Core Course 3 The Kaleidoscope Camera: Viewing the Diversity of the Immigrant Experience Through Film

The United States has long been a nation of nations, and immigration continues to be a significant factor in the peopling of America. This four-session course will rely on the medium of film to examine the history of the migration of peoples to the United States and their integration into American society and culture.

Often called the “liveliest art,” film has long treated issues of race, religion and ethnicity. Indeed, the first talking picture, The Jazz Singer starring Al Jolson, dealt with the inner struggles of a young Jewish lad who wishes to be a popular singer rather than follow in his father’s footsteps and become a cantor. In addition to feature films from Hollywood, documentary filmmakers have found rich material in exploring the multi-ethnic dimension of American society.

This course will focus on the mass migration of newcomers to the United States in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Participants will study the role that immigrants and refugees have played in casting and recasting the history and identity of the United States and the American People. The course will examine the reasons why individuals and groups chose to migrate to the United States, being constantly aware that while America has been a magnet for migrants, many other countries have been so as well.

When social commentators speak of globalism, migration is always mentioned as a key ingredient of a global perspective on human history. For the individuals on the move, neither the journey across the globe nor the readjustment to a new society was easy. There were language barriers and cultural disconnects of all kinds. This course considers the kinds of challenges faced by newcomers and natives in the immigrants’ transformation from aliens to Americans. This transformation of identity could be a wrenching and complex process, one which altered the American identity even as it changed the identities of those who chose to cast their lot with the United States and its people.

Using film, this course will explore the tensions that are inherent in a multicultural society perennially replenished through immigration. It will address the issue of American identity and how newcomers have been treated, particularly those who have sought to recast themselves as Americans. The twin focus is the new arrival at the door and the native born American who answers the knock.

Photo credit: Yon Yonson. Created and copyright 1899 by the Shrobridge Litho. Co., Cincinnati & New York. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

About the Consulting Scholar

Through class discussion, assigned readings, and in-class films, students in this course will work to answer the following discussion questions, among others:

1. What were the students’ personal immigrant experiences or those of their parents and grandparents?


2. What were some of the perils of the journey to this new land?


3. What was the immigrant’s first experience of the United States, specifically at checkpoint stations like Ellis Island?


4. What opportunities beckoned to the younger generation of immigrants? What are the symbols of socioeconomic mobility that they saw around them?


5. How did families and friends react to the merging of cultures on American soil and the possibilities of marrying outside the nationality?


6. In what way do these films illuminate the ongoing American controversy over the desire to be a sanctuary to the world’s “huddled masses” and the need to enforce laws which regulate immigration to the United States and protect the opportunities of those who have already entered the country legally?

On Film and History:
Carnes, Mark C. Past Imperfect, History According to the Movies. Henry Holt and Company, 1995.

Desser, David and Lester D. Friedman. American Jewish Filmmakers. University of Illinois Press, 2004.

Miller, Randall M., ed. The Kaleidoscopic Lens, How Hollywood Views Ethnic Groups. Jerome Ozer, 1980.

Toplin, Robert Brent. History By Hollywood, The Use and Abuse of the American Past. University of Illinois Press, 1996.

On Immigration:
Alba, Richard and Nee, Victor. Remaking the American Mainstream, Assimilation and the Contemporary Immigration. Harvard University Press.

Bodnar, John The Transplanted, A History of Immigrants in Urban America. Indiana University Press, 1985.

Daniels, Roger. Coming to America, A History of Immigration and Ethnicity in American Life. Harper Collins, 1990.

Diner, Hasia. The Jews of the United States. University of California Press, 2004.

Foner, Nancy. From Ellis Island to JFK, New York’s Two Great Waves of Immigration. Yale University Press, 2000.

Gerber, David A. and Alan M. Kraut. American Immigration and Ethnicity, A Reader. Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

Jacobson, Matthew Frye. Whiteness of a Different Color, European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race. Harvard University Press, 1998.

Kraut, Alan M. The Huddled Masses, The Immigrant in American Society, 1880-1921. 2nd edition. Harlan Davidson, Inc. 2001.

Kraut, Alan M. Silent Travelers, Germs, Genes, and the “Immigrant Menace.” Basic Books, 1994.

Ngai, Mae N. Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America. Princeton University Press, 2004.

Orsi, Robert Anthony. The Madonna of 115th Street, Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880-1950. Yale University Press, 1985.

Portes, Alejandro and Ruben G. Rumbaut. Legacies, The Story of the Immigrant Second Generation. University of California Press, 2001.

Reimers, David M. Other Immigrants, The Global Origins of the American People. New York University Press, 2005.

Rischin, Moses. The Promised City, New York’s Jews, 1870-1914. Harper Collins, 1970.

Takaki, Ronald. A Different Mirror, A History of Multicultural America. Harvard University Press, 1993.