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People in Societies - OGT Review 3
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OGT Review 3 - People in Societies
Students use knowledge of perspectives, practices and products of cultural, ethnic and social groups to analyze the impact of their commonality and diversity within local, national, regional and global settings.


National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States. It works to end discrimination against blacks and other minority groups.

The NAACP achieves many goals through legal action. It played an important part in the 1954 ruling of the Supreme Court of the United States that segregation of blacks in public schools is unconstitutional. Thurgood Marshall, a lawyer from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, presented the argument in the case, known as Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.

The organization also achieves its goals through legislative action. It played a leading role in obtaining passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1957, which protects the right to vote. This act established the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice and the Commission on Civil Rights. The NAACP worked for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids discrimination in public places. This law established the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The association also helped bring into law the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which protects voter registration.

Activities. The NAACP has worked successfully to fight discrimination in housing and to strengthen the penalties for violations of civil rights. In the 1970's and 1980's, it helped win extensions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The NAACP also led successful efforts in 1972 to increase the power of the EEOC. In 1986, the NAACP successfully campaigned for the United States to impose economic sanctions against South Africa because of its system of racial segregation, called apartheid. The NAACP helped obtain passage of an amendment in 1988 that strengthened the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

The organization strives to protect the rights of prison inmates. Its investigation of problems facing black military personnel led to changes in the system of military assignments and promotions. The NAACP sponsors a program of voter education and registration. It works for desegregation of public schools and fights dismissals and demotions of black teachers and administrators that it considers discriminatory. It urges publishers to produce textbooks that provide an accurate account of the achievements and activities of blacks. The NAACP also seeks to reduce the number of students who drop out of school and to encourage and reward academic, scientific, and artistic excellence among black students.

The NAACP also acts to reduce poverty and hunger. In 1968, the organization established the Mississippi Emergency Relief Fund to feed poor blacks in the Mississippi Delta area.

History. The NAACP was founded in 1909 by 60 black and white citizens. In 1910, the organization began to publish Crisis, a magazine about blacks who have achieved success in the arts, business, and other fields.

During the NAACP's first 30 years, it worked to prevent violence against blacks, unjust legal penalties, and job discrimination. Much of its activity centered on passage and enforcement of antilynching laws. During World War II (1939-1945), the NAACP tried to obtain equal rights for black military personnel and more job opportunities for black civilians. After the war, the association stepped up its long struggle against the policy that treated blacks as "separate but equal." This policy had been established in 1896 by the Supreme Court's ruling in the case of Plessy v. Ferguson.

The NAACP has hundreds of thousands of members and hundreds of youth councils. It receives funds from membership fees and from private donations. It has headquarters in Baltimore. It has a legislative bureau in Washington, D.C. The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which has been an independent organization since 1957, is headquartered in New York City.


National Organization for Women (NOW) is one of the largest associations in the United States devoted to achieving full equality between women and men. NOW pushes for equality through elections and legislation as well as through rallies, demonstrations, and marches. The organization has hundreds of thousands of members in chapters throughout the nation. Almost all the members are women.

NOW seeks to increase the number of women in policymaking positions in government,

businesses, schools, and other institutions. It works to replace male elected officials with women who support equality between the sexes. NOW also calls for giving women equal access to jobs, pensions, and social security benefits. It tries to ensure that women get the same pay as men for similar work.

The organization supports legalized abortion and access to birth control. It seeks to guarantee women a right to prenatal care (medical care during pregnancy) and child care. NOW also works to protect women against sexual assault and other violence. In addition, it seeks to enable both female and male homosexuals to live in security and with self-respect.

NOW calls for the passage of an Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The amendment would require that men and women be treated equally by law. NOW's first attempt to win approval of the amendment failed because only 35 of the necessary 38 states had approved it by a 1982 deadline. Since then, the amendment has been reintroduced in Congress a number of times but has not been passed.

Many people, including a large number of women, oppose NOW's goals, its methods, or both. Some of these people object to the organization's support for abortion. Many of NOW's opponents believe that the welfare of society and of the family depends on preserving the traditional roles of men and women. These people criticize NOW for working to change women's roles. Some people dislike NOW's use of rallies, marches, and demonstrations to achieve its goals.

NOW disagrees that its activities weaken society or the family. The organization also points out that it supports the rights of all women, including homemakers, and that it acknowledges homemakers' vital contributions to society and the family.

NOW was established in 1966. Betty Friedan, one of its founders, served as the organization's first president. NOW headquarters are located in Washington, D.C.


American Indian Movement (AIM) is a civil rights organization in the United States and Canada. It works for equal rights for American Indians and improvement of their living conditions. The group has participated in efforts to establish Indian land ownership rights.

The American Indian Movement has often been critical of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, a U.S. government agency that works to promote the welfare of the nation's Indians. AIM believes the bureau has failed to eliminate widespread job and housing discrimination and poverty among Native Americans. The organization also has demanded the return of property rights guaranteed by treaties between the U.S. and Canadian governments and various Indian tribes.

AIM was founded in Minneapolis in 1968 by Dennis Banks, George Mitchell, and Clyde Bellecourt. Its original goals were to help improve the lives of the city's Indians and to protect them from police actions that AIM considered brutality. AIM chapters began to be formed in other cities in 1970. AIM has carried out several protests to call national attention to the problems of Indians. In 1972, members occupied the headquarters of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, D.C., for seven days. The following year, AIM members and other Indians seized the village of Wounded Knee, S. Dak., where the U.S. Cavalry massacred as many as 300 Sioux in 1890 (see WOUNDED KNEE).

During the 1970's, AIM also established and operated a number of organizations to help Indians develop a sense of self-determination. These groups, consisting only of Indians, worked to improve schools, legal services, employment programs, and health services for Native Americans. Since 1974, AIM has attempted to unite Native Americans throughout the Western Hemisphere. But problems among AIM leaders contributed to the group's decline in the 1980's.

United Farm Workers of America is a well-known union of farm laborers. The union, commonly called the UFW, is active in many parts of the United States, especially in California and Florida and in the Northeast. It seeks job security and higher wages for migrant workers and other farm laborers and works to improve their living and working conditions.

Cesar E. Chavez, a leading spokesman for Mexican American farmworkers, founded the National Farm Workers Association in 1962. Chavez received help from cofounder Dolores Huerta, a farmworker activist. The association and another union merged in 1966 to form the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee. This union became the UFW in 1973. In its efforts to organize farm laborers and obtain union contracts for them, the UFW often urged consumers to boycott farm products produced by nonunion workers. These boycotts brought national attention to the farm labor movement and were supported by many church and student groups, by members of various minority groups, and by other unions.

The UFW is associated with the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO). Headquarters are in Keene, California, near Bakersfield.


African Americans deeply admired President Roosevelt's wife, Eleanor, for her stand in an incident in 1939 involving the great concert singer Marian Anderson. The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), a patriotic organization, denied the singer permission to perform at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., because she was black. Eleanor Roosevelt then resigned from the DAR and helped arrange for Anderson to sing, instead, at the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sunday. Over 75,000 blacks and whites attended the concert.

In the arts, Gwendolyn Brooks became the first African American to win a Pulitzer Prize. She received the award in 1950 for a collection of poems titled Annie Allen. In 1955, Marian Anderson became the first black to sing a leading role with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. In 1958, Alvin Ailey formed one of the finest dance companies in the United States. Sidney Poitier won the 1963 Academy Award for best actor for his work in Lilies of the Field.

The arts. African Americans won recognition in all major art forms during the late 1900's and early 2000's. The leading writers included Maya Angelou, who received praise for her multivolume autobiography and her poetry. Alice Walker won a Pulitzer Prize in 1983 for her novel The Color Purple. Rita Dove served as poet laureate of the United States from 1993 to 1995. Toni Morrison, whose novel Beloved earned a Pulitzer Prize in 1988, received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1993. Plays by August Wilson won the Pulitzer Prize in 1987 and 1990. George C. Wolfe emerged as an outstanding director of plays.

In motion pictures, African American stars included Halle Berry, Morgan Freeman, Whoopi Goldberg, Eddie Murphy, and Denzel Washington. Filmmaker Spike Lee won praise for Do the Right Thing (1989) and Malcolm X (1992), as did filmmaker John Singleton for Boyz N the Hood (1991). Many blacks starred on television. "The Cosby Show," featuring Bill Cosby, was a top-rated TV program in the United States from 1984 to 1992.

In music, opera singers Kathleen Battle and Jessye Norman became internationally recognized. Celebrated jazz musicians included Geri Allen, Roy Hargrove, Christian McBride, and Wynton Marsalis. Singer Michael Jackson became a superstar in popular music. His album Thriller (1982) sold over 45 million copies-more than any other album in history. African American performers used musical essays in verse called rap music to describe inner-city life. Leading "rappers" included Ice-T, Public Enemy, Run-DMC, and Queen Latifah. In 1996, George Walker became the first African American composer to win the Pulitzer Prize for music. He won for a work he wrote for voice and orchestra.

Jim Crow refers to practices, institutions, or laws that result from or support segregation of blacks from whites. The term came into common use in the 1880's, when racial segregation was made legal in many parts of the Southern United States. The term originally referred to a black character in a popular song composed in the 1830's. Jim Crow laws required the separation of races in many public places. However, most of these laws were declared invalid by several Supreme Court decisions in the 1950's and 1960's and by the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968.

Jim Crow laws, first developed in a few Northern states in the early 1800's, were adopted by many Southern states in the late 1800's. These segregation laws required that whites and blacks use separate public facilities. No detail was too small. At one time, for example, Oklahoma required that whites and blacks use separate telephone booths. Arkansas specified separate gambling tables, and many courts provided separate Bibles for swearing in witnesses. Several Southern states adopted grandfather clauses and other Jim Crow laws that deprived African Americans of their voting rights. See JIM CROW.



The rapid spread of segregation laws through the South was supported by a series of Supreme Court decisions. The most influential case was Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896. In that case, the court supported the constitutionality of a Louisiana law requiring separate but equal facilities for whites and blacks in railroad cars. De jure (by law) racial segregation was strengthened by this decision. See PLESSY V. FERGUSON. For more than 50 years, many states used the "separate but equal" rule to segregate African Americans in public schools and in transportation, recreation, sleeping, and eating facilities.

The beginning of change. Legal segregation gradually began to crumble in the 1900's. During World War I (1914-1918), orders for military equipment created a great demand for labor. The demand led to mass black migration from the South to the manufacturing centers of the North. In 1910, about a tenth of all black Americans lived outside the South. Today, more than half live outside the South.

Partly as a result of this migration, African Americans, starting in the 1930's, gained increasing prominence in national politics and a fairer hearing in federal courts. One high point was reached in the 1954 case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, in which the Supreme Court ruled against de jure segregation in public schools. The court held that "in the field of public education the doctrine of 'separate but equal' has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." In 1969, the court ordered public school districts to desegregate "at once." See BROWN V. BOARD OF EDUCATION OF TOPEKA.

Beginning in 1973, the Supreme Court ordered school desegregation in certain Northern cities, where school boards had drawn school district lines that contributed to segregation. The Supreme Court often ordered the busing of pupils to ensure that most schools in a district would have a similar proportion of minority group students. Many white people throughout the country opposed busing and other desegregation efforts. As a result, judges and policymakers began to issue fewer and fewer orders calling for school desegregation.

By the end of the 1900's, segregation had again increased in public schools. Large numbers of white residents had moved from central cities to suburbs to escape desegregation. This migration, sometimes called white flight, and growth in the number of private schools left public schools in many large cities with mostly minority students.

De facto segregation. In the 1960's, national attention shifted to de facto segregation--that is, segregation in fact. This type of separation has developed more by custom than by law. Although many laws supporting legal segregation were declared unconstitutional, de facto racial segregation increased during the mid-1900's.

In cities, African Americans were almost as segregated in housing at the end of the 1900's as they were at the beginning of the century. Such segregation remained one of the most serious problems facing people of color. See GHETTO. Many blacks suffered from a practice called steering, in which real-estate agents showed them housing only in areas that already had many black residents. Laws prohibit such practices, but many victims find it hard and expensive to get compensation from courts.

Efforts to eliminate segregation have to some degree benefited middle-class African Americans. This group, which accounts for about a fourth of all black Americans, has the education and the skills to take advantage of new opportunities even though they still face discrimination. But the economic and political situation has not basically improved for millions of unskilled, low-income African Americans. In some ways, the poor are worse off than they were in the 1950's.

De facto segregation and racial discrimination have been basic causes of racial riots in American cities since the 1960's. The riots have represented, among other things, a mixture of desperation and defiance.

Antidiscrimination laws are a major tool for breaking down de facto segregation. For example, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 provides protection against discrimination in employment and education. However, many such laws have inadequate means of enforcement. See CIVIL RIGHTS ACT OF 1964. By the end of the 1990's, many African American communities turned their efforts toward creating effective, supportive, separate schools for black children. The curriculum in such schools emphasized African art, music, and culture; the achievements of black African civilizations; and African American history. There were also attempts to create more black-owned businesses and self-help organizations. As a group, these educational and social movements were known as Afrocentrism.



Immigration is the act of coming to a foreign country to live. The act of leaving one's country to settle in another is called emigration. Immigrants who flee their country because of persecution, war, or such disasters as famines or epidemics are known as refugees or displaced persons (DP's).

Most people find it very hard to pull up roots in their native land and move to a strange country. But throughout history, countless millions of people have done so. The heaviest immigration worldwide took place from the early 1800's to the Great Depression-the economic hard times of the 1930's. In that period, about 60 million people moved to a new land. Most came from Europe. More than half immigrated to the United States. Other destinations included Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, New Zealand, and South Africa.

Today, the availability of fast, safe, and cheap transportation helps make migration easier. Asia is replacing Europe as the major immigrant-sending area. The United States remains the chief receiving nation.

Causes of immigration

People forsake their homeland and move to another country for various reasons. Some emigrate to avoid starvation. Some seek adventure. Others wish to escape unbearable family situations. Still others desire to be reunited with loved ones.

Religious persecution has led many people to move to a new land for the freedom to practice their faith. Such emigrants include Jews expelled from England in the 1200's and Baha'is fleeing Iran in the 1980's.

Wars, revolutions, and political unrest have driven innumerable people to find new homes. In the 1990's alone, millions of refugees fled from warfare in Bosnia-Herzegovina, East Timor, Ethiopia, Iraq, Liberia, Rwanda, and the Serbian province of Kosovo.

Some immigrants were brought to a new land against their will. From the 1500's to the 1800's, Europeans shipped black Africans to the Western Hemisphere as slaves. The United Kingdom transported convicts to Australia from the late 1700's to the 1860's to relieve overcrowding in British jails. Before that time, the United Kingdom sent convicts to the American Colonies.

The main reason for immigration, however, has long been economic opportunity-the lure of better land, a better job, or a better life. During the 1800's, for example, the rich prairie land of the United States and Canada attracted many European farmers. Many more European immigrants sought work in the growing U.S. industries. Today, professional people commonly emigrate because of better opportunities elsewhere. For example, many Philippine doctors and nurses and numerous Indian doctors, engineers, and scientists have moved to the United States and Canada.

Effects of immigration

Not all immigrants remain in their adopted land. Some go intending to stay for a short time and then return home. Some go to a new country for a specific reason, such as school, a job, or marriage. Then, when they graduate or if they lose their job, retire, or become divorced or widowed, they may decide to return home. But others go back because they find adjusting to a new society too difficult.

Many immigrants to a new country first settle in a community made up of people from their native land or even their native village. They keep their old customs and acquire a limited knowledge of their new country's culture, language, and values. In time, however, most immigrants, and especially their children, begin to assimilate (adapt to a new culture). Immigrants who adapt most quickly usually have a background similar to the new cultural environment and much contact with the new society. They also plan to remain permanently.

Most immigrants find a job and strive to buy a home. They try to provide their children with the education and opportunities not available in the immigrants' native land. They become citizens of the new country and take part in politics and government.

Immigrants have made enormous contributions to the culture and economy of such nations as Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Israel, New Zealand, and the United States. But their accomplishments have been made with great difficulty. Many of the receiving countries have restricted immigration to maintain a homogeneous society in which all the people shared the same ethnic, geographic, and cultural background. Although some immigration laws have been relaxed, many newcomers of different backgrounds still face challenges in gaining acceptance.


Population movements have mixed effects on the sending and receiving nations. Emigration relieves overcrowding in a country; yet the country may lose many people with valuable skills. The receiving nation gains new workers but may have trouble providing the immigrants with jobs, education, social services, and even housing.

The effects of population movements on the world economy are difficult to measure because nations have become increasingly dependent on one another. For example, many emigrants take their skills with them, while others acquire skills in the new country, accumulate savings, and then return home. Some immigrants establish businesses with trade links to their homeland. Many immigrants stay permanently in their new country but regularly send money to families left behind. Some immigrants return to their native land after they retire.

Immigration to the United States

The United States has long been the world's chief receiving nation for immigrants and refugees. The country has had four major periods of immigration. The first wave began in what is now the United States with the colonists of the 1600's and reached a peak just before the Revolutionary War in America broke out in 1775. The second major flow of immigrants started in the 1820's and lasted until a depression in the early 1870's. The greatest inpouring of people took place from the 1880's to the early 1920's. A fourth and continuing wave began in 1965 because of changes in U.S. immigration laws.

The first wave. Most of the immigrants who settled in the American Colonies in the 1600's came from England. Others arrived from France, Germany, Ireland, Wales, the Netherlands, and Scotland. Several thousand Spanish colonists settled in what is today the southwestern United States.

Some colonists sought adventure. Others fled religious persecution. Many were convicts transported from English jails. But most immigrants by far hoped for economic opportunity. Many could not afford the passage to the Colonies and came as indentured servants. Such a servant signed an indenture (contract) to work for a master for four to seven years to repay the cost of the ticket. Blacks from West Africa came to the colonies involuntarily. Some of the first Africans were brought as indentured servants, but most blacks arrived as slaves. West African blacks captured most of the slaves in wars and traded them for European goods.

By 1700, there were about 250,000 people living in the American Colonies. Approximately 450,000 immigrants arrived between 1700 and the start of the Revolutionary War. During that period, fewer English immigrants came, while the number from Germany, Northern Ireland, and Scotland rose sharply. Most immigrants arrived in Philadelphia, the main port in the colonies.

Wars in Europe and the United States slowed immigration during the late 1700's and early 1800's. Newcomers included Irish fleeing English rule and French escaping revolution. Congress made it illegal to bring in slaves as of 1808. By that time, about 375,000 black Africans had been imported as slaves.

During the early 1800's, New York City began to replace Philadelphia as the nation's chief port of entry for immigrants. The country's first immigration station, Castle Garden, opened in New York City in 1855. Ellis Island, the most famous station, operated in New York Harbor from 1892 to 1954.

The second wave. From 1820 to 1870, almost 7 1/2 million newcomers entered the United States. Nearly all of them came from northern and western Europe. About a third were Irish, many of them seeking escape from a famine that struck Ireland in the mid-1840's. Almost a third were German. Most of the Irish had little money, and so they stayed where they arrived, on the East Coast. Many Germans had enough money to journey to the Midwest in search of farmland.

In the mid-1800's, some states sent agents to Europe to attract settlers. Railroad companies did the same thing. Better conditions on ships and steep declines in travel time and fares made the voyage across the Atlantic Ocean easier and more affordable. In the mid-1800's, news of the discovery of gold in California reached China. Chinese immigrants and sojourners streamed across the Pacific Ocean to strike it rich. Sojourners were temporary immigrants who intended to make money and return home. French-Canadian immigrants and sojourners opened still another path to the United States. They moved across the Canadian-U.S. border into the New England States and Michigan.

The flood of immigrants began to alarm many native U.S. citizens. Some feared job competition from foreigners. Others disliked the politics of the newcomers, or the fact that many immigrants were Roman Catholics. During the 1850's, the American Party, also called the Know-Nothing Party, demanded laws to make it harder for foreigners to become citizens.

Although the party soon died out, it reflected the serious concerns of some Americans.

During the 1870's, the U.S. economy suffered a depression while the economies of Germany and the United Kingdom improved. German and British immigration to the United States then decreased. But arrivals increased from Canada, China, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and southern and eastern Europe. In 1875, the United States passed its first restrictive immigration law. It prevented convicts and prostitutes from entering the country. During the late 1870's, Californians demanded laws to keep out Chinese immigrants. In some instances, mobs attacked Chinese immigrants, who were accused of lowering wages and of unfair business competition. In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which prohibited Chinese laborers from coming to the United States.

The third wave. From 1881 to 1920, almost 23 1/2 million immigrants poured into the United States from almost every part of the world. Until the 1880's, most newcomers still came from northern and western Europe. They came to be called old immigrants. Beginning in the 1890's, the majority of arrivals were new immigrants, people from southern and eastern Europe.

More and more native U.S. citizens believed the swelling flood of immigrants threatened the nation's unity. Hostility like that which had boiled over against the Chinese in the 1870's now turned against Jewish people, Catholics, Japanese, and the new immigrants in general.

In 1882, Congress expanded its list of unacceptable immigrants to include such people as beggars, contract laborers, the mentally ill, and unaccompanied children. A 1917 law required adult immigrants to show that they could read and write. The law also excluded immigrants from an area known as the Asiatic Barred Zone, which covered most of Asia and most islands in the Pacific.

In 1921, Congress limited the number of people entering the country. New laws severely reduced immigration and limited the number of immigrants from any one country. The Immigration Act of 1924, which took effect in 1929, limited the number of immigrants from outside the Western Hemisphere to about 153,700 a year. The distribution of immigrants from different countries was based on percentages of the nationalities making up the white population of the United States in 1920. The formula ensured that most immigrants would be from such countries as Germany, Ireland, and the United Kingdom.

A temporary decline-1930-1945. During the Great Depression, U.S. immigration dropped sharply. Only about 500,000 immigrants came from 1931 to 1940-and in some years more people left than arrived. World War II (1939-1945) led to an easing of immigration laws. The War Brides Act of 1945 admitted the spouses and children of U.S. military personnel who had married while abroad. China became an ally during the war, and so the ban against Chinese immigrants was lifted. In 1952, the Immigration and Nationality Act, also called the McCarran-Walter Act, established quotas (allowable numbers) for Asian countries and other areas from which immigrants had been excluded. The law, for the first time, made citizenship available to people of all origins.

Congress began to set separate provisions for refugees. The Displaced Persons Act of 1948 and the Refugee Relief Act of 1953 opened the country to about 600,000 Europeans and Soviet citizens left homeless by World War II. During the 1950's and 1960's, the United States received thousands of refugees from revolutions in China, Hungary, and Cuba.

The fourth wave. In 1965, amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act ended quotas based on nationality. Instead, the amendments provided for annual quotas with a ceiling of 170,000 immigrants from the Eastern Hemisphere and 120,000 from the Western Hemisphere. The act established a preference system for the issuing of visas (permits) that strongly favored relatives of U.S. citizens and permanent resident aliens, as well as people with special skills. Wives, husbands, parents, and minor children of U.S. citizens could enter without being counted as part of the quota. In 1978, Congress replaced the separate quotas for immigrants from the Eastern and Western hemispheres with a single annual world quota of 290,000.

The 1965 amendments produced major changes in patterns of immigration to the United States. The percentage of immigrants from Europe and Canada dropped, while that of immigrants from Asia and the West Indies leaped dramatically. Today, the largest groups of United States immigrants come from Mexico, the Philippines, Vietnam, the Dominican Republic, China, India, Cuba, Ukraine, Jamaica, and South Korea. The immigrants from South Korea include many people who were born in North Korea. A large number of newcomers still settle in the East and Midwest. However, many other immigrants move to Florida and California.

Under the 1965 amendments, refugees could make up 6 percent of the Eastern Hemisphere's annual quota for immigration to the United States. This rule was later extended to the Western

Hemisphere. But the percentage was too small for the flow of refugees from war-torn Southeast Asia in the 1970's or the streams of people from Haiti and Cuba. To address these issues, Congress passed the Refugee Act in 1980. This law provided for the settling of 50,000 refugees each year. However, the president could admit additional refugees if there were compelling reasons to do so. As a result, about 100,000 refugees entered the United States annually in the 1990's.

In 1924, the United States established the Border Patrol to prevent unlawful entry along U.S. boundaries. But the problem of illegal immigration has grown steadily. Experts estimate that millions of illegal aliens live in the United States. Illegal aliens, also called undocumented aliens, are noncitizens living in a country without proper visas or other documents. A majority of undocumented aliens in the United States are from Mexico.

The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 offered amnesty (pardon) to illegal aliens who had lived in the United States continuously since before Jan. 1, 1982, or who had worked at least 90 days at farm labor in the United States between May 1, 1985, and May 1, 1986. The act also set penalties on employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants. By the end of the amnesty period in 1988, about 3 million illegal aliens had applied for amnesty. However, hundreds of thousands of others did not apply for various reasons, including the cost and confusion involved in filing, concerns about splitting up families, and the lack of residency or employment records. Critics of the law claimed that it did not significantly reduce the flow of illegal aliens into the country.

In 1990, further amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 increased the number of immigrants allowed into the United States each year. Ceilings were fixed at 700,000 annually for 1992 to 1994 and 675,000 annually beginning in 1995. Like the 1965 amendments, the 1990 amendments placed no limit on the number of U.S. citizens' immediate relatives who could enter the country each year. The ceilings also did not include refugees. The 1990 amendments gave additional preference to people from countries that had sent relatively few immigrants to the United States after 1965, including many European and African nations.

People who seek legal admission to the United States apply at the U.S. consulate in their home country for a visa. They must prove, among other things, that they do not have an infectious disease or a criminal record. Immigration laws favor relatives of U.S. citizens, refugees, and people with skills needed in the United States. Others may have to wait years, particularly in countries that have many people wishing to emigrate.


Benchmark A:
Analyze the influence of different cultural perspectives on the actions of groups.

Cultures
1. Describe how the perspectives of cultural groups helped to create political action groups such as:
a. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP);

Q1 - When was the NAACP formed? What is its purpose?

Q2 - What are three of the most important accomplishments of the NAACP?

b. National Organization for Women (NOW);

Q3 - When was the NOW formed? What is its purpose?

Q4 - What are three of the most important accomplishments of the NOW?

c. American Indian Movement (AIM);

Q5 - When was the NOW formed? What is its purpose?

Q6 - What are three of the most important accomplishments of the NOW?

d. United Farm Workers.

Q7 - When was the UFW formed? What is its purpose?

Q8 - Who was Cesar Chavez? What was his contribution to Mexican American farm workers?


2. Analyze the perspectives that are evident in African-American,art, music, literature and media and how these contributions reflect and shape culture in the United States.

Q9 - List and describe at least one artist and contribution of each of the following categories:
>art
>music
>literature
>media

American Indian and Latino art, music, literature and media and how these contributions reflect and shape culture in the United States.

Benchmark B:
Analyze the consequences of oppression, discrimination and conflict between cultures.

Interaction
3. Explain how Jim Crow laws legalized discrimination based on race.

Q10 - What was Jim Crow? How did it legalize discrimination?

Q11 - When did legal segregation begin to end in the US? Why?

Q12 - Despite court efforts, why has segregation in the US increased by the end of the 1900’s?

4. Analyze the struggle for racial and gender equality and its impact on the changing status of minorities since the late 19 th century.

Q13 - What were the causes of immigration to the US?

Q14 - What are some of the major effects of immigration?

Q15 - How have contacts between different cultures resulted in exchanges of cultural practices?

Q 16 - What is the difference between immigration and emigration?

Benchmark C:
Analyze the ways that contacts between people of different cultures result in exchanges of cultural practices.

Diffusion
5. Explain the effects of immigration on society in the United States:
a. Housing patterns;
b. Political affiliation;
c. Education system;
d. Language;
e. Labor practices;
f. Religion.

Q17 - What is the definition of diffusion?

Q18 - Describe the four main waves of immigration to the United States. How were the characteristics of diffusion effected in each wave?