Immigrant history delivers the past through the eyes of everyday people

移民史通过普通人的视角呈现过去

“It’s not just the presidents and the politicians and the tycoons. What makes up American history are families and people who experience everyday events, and how they react.”

“构成美国历史的不仅仅是总统、政客和大亨，更是那些经历日常事件的家庭与普通人，以及他们应对这些事件的方式。”

So says Kristen Crews, who teaches AP U.S. History and women’s studies at Ronald Wilson Reagan High School in Pfafftown, North Carolina. According to Crews, that takeaway was strengthened for her after participating in a professional learning program hosted by New York City’s Tenement Museum.

在北卡罗来纳州普法夫敦的罗纳德·威尔逊·里根高中教授AP美国历史与女性研究课程的克里斯汀·克鲁斯如是说。克鲁斯表示，在参加了纽约市公寓博物馆主办的专业学习项目后，她的这一感悟得到了加深。

The museum in July hosted its second annual Summer Teacher Institute, where educators could discuss teaching about immigrant history and how curricular materials can overlap with students' own family stories.

今年7月，该博物馆举办了第二届年度暑期教师研修班，教育工作者们可以在其中探讨移民史的教学，以及课程材料如何与学生自身的家族故事相融合。

Educators toured the museum’s replicas of immigrant homes, heard from historians, and talked about the experiences of a different immigrant group each day during the July 20-25 program.

在7月20日至25日的活动期间，教育工作者们参观了博物馆的移民故居复原场景，聆听了历史学家的讲解，并每天探讨一个不同移民群体的经历。

The summer institute is an example of how schools can work with museums and other historical resources in their areas and beyond to enhance professional development.

这个暑期研修班是学校如何与当地及更广泛地区的博物馆和其他历史资源合作，以促进教师专业发展的一个范例。

The Tenement Museum programming is "nuanced, but not graduate-level,” said Mike Agovino, who teaches geography, world history and AP Seminar at Queens Gateway to Health Sciences Secondary School in New York City's Queens borough, and participated in the museum’s 2025 cohort. “It’s applicable to a 15- or 16-year-old."

在纽约市皇后区健康科学中学教授地理、世界历史和AP研讨课程的迈克·阿戈维诺表示，公寓博物馆的课程项目“细致入微，但没有研究生课程那么深奥”，他参加了该博物馆2025届的研修班。“它非常适合15或16岁的孩子。”

For Crews, who participated in the program’s 2025 cohort, the program imparted valuable insights about teaching American history through the lens of families and individuals that make the lessons applicable to today's students’ lives.

对于参加了该项目2025届研修班的克鲁斯来说，该项目从家庭和个体的视角，传授了教授美国历史的宝贵见解，使教学内容能够贴近当今学生的生活。

Both Agovino and Crews have used the museum’s “Your Story, Our Story” publishing portal to inspire students to write personal stories that illustrate who they are, whether it’s an immigration-related story or something else about them.

阿戈维诺和克鲁斯都利用博物馆的“你的故事，我们的故事”发表平台，激励学生们撰写个人故事，以展现他们是谁，无论是与移民相关的故事还是其他关于他们自己的故事。

The institute "helped us to turnkey this to our students across the nation,” Agovino said. “I used it as an icebreaker to get to know students in an authentic way. They ate it up. They were excited to be published on a museum website and also to share their stories.”

阿戈维诺说，该研修班“帮助我们将这一现成的项目直接带给了全国各地的学生”。“我把它当作破冰活动来真诚地了解学生。他们非常喜欢。他们很高兴能在博物馆网站上发表作品，并分享他们的故事。”

Crews modified the assignment by asking students to focus on a family heirloom or other object that illuminated elements of their own family history or culture. One student brought in a tobacco stick and talked about the agricultural history of the Winston-Salem, North Carolina, area. Another brought in a Beach Boys album and reminisced about listening to the band’s music with their grandparents.

克鲁斯调整了这项作业，要求学生聚焦于一件传家宝或其他能体现自身家族历史或文化的物品。一名学生带来了一根烟草棍，讲述了北卡罗来纳州温斯顿-塞勒姆地区的农业历史。另一名学生带来了一张海滩男孩乐队的专辑，回忆起与祖父母一起听乐队音乐的情景。

This helped students get to know one another and “in understanding what it means to be an American, and how all those pieces worked together,” Crews said.

克鲁斯说，这有助于学生们互相了解，并“理解身为美国人意味着什么，以及所有这些经历是如何共同塑造美国历史的”。

Throughout the last school year, Crews said, her students were more receptive to history lessons given the focus this approach placed on average people.

克鲁斯表示，在上一学年，由于这种方法将焦点放在了普通人身上，她的学生对历史课的接受度更高了。

“They paid attention a little bit more,” she said. During a unit on urbanization and how the Industrial Revolution affected immigration, "we were teaching kids how to look at different perspectives and be able to understand. They realized they were from different cultures and backgrounds and wealth, but they also had similarities.”

“他们稍微更用心了一些，”她说。在关于城市化以及工业革命如何影响移民的一个单元中，“我们教孩子们如何看待不同的视角并予以理解。他们意识到自己来自不同的文化、背景和财富阶层，但也有相似之处。”

The Tenement Museum does a thoughtful job of “chunking” content about immigration into themes and time periods so that teachers can easily infuse it into their existing curricula, Agovino said.

阿戈维诺表示，公寓博物馆非常用心地将移民相关内容按主题和时间段“分块”，以便教师能轻松地将其融入现有的课程体系中。

He drew upon the museum’s “Flags of Hope” unit focused on the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments and how immigration groups reacted to them. The unit segues into the present day, exploring how "immigrant groups view themselves, legally and emotionally,” in a transformative period in American history, Agovino said. This prompted students to ponder “what they love about the United States, and what they would like to see changed.”

他借鉴了博物馆的“希望之旗”单元，该单元聚焦于第十三、十四和十五条修正案，以及移民群体对这些修正案的反应。阿戈维诺说，该单元一直延伸至当代，探讨在美国历史的变革时期，“移民群体如何在法律和情感上看待自身”。这促使学生们思考“他们喜欢美国的什么，以及他们希望看到哪些方面发生改变”。

Agovino was able to bring about 200 students to tour the museum. “A lot of these students are first-generation immigrants,” he said. “For them to have this experience, I was very moved and touched by it.”

阿戈维诺得以带领约200名学生参观博物馆。“这些学生中有很多是第一代移民，”他说。“他们能有这样的体验，我深受感动。”

Crews and her students, being located several states away, made a virtual visit instead. “Being able to walk the halls of the tenements virtually really helped my students … to think about their lives, what they value, and how they become better citizens and better members of their community,” she said. “It helped me think about what’s important and what I should be doing in my classroom.”

由于与博物馆相距几个州，克鲁斯和她的学生改为进行了一次虚拟参观。“能够虚拟地漫步在这些公寓的走廊里，真的帮助了我的学生……去思考他们的生活、他们的价值观，以及如何成为更好的公民和更优秀的社区成员，”她说。“这也帮助我思考什么才是重要的，以及我应该在课堂上做些什么。”