Cameron Seger and Owen Heckman

Professor Raymond

UWRT 1103

27 February 2018

From Foreign to Domestic

Everyone in America came here from another country in most cases. The process of immigration

to America changes a lot as time goes by. It can be affected by more recent things like terrorist attacks,

or it can be affected by something like the Irish potato famine. In this project we will explore how the

immigration process changes approximately every 50 years, starting around the early 1700s. Not only

will we study how it changed, but also we will look into how the process made it much harder to get into

the United States of America. Everyone can learn something about their heritage and how they got here.

Specifically, we will be focusing in on people that immigrate here from European countries, but other

countries may play a minor role in mass migrations from these countries too. This project may provide

some insight to things that all of our ancestors may have experienced on their journey her to the United

States of America.

There are many technologies that we could use on this project that would help put the puzzle

together. Ancestry will be one major key to making this project successful. Both of us having origins in

Europe, the stories of how our ancestors got here can tell a lot about two different time periods. Some

other sources we may have to use are official historical documents. For example, documentation of

immigrants in the 1700s may be limited to documents of ships that came here from Europe, fleeing to

find freedom. More recently, there may be more of a variety of documents telling certain reasons for

mass migration from a region. The media didn’t exist a few centuries back like it does today. In our

process, we will look at popular nationalities that came here during the time period in which we are
studying. Once we find a couple of the most prominent, we will chase a rabbit trail to try to find the

reason so many people sought to reach America from this country or region.

In order to make sure this project is split up evenly, we will probably take turns for each smaller

assignment. One person will do the actual assignment while the other person will proofread and revise

it. The next time a minor assignment rolls around, the other person will do the assignment, and the

other will proofread and revise the assignment. Once we get to a major aspect of the project that

requires a little bit more time, we will meet and talk about how we can divide the assignment into two

different parts that organizes us effectively, but also allows the work to be divided evenly. I would like

for us to have each assignment done 12 hours before we have to submit it just in case we encounter

some technological errors.

For our presentation, we will go in chronological order. Starting in the 1700s, we will talk about

how the causes of people coming here as well as the complexity of the process. We will progress a half

century all the way into the 2000s. By the time we talk about the 2000s, the process will be very

complex, and some of the reasons for people coming to the United States may become known as history

unfolds.

This project should be very intriguing for everyone in the class. It will pool a lot of information

together to reach larger conclusions. The conclusions reached will probably reach out to everyone’s

narrative in the class, telling where each person’s story plays out in the grand scheme of things.