Overview
Thousands of high school students walked out of classes in East Los Angeles in 1968 to protest unequal treatment of Mexican Americans in the public education system. Among the students' concerns were classes that omitted Hispanic history, a lack of bilingual teachers and a system that steered Chicano students to vocational training rather than college-prep classes.

The American Yawp constructs a coherent and accessible narrative from all the best of recent historical scholarship. Without losing sight of politics and power, it incorporates transnational perspectives, integrates diverse voices, recovers narratives of resistance, and explores the complex process of cultural creation. It looks for America in crowded slave cabins, bustling markets, congested tenements, and marbled halls. It navigates between maternity wards, prisons, streets, bars, and boardrooms. Whitman’s America, like ours, cut across the narrow boundaries that strangle many narratives. Balancing academic rigor with popular readability, The American Yawp offers a multi-layered, democratic alternative to the American past.

Students will examine how news outlets and government propaganda shaped war hysteria and racism against Japanese Americans during WWII. In the short film, "Power of the Press," students will learn about the pre-war racism against Asian Americans and how community allyship can have a profound effect in combating propaganda.  

Students will examine how language shapes public perception through an analysis of the short film "Power of Words." In the film, experts highlight the various euphemisms used by the US government to describe the WWII incarceration of Japanese Americans and how the language used to describe this event did not match the reality.  

These four lessons are provided by Echoes and Reflections. The lessons come from a new book, "Teaching the Holocaust By Inquiry" by Beth Krasemann. The book is scheduled for release at the end of May 2022.

ESSENTIAL UNDERSTANDINGS• Genocide • Language • History • IdentityLEARNING OUTCOMESStudents will utilize primary documents for historical investigationStudents will define cultural genocideStudents will identify how attempts at education affected the culture of PNW Native Americans2018 SOCIAL SCIENCE STANDARDS• 4.12, 4.14, 4.16-4.22 • 8.3, 8.24, 8.25, 8.28-8.33 • HS.55, HS.56, HS.60-74ESSENTIAL QUESTIONSWhat are the intended and unintended consequences of government policies?What is cultural imperialism?What is destroyed in the name of progress? What is created?

This unit provides an overview on the presence, influence, and stories of Oregon's Latino community. Your students will be given a chance to challenge thier skills as aspiring historians while celebrating and discovering my beautiful community.

The California History and Social Science Project hosted a webinar on March 2nd and shared a list of resources for teaching and understanding the war in Ukraine. 

This video segment explores how the song Strange Fruit became one of the best-known and most enduring songs of protest. In 1939, the legendary blues singer Billie Holiday performed the song as a daring criticism of the commonplace practice of the lynching of African-Americans. Civil rights groups such as the NAACP had made countless appeals, but it was Holiday’s haunting rendition that made it impossible for white Americans and lawmakers to ignore the widespread crime.

A second video segment includes the story of Abel Meeropol, son of Russian Jewish immigrants and a high school English teacher in the Bronx neighborhood where he was born, wrote a poem entitled Strange Fruit. This video discusses how the poem would later be performed by the legendary Billie Holiday as a song of protest, bringing national attention to the crime of lynching.
https://opb.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/bf09.socst.us.prosp.songborn/abel-meeropol-billie-holiday-and-a-song-born-in-protest/

Sensitive: This resource contains material that may be sensitive for some students. Teachers should exercise discretion in evaluating whether this resource is suitable for their class.

This interactive Padlet map allows students to click on pins to discover acts of violence against Black Americans (red pins) and acts of resistance by Black Americans (blue pins). It could serve as a catalyst for research or class discussion about race in America.

Much of this information was compiled from articles by the Zinn Education Project and Blackpast.org.

Openendedsocialstudies.org created this collection of background readings, images, and questions on William Walker and U.S. imperialism in the years between the War with Mexico and the U.S. Civil War. The College of Wooster also hosts a webpage dedicated to Willam Walker's adventurism which includes primary documents, timelines, an historical context essay, discussion questions, and additional resources. https://williamwalker.voices.wooster.edu/

The period between the end of the Mexican-American War and the U.S. Civil War included numerous attempts by U.S. business interests to expand into Central America. William Walker was interested not only in the mining, banana plantations, and possible canal, rail, and steamship routes to connect the East and West coast of the United States but also in the expansion of slavery into the tropical climate of the region.