Smithsonian Learning Lab

Domingo Ulloa's

This teaching collection helps students to look closely and think critically by examining Domigo Ulloa's painting, Braceros, and historical documentation related to the bracero program, a series of short-term labor contracts from 1942-1964 in which an estimated two million Mexican men came to the US to work on farms and roads. The collection prompts students to consider the program from a variety of perspectives, including individual, collective, social, economic, and political. Included here are the painting, a bilingual video with Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) curator E. Carmen Ramos, four suggested Thinking Routines - "See, Think, Wonder," "Step In, Step Out, Step Back," "The 3 Y's," and "Think, Feel, Care" - from Harvard's Project Zero Artful Thinking and Global Thinking materials, supporting digital content from the National Museum of American History, and a blogpost from SAAM of two DC student's written responses to the prompt, "What Domingo Ulloa's Braceros Means to Me." For use in Social Studies, Spanish, English, and American History classes #LatinoHAC #EthnicStudies This collection supports Unit 1: Intersectionality of Economics, Politics, and Policy, of the Austin ISD Ethnic Studies Part B course. This Smithsonian Learning Lab collection received Federal support from the Latino Initiatives Pool, administered by the Smithsonian Latino Center.

Rubina Pantoja

10

Bracero Program: Unveiling Stories

In this activity, students will examine photographs documenting the Bracero Program, the largest guest-worker program in US history. Started in 1942 as a temporary war measure to address labor demands in agriculture and railroads, the program allowed Mexican nationals to take temporary agricultural work in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, and 24 other states. By the time the program ended in 1964, over 4.6 million contracts were awarded. Using two Project Zero Global Thinking Routines - "Unveiling Stories" and "The 3 Ys" - students will analyze the stories these photographs tell about the experiences of braceros in this program, and the impact of these stories in multiple contexts. Additional resources (primary sources, a digital exhibition, and an article) and information on how to use these routines in the classroom can by found by clicking Read More ». Keywords: mexican, immigration, work, migration, migrant workers, agriculture, reform, politics, government, leonard nadel, photojournalism, activity, inquiry strategy, global competency, global competence, latino, chicano, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Arkansas, 1940s, 40s, 1950s, 50s, 1960s, 60s #LatinoHAC #EthnicStudies

Rubina Pantoja

37

Mexican Art & U.S. History: Carmen Lomas Garza

This collection will provide an opportunity for students to analyze artwork, read background information, and connect art with historical events. At the heart of this activity is artwork created by Latino artist Carmen Lomas Garza. These paintings reflect the experiences of Garza's family and Latino life in 1980s America. In addition to image analysis, teachers could extend an opportunity for students to identify and discuss connections between Garza's art and the Mexican American experience from the 1960s to the present. This collection includes: <ul><li>A timeline of U.S.-Mexican American relations</li><li>Video/audio of Reagan signing the 1986 Immigration Reform Control Act</li><li>And an overview of immigration reform via ABC-CLIO (requires subscription). </li></ul>#ethnicstudies #LISDSS Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills Connections #TEKS <ul><li>24A describe how the characteristics of and issues in U.S. history have been reflected in various genres of art, music, film, and literature;</li></ul>

Rubina Pantoja

24

National History Day: American Immigrant Experiences

This collection brings together <a href="https://edsitement.neh.gov/">EDSITEment</a> and Smithsonian resources to support the initial research into a project for National History Day. While originally created for the 2019 theme, "Triumph and Tragedy in History," resources found in this collection are useful for researching other National History Day themes. These resources - including objects, documents, websites, and articles - reveal challenges and opportunities experienced by American immigrants in the 19th to mid-20th centuries. Resources highlight hardships that compelled people to leave their homelands, difficulties immigrants faced upon arrival, and ways they overcame obstacles to build new lives and communities in America. The second tile of this collection contains questions to help with the analysis of photograph, document, artwork, portrait, and object resources. The history of immigration in America is an immense topic, and this collection addresses only aspects of it. Use this collection to brainstorm project topics, find connected resources, and as a launching point for further research. This collection was created in collaboration with <a href="https://edsitement.neh.gov/">EDSITEment</a>, a website for K-12 educators from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Share your National History Day collections and let us know what you think! Write to us on Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/EDSITEment">@EDSITEment</a> & <a href="https://twitter.com/smithsonianlab">@SmithsonianLab</a>, #NHD2019. If you publish a collection on your National History Day topic, be sure to enter #NHD2019 in the description! Tags: 1800s, 1900s angel island, ellis island, immigration test, community, prejudice, irish, jewish, syrian, lebanese, arab, italian, mexican, german, greek, bohemian, czech, slovenian, know nothing, triangle shirtwaist factory fire, swedish, chinese exclusion act, japanese american incarceration, internment, bracero program, stories project, #NHD

Rubina Pantoja

128

Asian American Modernism

This collection is meant to build on two earlier collections, "<a href="https://learninglab.si.edu/collections/asian-american-art-emerging-from-the-shadows/gBfzCgh7FdF3mXNa#" target="_blank">Asian American Art: Emerging from the Shadows</a>" and "<a href="https://learninglab.si.edu/collections/asian-american-artists-and-world-war-ii/7hijKmJNXiFnjaKN#r" target="_blank">Asian American Artists and World War II</a>" and to introduce the viewer to artists of Asian ancestry in America using Chang, Johnson & Karlstrom's text, Asian American Art: A History, 1850-1970 (2008), the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco's exhibition catalog "Asian/American/Modern Art: Shifting Currents, 1900-1970" (2008),the vast resources of the Smithsonian Learning Lab, Project Zero's Global Thinking Routines and other resources. This collection is part two of four that I have organized, chronologically, on Asian American Art. The other three collections are "<a href="https://learninglab.si.edu/collections/asian-american-art-emerging-from-the-shadows/gBfzCgh7FdF3mXNa#" target="_blank">Asian American Art: Emerging from the Shadows</a>", "<a href="https://learninglab.si.edu/collections/asian-american-artists-and-world-war-ii/7hijKmJNXiFnjaKN#r" target="_blank">Asian American Artists and World War II</a>" and "Asian American Contemporary Art". It is my hope that these collections will serve as entry points to understanding the many contributions of Asian American artists in the U.S. from 1850 until the present time. Visual art is a language that is socially and culturally constructed. Socially constructed learning values diverse perspectives, engages with local and global experts, and employs inquiry, discovery and exploration to move students toward global citizenship. Because the visual arts leverage the power of dialogue and debate to sharpen critical thinking, starting with the arts is a logical place to help students develop cultural intelligence. Other purposes of these collections are to explore tangible and intangible cultural heritage; as well as jumpstart brave conversations about race, identity and immigration in the U.S. with teachers, tutors of English Language Learners and others who are interested in becoming cultural leaders in our public schools. As Gordon H. Chang and Mark Dean Johnson state in the introduction of the exhibition catalog, "Asian/American/Modern Art: Shifting Currents, 1900-1970" (2008): "Forty years ago there were no Asian Americans. There were Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos, and others of Asian ancestry in the United States, but no 'Asian Americans,' as that term was coined only in 1968. This population was commonly seen as foreign, alien, not of America. Their lives and experiences were not generally accepted as part of the fabric of the country, even though Asians had begun settling here steadily in the mid-nineteenth century. Then, in the late 1960s, as part of the upsurge in the self-assertion of marginalized communities, 'Asian America' emerged to challenge the stigma of perpetual foreignness. 'Asian American' was a claim of belonging, of rootedness, of pride and identity, and of history and community; it was also a recognition of distinctive cultural achievement" (Chang, Johnson, 2008). #APA2018

Rubina Pantoja

18

Traqueros, part 2: Chain Migration and Boxcar Communities

A profound result of the vast employment of traqueros in the transportation industry was the railroads' corporate strategy to establish means for "chain migration." Chain migration refers to the process of immigrants from a particular region or town following the path of prior immigrants (from their same region or town) to the same destination. As the agricultural, petroleum, and cattle ranching industries of the Southwest expanded to a vast scale in the early 20th century, the demand for traquero labor grew as well. To meet this demand, companies like the Santa Fe Railroad incentivized traqueros to bring along their families, including wives and children, to live on sites by the rail yards rent-free. A key tactic in this strategy was the practice of housing traqueros in converted boxcars. These converted boxcars would be grouped together into settlements, which tended to be of two types: one was a species of "mobile villages" that moved along the train tracks, whereas the other type was comprised by taking boxcar quarters off the rails and grouping them together on the outskirts of rail yards in areas usually saved for section gangs. Historian Al Camarillo, in his book Chicanos in a Changing Society: From Mexican Pueblos to American Barrios in Santa Barbara and Southern California, 1848-1930 (1979) has termed the process of establishing boxcar settlements as "barrioization," because these family-centered communities demonstrated the sustainability of Mexican American communities, as well as familiarized Mexican immigrants with different parts of the U.S. that would become significant Mexican immigrant destinations. Mexican boxcar communities existed all over the country and in major cities including Chicago, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and San Diego. On April 18th, 2016, Dr. Antonio Delgado, a former Smithsonian Institution Visiting Scholar (1998), presented his research on Mexican boxcar communities in Chicago at the McHenry County Historical Society Museum. Illinois Humanities sponsored the event, publishing the Daily Herald's notice of the program on the Illinois Humanities' <a href="https://www.ilhumanities.org/news/2016/04/explore-history-of-the-mexican-railroad-boxcar-communities-in-chicago/">news blog</a>. The online story includes a trailer for local station WTVP's documentary, Boxcar People, for which the now adult children of traqueros were interviewed. #EthnicStudies #MexicanAmericans #Traqueros #Railroads #BoxcarCommunities #ChainMigration #Latinos #Chicanos

Rubina Pantoja

6

Los Angeles Latino Families Photo Project

The Los Angeles Latino Families Photo Project was launched at the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center (CSRC) spring 2012. It is an extension of an earlier initiative launched in 2007 to combat the invisibility of the Mexican American contribution to Los Angeles and California history predating the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s within textbooks, trade, and academic books and articles. With the generous support of the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation, the CSRC was able to digitize close to 3,000 images from the Edward R. Roybal Papers and the Yolanda Retter Vargas Collection of Orphan Photographs. The first collection documents Edward Roybal’s public service career from the 1940s to the 1990s as a Los Angeles city councilman and a U.S. congressman. The second was collected by the previous librarian, Yolanda Retter-Vargas, who found the photographs at various flea markets. This collection consists of “orphan” photographs—images with no provenance information. They appear to belong to six families. Both collections have been completed and are available on the UCLA Digital Library. After completing this project we quickly realized that Los Angeles Latino history is incomplete without the stories of its citizens. The Los Angeles Latino Families Photo Project was developed as a way to fully capture the complexity of this city’s history as well as address the issue of preservation through the digitization of vulnerable image-based collections. The photographs found in this particular collection were digitized and preserved during a Friends of the Library workshop held at the Chicano Studies Research Center spring 2012. They highlight the day-to-day lives of Latinos and Latinas living in Los Angeles over time. They document their families' histories and cultures capturing their movements between the United States and Latin America. One of the project’s goals is to provide the opportunity for community members to contribute additional photographs and information for the archival record. #LatinoHAC #ethnicstudies

Rubina Pantoja

39

My ethnic studies musings

This collection was started as a way to share resources related to Mexican American Studies. It has now morphed into a larger collection for anyone interested in ethnic studies. It is still very much a work in progress.

Rubina Pantoja

30