Teaching American History Application Survey

Summer Institute 2010

Primary Documents Week #2

Immigration in a Changing World: Identity, Citizenship, and Belonging

Eta Levin Hecht with Maryann McLoughlin, “Eta Levin Hecht,” in Maryann McLoughlin, ed., Portraits of Resilience (Margate, NJ: ComteQ Publishing, 2008), pp. 146-147:
Jointly with Maryann McLoughlin, Eta Levin Hecht wrote a biographical sketch of herself growing up in Kovno, Lithuania during the Holocaust and then moving with her family to Morristown, NJ. Hecht is one of the survivors whom ONMAP participants are scheduled to meet during the Summer 2010 workshop.

Ernest Paul with Maryann McLoughlin, “Ernest Paul” in “The Relevance of Remembrance” (Program), The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, 8 Oct. 2009 (2 pp.): Ernest Paul is another South Jersey survivor with whom participants will meet during the Summer 2010 workshop. Like Hecht, Paul—with Dr. McLoughlin—wrote this biographical sketch, in which he recalls the highlights of his childhood in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Israel prior to moving to South Jersey. He is currently completing a memoir based on his life experiences called, Ernest Triumphant.

Rella Roth with Maryann McLoughlin, in Maryann McLoughlin, ed., Portraits of Resilience (Margate, NJ: ComteQ Publishing, 2008), pp. 118-119: Rella Roth is the third South Jersey survivor with whom participants will meet during the Summer 2010 workshop. She was born in Czechoslovakia and endured life in three concentration camps. She immigrated to America with her husband in 1948.

Liz Lippa, “Third Grade in America,” in The Memory Project, St. Louis Holocaust Museum and Learning Center, St. Louis, MO (2pp): The Holocaust Museum and Learning Center, a department of the Jewish Federation of St. Louis, opened in May 1995. It includes a 5,000-square-foot core exhibition that provides an overview of the Holocaust, as well as personal accounts of Holocaust survivors who immigrated to the St. Louis region. In this interview, Liz Lippa, who relocated to Missouri as an adult, described the discrimination she experienced as an elementary school student when she moved from Uruguay to Richmond, VA. This account is available online at: http://www.hmlc.org/Memory_Project_Index.html, along with several other similar interviews.

Nesse Godin, eyewitness testimony (2 min. video), Preventing Genocide: Learn More and Take Action Program, U.S Holocaust Memorial Museum: Preventing Genocide is an online outreach effort of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum intended to raise awareness about racial and ethnic violence around the world. It includes information about ongoing conflicts and resources, as well as ways to contribute to relief efforts. It also features a “Gallery of Eyewitness Testimony,” including Nesse Godin’s interview. Godin compares her experiences in the Holocaust to that of Darfur refugee Amal Allagabo. Photographs of Godin as a child and her interactions with Allagabo are also posted (the video itself is available online at http://www.ushmm.org/genocide/take_action/gallery/portrait/godin).

Raphael Lemkin, eyewitness testimony (4 min. video), Preventing Genocide: Learn More and Take Action Program, U.S Holocaust Memorial Museum: Part of the same U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum program described in Nesse Godin’s interview above. Raphael Lemkin was a Polish Jewish lawyer, who devoted his life to creating legal protections against ethnic, national, religious, and cultural violence. When the Nazi German army invaded Poland in 1939, he fled to the United States. Writing that “new conceptions require new terms,” Lemkin introduced the word “genocide” in his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation, Analysis of Government, Proposals for Redress (Washington, D.C: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Division of International Law, 1944). His efforts culminated in the 1948 UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (his interview, interspersed with comments from contemporary activists, is available online at http://www.ushmm.org/genocide/take_action/gallery/portrait/lemkin).

Gish Jen, The New York Times Magazine, July 7, 1996 in An Educator’s Guide to Becoming American: The Chinese Experiences (Facing History and Ourselves, downloadable Study Guide), 2003, p. 43 at http://www.facinghistory.org/system/files/becoming_american.pdf: Second Generation Chinese American Gish Jen is a novelist and essayist who has published in a number of papers and magazines, including the New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, and The New York Times. In this essay, published in The New York Times Magazine, Jen addresses the conflicting messages absorbed by her four year old son who is part Chinese and part Irish. She continues this theme in Whose Irish? a collection of short stories that Vintage published in 2000.

Jesus Colon, “Little Things Are Big,” to watch a 4 min. video produced in 1998 in which the essay is read aloud and find discussion questions regarding this source, see Facing History at http://www.choosingtoparticipate.org/explore/exhibit/stories/littlethings: In this short essay written by Puerto Rican writer Jesus Colon during the 1950s and read in this video, Colon reflected on his experience as a man of color riding a subway home one night when he encountered a young white mother with two children, a baby, and a suitcase. He recalls debating whether or not to help this young woman who was getting off at the same stop as he was. This internal dialogue illustrates the internal struggles of racial minorities within the U.S. and echoes the conflicts that such individuals continue to face in a post- 9/11 world. This story is highlighted in the Participating in Democracy reading for this week.

Arn Chorn Pond, “Everyone Has a Story,” Facing History and Ourselves (10 min. video), http://www.choosingtoparticipate.org/explore/exhibit/stories/everyone/watch: In 1980, when he was 14 years old, Arn Chorn Pond and his two brothers were adopted by a minister from the United States and brought to New Hampshire to attend high school. Prior to immigrating to America, the boys, whose biological parents had been killed during the Cambodian genocide, had witnessed murder and starvation, slaved in a work camp, and worked as child soldiers. With only a few words of English and life experiences that vastly differed from his classmates, Pond had a difficult time assimilating to American high school life. His efforts today to rebuild Cambodia have earned him a number of awards including the Reebok Human Rights Award. His experiences are highlighted in the Participating in Democracy reading for this week.