Research your family story, including where you live, your social status, and how and why those may or may not have changed over time. If you would like to instead describe someone else’s story, interview a family member or friend.
Write a 2- to 3-page paper describing the family story, including origins, physical migration, and social mobility. Specifically:
Describe your family’s ancestral origins.
Identify any physical migration that occurred in your family history and explain why. If your family did not migrate from one country or area of a country to another, explain why not.
Describe the extent to which the family has experienced significant upward or downward social mobility over the past three or four generations. How do you think your values and behavior might differ had you experienced the opposite pattern of mobility? How might it have been different had your family been of a different ethnic or racial origin?
Describe the insights you gained from this experience of researching and reporting on your family story. Be specific.
Make sure to integrate and document ideas and concepts from the Learning Resources to help frame and contextualize your personal family story.
Learning resources
Migration
Gray, A. (2017, October 25). These charts show how migration is changing our cities. World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/10/how-migration-is-changing-world-cities-charts/
Hunter, T. W. (2017, March 9). Slaves weren’t immigrants. They were property. Delaware Online. https://www.delawareonline.com/story/opinion/2017/03/09/slaves-werent-immigrants-they-were-property/98957082
Ingraham, C. (2018, December 18). Americans say there’s not much appeal to big-city living. Why do so many of us live there? The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/12/18/americans-say-theres-not-much-appeal-big-city-living-why-do-so-many-us-live-there/
McPhillips, D. (2020, January 22). A new analysis finds growing diversity in U.S. cities. U.S. News & World Report. https://www.usnews.com/news/cities/articles/2020-01-22/americas-cities-are-becoming-more-diverse-new-analysis-shows
Whelan, N. (2020, June 16). 8 reasons why people immigrate to the United States. WorldAtlas. https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/8-reasons-why-people-immigrate-to-the-united-states.html
Wilkerson, I. (2017, November). The Great Migration and the power of a single decision [Video]. TEDWomen 2017. https://www.ted.com/talks/isabel_wilkerson_the_great_migration_and_the_power_of_a_single_decision?language=en
Note: The approximate length of this media piece is 15 minutes.
Social Mobility
Auerbach, M. P. (2019). Social mobility in the U.S. In Salem Press encyclopedia. Salem Press.
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