Open-access E-journal for 
International Scholars, Practitioners, and Students of Multicultural Education
 ISSN: 1559-5005
Copyright © 1999-2006 by 
Electronic Magazine of Multicultural Education

THIS ISSUE
(SPRING 2004: vol. 6, no. 1)
Theme: Multicultural Education Curriculum for Social Studies

 ARTICLES:
 Gallavan & Putney • Halgao • Mule •  Ndura & Lafer •  Porfilio & McClary
INSTRUCTIONAL IDEAS:
Betts • Kidney-Cummins

REVIEWS:
Art • Books • Multimedia

CONTRIBUTORS

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Previous Issues
Call for Papers
Call for Reviewers
Issue Themes
Acknowledgments
About EMME
About the Editors

Heewon Chang, Ph. D.
 Editor-in-Chief
Christopher Bittenbender, Ph. D.
 Copy Editor
  Hwa Young Caruso,  Ed. D. &  John Caruso, Jr. , Ph. D.
 Art Review Editors 
?
Assistant Editor

Eastern University
Education Department
1300 Eagle Road
St. Davids, PA,
19087-3696



 

MULTIMEDIA REVIEWS

(provided by the editorial staff of EMME unless indicated otherwise)

Films and Videos
Websites

Films and Videos
 

Angel Island: A Story of Chinese Immigration. (2002). 12 minutes, color. Produced by The News Hour with Jim Lehrer. Distributed by Films for the Humanities and Sciences.

 Called “Ellis Island of the west,” Angel Island in San Francisco Bay served as a port of entry for Asian immigrants between 1910 and 1943.  This reproduction of a program by “The News Hour with Jim Lehrer” features two Chinese-American women who brought to the national attention the history of Angel Island and of Chinese-American immigration under the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act.  A documentary maker, Felicia Lowe, and an artist, Flo Oy Fong, are the two women whose family histories are intertwined with the history of this historical landmark because their parents came through Angel Island.  Photographic excerpts from Lowe’s documentary, Carved in Silence, provide an informative historical overview of the island and Chinese immigration.  The Chinese Exclusion Act allowed only merchants, teachers, and minor children of U. S. citizens to enter the country, excluding wives in an effort to discourage Chinese families to settle in the United States.  Wives who wanted to join her husbands had to disguise their real identities. Some passed the interrogation successfully and moved on to the main land.  Those who did not were detained on Angel Island and eventually deported to their homes of origin without getting a glimpse of their families in the mainland.  Artist Fong depicts the ordeal of Chinese immigrants in her art show called “Shhhh,” exhibited in the old barrack of the immigration station.  Through art, Lowe and Fong are trying to educate the general public about this historical landmark and the discriminative nature of the Chinese Exclusion Act.  The study of U. S. immigration history cannot be complete unless immigration to both shores of the United States is covered.  This film is an excellent resource for the lesser known immigration station on the West Coast.

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Birth Struggle of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. (2002). 55 minutes, black and white.  Produced by CBS News.  Distributed by Films for the Humanities and Sciences.

 This documentary of the Civil Rights Act features a CBS program originally aired on March 18, 1964.  Skillfully interweaving the history of the Act with a debate between Democratic Senator Humphrey of Minnesota, who advocated for the Civil Rights Act, and Republican Senator Thurmond of South Carolina, who attempted to defeat the Act, the film provides rich historical information on the process by which the Act became a law.  The divisive nature of the Act was evidenced by several historical events during the birth struggle of this Act: e.g., the Washington March led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the bombing of a Black church in Birmingham, Alabama, and the assassination of President Kennedy.  Despite deep-seated doubts, heated controversy, and a 77-day filibuster, the Act finally passed the Senate on June 19, 1964, which marks a monumental step in the long journey of the civil rights movement.  Since the film is focused on the legislative aspect of the Civil Rights Movement, it is one-dimensional.  By supplementing it with other materials documenting people’s involvement on the frontline of the movement, one may accomplish a fuller understanding of the civil rights struggles of the 1960’s. 

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Black History, Lost, Stolen or Strayed? (2002).  55 minutes, color.  Produced by CBS News.  Distributed by Films for the Humanities and Sciences.

 This film is a reproduction of a CBS program originally aired on July 2, 1968.  Narrator Bill Cosby begins the introduction with a list of contributions that African Americans have made to U. S. society but are not included in history textbooks.  From a sugar processing technique, to the mass production of shoes, to expeditions to the North Pole and the West, to participations in numerous wars, African-American contributions are numerous.  Yet, history books typically cover slavery as black history.  Reporting on research of children’s self-esteem, the program argues that Black children’s low self-esteem is a “consequence of the deformed history.”  It also argues that the stereotypes of happy, stupid, dishonest, slow, lazy, cowardly, and linguistically inadequate African Americans, perpetuated by Hollywood films, have reduced Black men and women to insignificant social positions.  The program concludes with the hope that the new generation of blacks will react to the “deformed” presentation of history and begin to assert themselves and build Black pride.  The critique of the 1960s concerning Black history is still relevant today. The inaccuracy and inadequacy of African-American history curriculum need to be continuously challenged.  This film spurs the history curriculum reform.

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Escuela. (2002). 53 minutes, color. Produced by Hannah Weyer and Selina Lewis-Davidson. Directed by Hannah Weyer, Distributed by Women Make Movies.

The film features a 14-year-old Mexican-American girl, Liliana Luis, whose family lives in a Texan town close to the border of Mexico.  Her family moves back and forth between Texas and California for seasonal jobs, more than once during a school year.  In the past her parents insisted that their older children discontinue education beyond the 8th grade to join workforce.  Now they think differently about education and encourage Liliana to stay in school.  So she starts her 9th grade in California while they are picking grapes, moves back to Texas with her family when the California grape harvest ends in October, and returns to California when the harvest season begins again in March.  Two schools she attends have migration education in place, accommodating students like Liliana.  As she is shuffled back and forth,  Liliana feels the burden of being uprooted and having to readjust to new environments over and over.  Shadowing her for a whole school year, the film maker reveals details of the struggles she and her family face as they try to survive as migrant workers with little education and resources.  Any pre-service teacher could benefit from the film for he or she may encounter students like Liliana in their future classroom.

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Flight to Freedom: The Underground Railroad. (1995). 120 minutes, color.  Produced and directed by John Overlan and Ann Spurling. Distributed by Films for the Humanities and Sciences.

This two-part program provides an excellent history of slavery and the Underground Rail Road movement through which many slaves from the South fled to the North for freedom between 1790 and 1860.  Incorporating historical statistics, slave narratives, expert accounts, and archival documents, the first part of the program accounts for how U. S. slavery began, evolved, had been practiced until the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, and has affected the lives of Black and non-Black citizens since then.  This historical account of slavery sets groundwork for the second part of the program describing the Underground Rail Road movement.  This flight-to-freedom movement resulted from secretive collaboration among free Blacks, former slaves, and White abolitionists who aided southern slaves to escape from slavery and settle in a northern state or Canada.  Well-known people like Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony, and many others were instrumental in running the “freedom train” for slave fugitives. The helpers provided safe passage and hiding places along the way, rescuing thousands of slaves from their hellish environments.  This 120-minute program, filled with historically rich and accurate information, would serve as excellent supplemental material to secondary and collegiate history instruction. 

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Found Voices: The Slave Narratives. (1999).  22 minutes, color.  Produced by ABC News.  Distributed by Films for the Humanities and Sciences.

This reproduction of an ABC Nightline News program, hosted by Ted Koppel, brings to life actual voices and memories of slaves through now digitally remastered tapes originally recorded in the 1930s and 1940s.  Thousands of interviews with ex-slaves were conducted by John Henry Falke, Zora Neale Hurston, and other folklorists. Most of them were written down and published in pamphlets and some were recorded by phonographs.  These tapes have been cleaned up with the newest computer technology, which results in remarkable audibility. One of the voices belongs to 101-year-old Fountain Hugh who was born in 1848 into slavery and was a grandson of a slave owned by Thomas Jefferson.  Slave narratives like his describe treacherous and harsh living conditions under bondage and after emancipation.  For the study of history instruction, gaining the knowledge of primary sources is valuable.  Slave narratives serve as rich primary source material. This program does an excellent job of informing the viewers of the possibilities of using narrative as a primary source.  However, this short program does not and cannot possibly provide sufficient accounts of slavery.  Viewers will benefit from reading printed slave narratives in addition to watching this program.

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Growing Up in Cities: Children of Thula Mntwana. (2002). 26 minutes, color. Directed by Shaun Cameron.  Distributed by UNESCO Publishing /Jill Kruger Research CC.
 
 		 Zukiswa, a 13-year-old black South African, narrates her story of living in a shanty settlement near a big city.  After her father died, she and her family moved from a rented apartment in Johannesburg to an urban squatter camp crowded with makeshift shacks. Upon the city government's order her family relocates to a settlement that provides sturdier shacks and space for small vegetable gardens. Yet, houses are still tiny in the settlement situated in a dusty plot away from electricity, running water, jobs, and schools.  She takes the viewers on a tour of the settlement from her home and vegetable garden, to her friends’ shacks, to a community water tank and toilet, and a playground.  Viewers can take a peek at her daily routines in this impoverished environment.  Her matter-of-fact style of story telling, combined with her hopeful attitude, may fool the viewers about the burdens weighing on this girl.  Despite the limited resources of their surroundings, Zukiswa and her friends learned to talk over their concerns and find solutions through the UNESCO’s “Growing up in the Cities” project. This film has an excellent value in educating children and youth about the lives of their counterparts living in impoverished parts of the world.  It can also teach them to be empowered to find solutions.  The film is also available in French and Spanish.

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Picture Me an Enemy. (2003). 29 minutes, color/black and white. Produced by Nathalie Applewhite and René Lego. Directed by Nathalie Applewhite.  Distributed by Women Make Movies.
 

 		 Natasa and Tahija share many things in common.  Both came from former Yugoslavia, are in their early twenties, and have attended a graduate program at the University of Pennsylvania.  Yet, they are expected to be different, even to be enemies to each other because Natasa is a non-religious half-Serb and half-Croat and Tahija is a Bosnian Muslim.  These two young women, intelligent and articulate, share their perspectives on the civil war of the 1990s that broke apart former Yugoslavia into several independent countries.  Challenging the media portrayal of the war as long-standing conflicts among Bosnian Muslims, Croatian Catholics, and Serbian Orthodox, they argue that religious, ethnic, and national differences are only abused and used by politics.  Sharing the detrimental effects of the war on people including their families, they advocate peace and tolerance instead of stereotypes perpetuated against their supposed enemies.  The war victim Tahija’s last remark, “I don’ t hate them,” reminds us that tolerance is indeed possible and there are alternative ways to resolve differences other than wars.  This informative film provides an excellent overview of the history and recent division of the Balkan region as well as compelling stories of actual people who were affected by the war. 

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Six Generations of Suffragists: The Women's Rights Movement. (1999). 15 minutes, color. Produced and Directed by Andy Merlis.  Distributed by Films for the Humanities and Sciences.
 
 		 It took 150 years, or six generations of women, to bring about many rights that the women of today take for granted.  Many women have fought over a century for rights to vote, to be elected for public offices, to own properties, and to be educated in this country.  Beginning with Elizabeth Cady Stanton who was instrumental in establishing the first women’s convention of 1848 in Seneca Falls, New York, the film shows how five subsequent generations of her female descendents have contributed to the suffrage movement and women’s advancement.  It is interesting to witness how these women have gained more rights as time passes.  If viewers are looking for rich information on Elizabeth Cady Stanton, this film is not a good place to look.  However, if the viewers want to know how U. S. society has progressed with women’s rights since the Seneca Falls convention in 1848, this film certainly provides a quick overview of the progress and struggles along the way.

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Teens in Between: The Story of Five Immigrant Teens in America. (2002).  Produced and directed by Debbie Brodsky.  Distributed by MHz Networks.

Three female and two male teen immigrants attending Annandale High School in Virginia are featured in this film. The recent immigrant youth have similar adjustment issues such as learning a new language, adopting a U. S. teen culture, and balancing between their home and new culture.  Yet, their adjustment priorities, strategies, and success levels vary depending on their language skills, family situations, pre-immigration experiences, and individual characteristics.  They came from Somalia, Egypt, Vietnam, and Honduras for various reasons—political freedom, educational benefits, or economic advancement.  A student who immigrated alone as a political refugee deals with different survival issues from one who came to join her father who had already settled in this country for ten years or another who came together with a family or as a child of a single parent.  Shadowing the teenagers to various settings such as classrooms, cafeteria, extracurricular activities, sports events, work places, and homes, the film shows that they undergo some similar and different experiences in adjusting to the American teen life.  Interviews with students reveal insightful perspectives of how these teen immigrants perceive their U. S. counterparts.  By crossing borders to interact with peers of different races, ethnic groups, and religions, the teen immigrants assume a hyphenated American identity.  Instead of presenting a cookie-cutter portrayal of immigrant teenage struggles, this film provides an in-depth and realistic look of various immigration experiences for high school teenagers.  It could serve as an excellent resource for high school and college classrooms concerned with multicultural and immigration issues.

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Wearing Hijab: Uncovering the Myths of Islam in the United States (2004). 34 minutes, color.  Produced and directed by Ray LeJeune.  Distributed by Films for the Humanities and Sciences.

 Hijab (veil) is a symbolic and physical marker for Moslem women.  Contesting the myths imposed by outsiders about women wearing Hijab, six young Moslem women share their perspectives on wearing Hijab and the Islam religion.  They all attend a university in Colorado but come from different ethnic backgrounds such as Afghanistan, Ghana's, Greek-Puerto Rican, Indian, Libyan, and European-American.  Some are foreign-born and others American-born.  Four were born into Islam families and the rest are converts.  Not all wear Hijab regularly.  All agree that wearing Hijab is liberating (e.g., from sexualization of women) rather than oppressing.  Those, including converts, who voluntarily wear them affirm publicly their faith and modesty required by Islam.  Breaking the myths of Moslem women as uneducated, oppressed, and unwilling to assimilate, these young women educate the viewers about the diversity of Moslem women in the United States.  The film can be used in high school or college classrooms as a supplementary material to readings on Islam and women.

Websites
 

Adventures of Cyberbee: Social Studies
 http://www.cyberbee.com/ss.html

The website is designed and managed by Linda Joseph, Instructional Media Specialist of Columbus School District in Ohio and was last updated in 2002.  Devoted to providing curriculum ideas and resources for teachers and students, this website includes a helpful list of web resources in various social studies subjects, such as African Americans, biography, Civil War, geography, government, American history, world history, immigration, law, multicultural issues, Native Americans, Westward expansion, and women.  Resources in some categories are more extensive than others.  A brief description of each resource is particularly helpful.  This site also provides useful tools to help teachers and students "find, evaluate, and cite information from the web."   

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African Studies Website
 http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/K-12/menu_K-12.html

Created by the African Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania, this website provides links to a variety of helpful articles and websites for K-12 teachers.  The topics range  from Swahili language to Kwanzaa.  Some of the theoretical articles discuss current trends and debates in the field of African Studies.  However, many articles are practical, promoting better ways to incorporate instructional materials of African and African-American cultures in K-12 curriculum.  Teachers may find lesson plans and instructional ideas useful, particularly for an African science curriculum.  Although the linked materials are helpful, 38 links are listed without any specific organization, which is not user-friendly.

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Ask Asia
http://www.askasia.org/

AskAsia, hosted by the Asia Society, contains useful resources for K-12 education.  The website is well organized with informative links.  One section of the web page lists links pertaining to teachers, students, school leaders, and schools providing international education.  The link for teachers is connected to a variety of instructional resources, professional development opportunities, and resource centers such as universities, museums and other nonprofit organizations.  Resources for students present information on Asia, activities, and exchange ideas.  Although this page for students is visually attractive, some links without a description are not as user-friendly as they can be.  The site also offers school leaders networking opportunities. Rich information on Asia is scattered throughout the website, including the latest news from and about Asia, maps, statistics and profiles of Asian countries, reference materials, specialist databases, and other related links to Asian affairs.  Teachers may also be interested in language resources complete with a pronunciation guide, bibliographies of Asian resources, biographies of famous Asian people, and timelines of important events in countries throughout this region. 

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Connecticut Council for Social Studies
http://www.ctsocialstudies.org/links.htm

This site is provided by the Connecticut affiliate of the National Council for Social Studies to promote “social studies through service to teachers.”  The links provided in this website are useful not only to classroom teachers but also to students and parents.  It allows users to choose from topics such as Art, Civics and Government, Connecticut History, Economics, Election, Geography, Media, Terrorism, U.S. History, Women’s History, and World History.  The access is not limited to Connecticut users.  Once a topic is chosen, the site then provides comprehensive links through which users are guided.  It provides informational links as well as activity-filled sites where users can read cartoons, play games, and learn about Social Studies with a multicultural perspective.  This site is useful for social studies teachers in K-12 settings.  Connecticut Standards for Social Studies may be informative to teachers of this state as well as others.

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Gateway to African American History
http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/blackhis/

According to the site, it is "produced and maintained by the U. S. Department of State's Bureau of International
Information Programs."  Its goal is to provide articles, news items, and links concerning African American History.  "Issues in depth" include links to Black History Month, Martin Luther King, Jr., arts and literature, and Black history stamps.  Articles on Brown vs. Board of Education are timely and informative.  It also details upcoming amendments concerning African Americans and recognition for Black community leaders in different parts of the United States.  The "Archive" link should not be mistaken as a repository of African-American historical documents for it connects users only to selected articles published on related topics since 1996.

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Lesson Plans and Teaching Strategies
http://www.csun.edu/~hcedu013/plans.html

This website gives a multitude of resources to teachers who are looking for extra guidance.  It provides over 200 lesson plans and instructional ideas for social studies and multicultural history curriculum.  It also provides links to useful and creative teaching strategies and over 100 websites that can be used for social studies lessons.  A brief description for each link is helpful for users although a long list of links is not.  Lesson plans provided in this site are contributed and tested by practicing professionals.

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Notable Social Studies Trade Books (National Council for the Social Studies)
http://www.ncss.org/resources/notable/

 This website provides links to "Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People" which is a supplement to Social Education, the official journal of the National Council for Social Studies.  It gives a list of books that have a wide range of topics.  From biographical books to books about world history and culture, this comprehensive list will aid a classroom teacher with resources to support any multicultural lesson plan in Social Studies.  The multicultural literature can mostly be found in the topics that include Geography, Peoples and Places, History, Life and Culture in the Americas and World History and Culture.   

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Website of the Snaith Primary School
http://home.freeuk.net/elloughton13/index.htm

This website, produced and maintained by Snaith Primary School in the United Kingdom, is loaded with child-friendly resources on various multicultural social studies topics ranging from Ancient Egyptian, Greek, and Aztec cultures to myths, legends and tales from different countries.  India, the Dominican Republic, and European cities and countries are also featured.  Virtual tours to the ancient civilizations and educational games can easily sustain children's attention while they are learning vocabulary and cultures concerning ancient and contemporary places and cultures around the world.  This is a great multicultural site for elementary school students.