lum, Mamie Tape, Ruby Bridges, Sylvia Mendez, and their experiences with school integration. Activities include comparing and contrasting their experiences. |
PBS: Asian American
PBS and Asian Americans Advancing Justice have created over thirty lesson plans that accompany the Asian American documentary series. Teachers may utilize these lesson plans to explore the ways that Asian Americans have shaped our nation's history.
Filipino American Farmworkers Fight for Their Rights
Students learn about politician Patsy Mink and her career fighting for justice. Students write acrostic poems about equality and journal about role models in their life. Women Advancing Equality
Students learn about Hawaiian politician Patsy Mink and her career fighting for justice. Students write acrostic poems about equality and journal about role models in their life. |
Japanese American Incarceration During WWII
Students learn about the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the ensuing injustices of Japanese Americans as they were imprisoned. Activities include evaluating the cause and effect of war. |
Redefine American
Students learn about the earliest Asian Americans, Tape v. Hurley, and discuss the creation and consequences of the Chinese Exclusion Act. Students think about how they can help immigrants adjust to being in America. |
The Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center
The Smithsonian Asian Pacific American (APA) Center is a migratory museum that brings history, art and culture to you through innovative community-focused experiences.
Creating Hawaii
Students learn about the history of Hawaii through a museum exhibit, detailed descriptions for each element provided. .Learning Together: Little Syria
students learn about Little Syria in New York City and investigate the way it was portrayed in a newspaper article. |
Learning Together: Hawaiian Queen Lilli’uokalani
Students learn about Queen Lilli’uokalani, her rule, and the eventual coup against her. Activities include Portrait analysis, primary sources and song analysis Lunar New Year Through Stamps
Students examine the zodiac story through USPS stamps. |
Learning Together: Japanese American WWII Experience
Students learn about Japanese Internment and the importance of friendship and art in the internment camps. |