A different mirror chapter 11 summary, Study notes of American literature

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t e a c h i n g g u i d e a different mirror for young people

This text has been adapted from the 529-page book (1993, 2008) by Ronald Takaki (1939–2009). Takaki’s scholarship focused on the racial and ethnic diversity of the United States and how those differences have both enriched and troubled the coun- try. After the introductory chapter, a rationale for challenging the “Master Narrative” of American history, the subsequent 15 chapters each center on specific groups; most are immigrants, although some (enslaved Africans) did not come of their own accord and others (native peoples) were already here. The stories are of heartbreak, hardship, and against-the-odds perseverance in spite of class bias and economic hardship, rac- ism, discrimination, suspicion, cruelty, legal sanctions, and narrow definitions of who deserves to be called “American.” Following the introductory chapter, each chapter (the final one, chapter 17, is more of an afterward) may be used as sepa- rate reading assignments of 17 to 25 pages each. This teacher’s guide follows a general pattern: I. Chapter summary II. Vocabulary III. Open-ended discussion questions IV. Activities for small groups and individuals

2. Describe the children in the photograph.
3. Where do you think this photograph was taken?
4. What can you say about the setting of the photograph?
5. Who do you think took the photograph (and why)?

Thinking About the Title

1. Explain what you think the title A Different Mirror means.
2. What is meant by “multicultural America”?

Speculating About the Reading Experience

1. Why do you think your teacher (or school) has chosen this particular book for you to use?
2. What do you think you might learn that you don’t al- ready know after we have finished reading and study- ing this book?
3. If this is a history book, how do you think it will com- pare to other history textbooks you have used in school?
4. How have you felt about other history textbooks you have used in the past? Why?
5. If you were in charge of choosing history textbooks for students like you, how would they differ from the books you may have used previously?

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Discussion Questions for Students

1. Takaki writes that when he went to college in Ohio, oth- ers thought he “did not look like an American.” What is an American? What does an American look like?
2. After four years of being upset that Ron married their white daughter, Takaki’s father-in-law, Mr. Rankin, be- gan to warm up. Mr. Rankin’s “racist attitudes were not frozen.” What does Takaki mean? Do you think racism can be “unfrozen”? How? Share your experiences.

Activities

Print one copy of the “Identity wheel” for each student from http://www.library.wisc.edu/EDVRC/docs/public/pdfs/LI- Readings/Social%20Identities%20Wheel.pdf This exercise asks participants to examine the various identi- ties they carry with them and then to create a visual model that assigns importance to each of these identities. Teachers should first share how they see their own identi- ties before students begin the activity. After sharing the teach- er model, direct students to complete the handout “pie-chart” style, labeling each of their “master identities” and deciding, based on how they see their identities’ importance, what por- tion of 100% each identity takes. Ask students to share their identity wheels in small groups (respecting students who choose not to share at all), then shar- ing and discussing with the larger group. Ask:

1. What did you think about doing this activity?
2. How did it feel to have to name your identities?
3. Are there some identities people might choose not to disclose?

my story , our story 9

4. Do our identities remain the same throughout our lives?
5. How did your identities differ from your peers?
6. Why would some identities (like race or religion, for instance) be more, or less important to different people?

Question for the Teacher

What should we consider if we are teaching in an area where there appears to be minimal diversity?

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C H A P T E R O N E

WHY A DIFFERENT MIRROR?

Chapter Thesis

The mirror that we have used to see American history has reflected only a partial picture, primarily accounts of the rich, white, powerful male. We need a different mirror, one that restores and reflects the whole im- age, the stories of all the different groups who shaped this nation.

Chapter Summary

Takaki relates an incident in which he once more had to prove he was really an “American.” A white taxi driver had compli- mented him on his spoken English and asked him where he was from. Because many chapters of American history had been lost, the cabdriver, as many Americans, did not realize that the United States had always been multicultural. Takaki goes on to introduce the real, “more inclusive” his- tory he is about to tell: African, Asian, Irish, Jewish, Latino, Mexican, Muslim, and Native American stories. In 1676, as they imported Africans to supply labor, Americans had to give up the dream of an all-white America. These Africans became the “central minority” and their struggle for freedom and equality is woven through the American story. Asians, too, arrived, but the Americans passed laws to limit their numbers.

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The Irish followed, eventually overcoming nativist prejudice be- cause they could be seen as “white.” Jews fled European perse- cution to become new Americans, striving to overcome hostility to enter the mainstream. As their territory was annexed into the United States, Mexicans tried to participate in the life of the rel- atively new country. Other Spanish-speaking immigrants joined the multicultural experiment. More recently, a religious minori- ty, Muslims, sought a place at the table, but their assimilation was complicated by the backlash of some Americans after the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City. Immigrants came to fulfill their dreams, but dominant groups tended to perceive the dream as theirs alone. All came to a land that had originally been home to native peoples; white settlers, seeking to control these original Americans, claimed their land, perpetrating the myth that they were savages, and thus, in the way of progress. So, the American story has not been told fully. The “little people” have felt unworthy of telling it. Leaving people out of history is, to Takaki, like using a flawed mirror, unreliable be- cause it does not reflect the whole story, the telling of which empowers those who have been forgotten or silenced. The chapter ends with brief excerpts of the songs of those nameless Asian, Irish, Mexican, and black laborers who built the transcontinental railroad in the 19th^ century, “one of the greatest achievements of American industry.”

Vocabulary

multicultural colonizers narrative migration immigrant diversity demography ancestry minorities ethnic segregation lynching alien Protestant pogrom anti-Semitism refugee

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members of immigrant groups might feel about hav- ing their “Americanism” challenged?

3. Research the demographics (race, gender, ethnicity, family size, religious affiliations, etc.) for the town, city, or county where you live. Locate these statistics from 50 years ago. Demonstrate these visually. How have they changed? Reflect on how these changes have impacted your area. Follow up these findings by inter- viewing local residents about how they react to what you discovered.
4. Create an Immigration Timeline. What were the num- bers for each group of immigrants? Include various groups and the peaks of their immigration. Integrate the laws enacted for or against these immigrations.
5. Collect, share, and analyze a sample of songs and their lyrics about work stretching from the time of the first Americans up to the present day. What do these songs have in common? How do they differ? How, if at all, have they influenced the songs that followed?

Primary Document Analysis

Print: Dutch Slave Ship Arrives in Virginia Retrieved from http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-pho- to/engraving-shows-the-arrival-of-a-dutch-slave-ship-with-a- news-photo/

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C H A P T E R T W O REMOVING THE “SAVAGES”

Chapter Thesis

From the time the first Europeans (Vikings) set foot on the North American continent, through Columbus and to the colonizing En- glish, the original inhabitants, Native Americans were regarded as savages to be subdued or exterminated by the “civilized” invaders. But who was really uncivilized?

Chapter Summary

Takaki names the first violent interaction between whites and Native Americans when Vikings landed in Eastern Canada and killed the people they found, beginning a long history of attacks and retaliations. It was another 500 years before Columbus landed, and then other Europeans followed. Having colonized Ireland and treated its people as savage pagans to be moved onto reservations, England soon brought this concept of a binary world to North America, remarking that the Native Americans were too much like the “wild Irish.” The relationships were uneasy ones. In Jamestown, poorly pre- pared colonists faced starvation and sometimes Indians res- cued them. Tobacco growers saw potential profit and so wanted more land to cultivate. When native peoples resisted the taking

removing the “ savages ” 17

Discussion Questions

1. What was the first (recorded) encounter between whites and Native Americans? What was the result?
2. What was the “accident of history”?
3. Speculate: what would have happened if the earliest ex- plorers to reach North America had not stayed?
4. How did the way the English treated the Irish become a model for how they would later relate to the Native Americans?
5. How did Columbus regard the Native Americans he encountered?
6. Discuss examples of early English settlers’ attitudes to- ward the Native Americans.
7. How would you react if you were ordered to abandon your culture?
8. Describe Powhatan civilization when the first English settlers arrived.
9. Discuss the relationship between the Jamestown set- tlers and the Powhatans.
10. Why do you think the English had come to Jamestown so poorly prepared to survive?
11. What role did tobacco play in the Virginia settlers’ lives?
12. Describe the war against the Powhatans.
13. Describe New England’s Indian settlements in the ear- ly years of English colonists.
14. At first, it seemed very easy for the English to take over Indian land in New England. Why?
15. What role did the New England settlers think God played in their occupation of the land?
16. How did New England settlers justify taking over In- dian land?

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17. What was King Philip’s War?
18. Who was Mary Rowlandson? How did her account of her kidnapping challenge stereotypes of Native Amer- icans?
19. Why did White success in North America seem to mean Native American poverty?
20. Discuss Thomas Jefferson’s conflicting views of Native Americans.
21. Do you see this chapter as a documentation of progress or one of change? Why?
22. White captives of Native Americans often wrote about their experiences after they were released. How do you think their identities (points of view) affected how they wrote about their experiences?

Activities

1. Examine a projected image of what some believe to be the earliest (1434 AD) world map, which shows North America, the Vinland Map. Research whether experts agree if it is genuine or not. Have students try to label the landforms correctly. http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/pho- tos/2002/vinland.jpg
2. Some of the Native American nations that Takaki lists throughout this text include: Beothuk, Abenaki, Pow- hatan, Wampanoa, Pequot, Narragansett, Mohegan, Seneca, Delaware, Shawnee, Choctaw, Creek, Sioux, Pawnee, Susquehanna, Cherokee, and Kaskaskia. Stu- dents will choose one of these tribes (or one of many others listed at http://www.native-languages.org/origi- nal.htm). Search for maps that show the territory of the