And justice for all: The Trail of Tears, Mexican deportation, and Japanese internment

Many textbooks mention the Trail of Tears, but fail to mention that this early displacement of an ethnic minority is only the one of many legally-sanctioned forced relocations. This lesson will address the displacement of American Indians through the Trail of Tears, the forced deportation of Mexican Americans during the Great Depression, and the internment of Japanese American citizens during WWII.

A lesson plan for grades 8–12 English Language Arts and Social Studies

By Patricia Camp

Learn more

• Japanese American Relocation Digital Archives This digital archive brings together the collections of 8 different California depositories which document the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II
• Cherokee removal and the Trail of Tears In this chapter we’ll read the words of both Cherokee and whites. We’ll evaluate the changes taking place in Cherokee life, the reasons for their forced removal, and the costs of the Trail of Tears.

Related pages

• Museum of the Cherokee Indian: Official site of the museum of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina.
• Along the Trail of Tears: A part of history is often forgotten when teaching younger students. This is the relocation of the Cherokee Indians when the white settlers wanted their property. The US Government moved whole groups of Indians under harsh conditions. This trip became known as the Trail of Tears. Using this as a background students will explore and experiment with persuasive writing as they try to express the position of Cherokee leaders.
• Live-at-Home in North Carolina: In this lesson students will examine pictures and documents relating to the Live at Home program started in North Carolina by Governor O. Max Gardner to help North Carolina farmers refocus on food crops rather than cash crops during the Depression. These photographs, from the Green 'N' Growing collection at the North Carolina State University, will help students draw conclusions about the culture of North Carolina in the early 1930s and understand how they overcame the hardships of the Depression.

Related topics

• Learn more about American Indians, English language learners, Great Depression, Japanese Americans, Latinos, Mexican Americans, North Carolina, Trail of Tears, World War II, academically gifted, deportation, history, immigration, internment, learning disabilities, repatriation, resettlement, and social studies.

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Learning outcomes

Students will compare and contrast different methods of racially-motivated relocations of various ethnic groups during three periods in American history.

Students will:

1. Define and discuss the difference between immigration, repatriation, deportation, resettlement, and internment.
2. Research the Trail of Tears, the deportation of Mexican Americans during the Great Depression, and the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII.
3. Compare and contrast the experiences of these three groups, the times in which they lived, and the government’s justification for their actions.
4. Present their learning to the class in the form of an oral report with visual aids, a history web, Venn diagram, or a PowerPoint (or other computer-based presentation).

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

3 to 6 hours

Materials/resources

• grade-appropriate textbooks and reference materials on Native Americans, Japanese Americans, and Mexican Americans
• paper and pencils for note-taking
• poster board for history web or Venn diagram
• dictionary (print or online)

Texts

• North Carolina: The History of an American State by John R. Bell and Jeffrey J. Crow
• Created Equal: A Social and Political History of the United States by Jacqueline Jones, Peter H. Wood, Thomas Borstelmann, et. al

Other resources

• North American Indian by David Hamilton Murdoch and Lynton Gardiner
• Native Americans: An Inside Look at the Tribes and Traditions by Laura Buller
• Decade of Betrayal: Mexican Repatriation in the 1930s by Francisco Balderrama and Raymond Rodriguez
• I am an American: A True Story of Japanese Internment by Jerry Stanley

Technology resources

• computer with internet access for research
• word-processing software
• PowerPoint or other presentation software

Pre-activities

Introduce the topic by discussing with students what it feels like to move away from home. Ask questions about moving, including:

• Have you ever moved?
• Where did you move to?
• Did you want to move?
• Did you know anyone when you got there?
• What was it like in the new place?

Students will write in their journals or on paper what the moving experience was like and how they felt about it. They should write one to two paragraphs. If students have never moved away from a home, have them write about the experience of someone they’ve known who has moved.

Activities

1. Divide students into groups. Make sure the groups are not homogenous, as much as possible. Integrate groups by ability level, gender, ethnic background, etc. Groups should not be larger than four to six students. Four is an optimal number.
2. All students will read whatever is in their text book about the Trail of Tears. Students will go on-line and look at the interactive map of The Trail of Tears from The Museum of the Cherokee Indian. Additional websites about the Trail of Tears can be found by searching LEARN NC.
   • If this is an American history class, the introductory focus may be on the Depression and the Mexican American deportation. The Trail of Tears may have been mentioned or studied previously. In that case, examination of the bill passed in California, which became law on January 2, 2006, entitled “Apology Act for the 1930s Mexican Repatriation Program” is a good introduction. NPR radio has an oral program from the All Things Considered broadcast on 01/02/2006 which is available online. Another good resource is the Library of Congress site about Mexican immigration. This site deals with the Mexican deportation, mistakenly called repatriation.
   • If this is an American history class, an exploration of the Japanese internment may be useful. Most American history books mention the topic, and most mention that a formal apology was issued by the United States government, and reparations were paid. A good site is the “Suffering Under a Great Injustice” with photos taken by Ansel Adams at the Manazar detention camp in California.
3. Have students define the words resettlement, deportation, internment, immigration and repatriation. Discuss the difference between the meanings of each word, and the implications of each word. Students should understand the difference between the voluntary nature of immigration and the forced nature of the other terms. Terms are defined in the Critical Vocabulary section of this lesson plan.
4. Students can research first-person accounts of all three events. Good search terms are “Mexican deportation,” “Trail of Tears,” and “Japanese internment.”
5. Give the students the following websites or download the articles for them to read and place in a binder.
   • “Trail of Tears: Family Stories from the Trail of Tears” edited by Lorrie Montiero; Sequoyah Research Center; American Native Press Archives
   • Japanese-American Internment: Our Story in History: Life in a WWII Japanese American Internment Camp from the National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian Institution
6. Students should ask questions such as:
   • When did this event happen?
   • Why did this event occur?
   • What was going on in the United States and the world at the time the event occurred?
   • Did anyone protest the event? What was the result of their protest?
   • Were there any _________ people who were not taken away? Why weren’t they taken?
   • How did this event change American society, culture, and law?
7. Students of all age/ability groups can take the information they find and create a presentation. See the following suggestions:
   • Lower grade level students, English Language Learners, and students with reading difficulties can do history webs. History webs have an empty center with lines extending out. The center is for the title of the web, while the lines divide the surrounding space into sections. Each section should show a scene from the topic being researched. These can be done on construction paper, and the illustrations can be drawn, cut from magazines, print from the internet, etc.
   • All students can do PowerPoint presentations. The websites given, and those found through a search, will provide enough facts for a multi-slide presentation. Students can add appropriate cultural music. As an alternative, an oral report with traditional visual aids can be given.
   • Students in upper grade levels can take the information and write journal entries from the perspective of one of these displaced persons. The journals can be bound and attractively presented as books, diaries, or scrapbooks. They can be illustrated with drawings, mementoes, maps, and photos. The outside should be attractively covered. Composition books can be used for the basic book (before covered) or resources for making books are available at craft stores.
   • Gifted and motivated students may work on a number of projects. They can prepare position papers and debate their particular positions. Position papers can be written and then presented, or they can be bound together as a resource. They can also re-enact the Korematsu vs. United States or Hirabayashi vs. United States decisions. Information about the Korematsu case can be found at Landmark Supreme Court Cases. HistoryLink provides an essay about Hirabayashi. A good book useful in visualizing how to do one of these trials is Justice and Dissent: Ready-to-Use Materials for Recreating Great Trials in American History by Gary Parker Schoales 9ISBN 0-87628-752-60. Trials like this are wonderful when videotaped.

Assessment

Student projects will be evaluated on how thoroughly and accurately they compare the experiences of the three groups, accuracy of conventions (grammar, spelling, punctuation), creativity, and oral reporting skills (if used). PowerPoints can be evaluated on their thoroughness and accuracy, the number of images or slides used, and the variety of images. Journals are evaluated for the accuracy of the details expressed in the letters, creativity, attractiveness of the presentation, and other factors.

Assessment rubrics are provided for the presentation and the journal.

Supplemental information

Critical vocabulary

According to Merriam-Webster online dictionary:

• repatriate—to restore or return to the country of origin, allegiance, or citizenship
• deportation—the removal from a country of an alien whose presence is unlawful or prejudicial
• internment—to confine or impound especially during a war
• immigration—to come into a country of which one is not a native for permanent residence
• resettlement—the act of bestowing or giving possession again under legal sanction