Family Today 12.12.23

• HIS 379 The Family in America
• Year 4

Family Today

The History of Family in America (HIST 379)
Dr. Caitlin Wiesner
Main Hall Room 213
December 12, 2023 (Week 14)

"Family Values" in Immigration

As the population of the United States grew from 205 million in 1970 to 300 million in 2006, immigrants accounted for 28 million of the increase.

Most of the newcomers who arrived in the 1990s arrived from Latin America (16 million) and Southeast Asia (9 million)

By 2000, Latinos (35 million) surpassed African Americans (34 million) as the nation’s largest minority group. 

In 2006, heated debates over immigration reform in the Republican-controlled Congress popularized the term "anchor baby"

"Family Values" and Transnational Adoption

•  The Child Citizenship Act of 2000 allowed foreign-born adoptees to become automatic American citizens when they entered the United States, eliminating the legal burden of naturalization for international adoptions. 

•  In 1999, Americans adopted more than 16,000 children from over 50 countries

• A majority were girls, nearly half were infants under a year old, and large share than ever went to families that already had biological children

What can the history of "the family" in America tell us about contemporary issues in American politics and culture?

Reminders...

You should have added me to the Google Drive folder (YOUR LAST NAME Family Oral History Project HIST 379 Fall 2023) that contains your interview recordings and your copy of the Timeline Template. 

Be sure to click “Publish to the Web” to make your Timeline visible. 

Your oral presentations should be at least 10 minutes but no more than 15 and should contain the following:

1.  A brief introduction of your interview subjects
2.  A discussion of your process for conducting interviews, including the design of the questions, how those questions connected to your research goals, and your evaluation of how the interviews went.
3. A summary of each entry on your Family Oral History Timeline
4. A concise reflection on how your family’s history intersects with the changing legal, social, cultural, and/or economic meaning of the American “family.”

 Your oral presentation must contain compelling visuals. I recommend using PowerPoint presentation for the introduction, discussion of process, and reflection with a tour of your Timeline built in.

Reminders...

 A complete Timeline consists of a title slide and at least five entry slides that each contain:

1. A date. Try to be as precise as possible, but at least a year is required. For episodes that span a period of time, you may include a beginning date and an end date.
2. A relevant image. Where possible, you are encouraged to use images from your family’s own photograph collections. You can do this by scanning them or photographing them with a smartphone and uploading them to our course’s Flickr account. If family photos are not feasible, you may use relevant images located online. Just be sure to properly credit them.
3. A 200–300-word explanation of an episode of your family’s history that you obtained through your oral history interviews. Instead of simply summarizing the content of your interviews, your explanation should analyze why this episode is significant and what it reveals about your family’s history. If more than one interview subject discusses the same episode, specify where their accounts overlap and/or conflict.
4. A quote drawn from your oral history interviews that illustrates the episode you are discussing. Be sure to attribute it to the person who said it.

Reminders...

You will include the link to your completed Timeline in your Written Reflection which must be submitted to Blackboard by 11:59PM on Thursday, December 21st.

Your Written Reflection (750 words or 3 double-spaced typewritten pages), must answer the three prompt questions.

1. Did you learn or uncover what you had hoped to about your family’s history? Why or why not?
2. How did the process of collecting interviews from your family members and analyzing them change your understanding of your family?
3. How does your family’s history as constructed by your interviews intersect with the changing meaning of “family” in the American past (e.g. legal, social, cultural, economic)?

 The 72-hour grace period does NOT apply to any component of the Family Oral History Project.

 You can find rubrics for the Oral Presentation and the Timeline on Blackboard in Week 15.