In my classes, I strive to create an interconnected narrative, each topic building upon the next. 

We start by analyzing the Declaration of Independence and the Preamble. The language and ideas in these documents become the golden thread that pulls us through the school year – and through America’s story.

I ask my students to be part of that story.

The Civic Star Challenge inspired me to develop a lesson in which students apply the concepts in the Declaration to the push/pull factors around immigration – specifically, the experience of immigrants on Angel Island. Unlike Ellis Island, Angel Island was often used to restrict immigration, especially from Asia, and to enforce laws such as the Chinese Exclusion Act. Many people who arrived there faced long detentions, harsh questioning, discrimination, and dehumanizing treatment. I wanted students to consider: if they were pulled to this country for a better life, what would they feel if their first encounter with America was such blatant mistreatment? 

We stepped into that experience through a virtual field trip to the Angel Island Immigration Station (which we accessed through the California State Parks’ PORTS program). Our ranger guide brilliantly led us through the museum, really listening to the students along the way. We saw the rooms where immigrants slept and spotted Chinese poetry carved into the walls – a small act of resistance. 

Every single class period, students asked “why would the immigrants still choose to come?” They were learning that the promise of American ideals were strong enough for immigrants to take incredible risks. At the same time, they were able to reflect upon the historical forces that would degrade these ideals and imagine how it would feel to be caught up in their negation. After the visit, some students wrote about the shock immigrants must have felt when, at the end of the long journey in search of a better life, they were met with invasive interrogations, onerous paperwork, and very little privacy. One student drew the image of money locked behind a barbed-wire gate, to show how immigrants discovered that the dream of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” wasn’t free.

This is a complicated concept for students in middle school, but I was thrilled to watch them considering it with nuance and depth. They recognized that while the discrimination immigrants faced challenged the idealism they might have had when they arrived, it may have also made them even more determined to succeed here. Many of my students have immigration stories in their own families, so this lesson felt especially personal. But even for students without that direct connection, Angel Island helped them see a larger civic truth: American ideals matter most when we ask who has been allowed to claim them, and who has had to fight for them.