East Meets West and West Meets East: Immigrant and Ethnic History in the U.S. Survey

“East Meets West and West Meets East:  Immigrant and Ethnic History in the U.S. Survey ”: Whether teaching the U.S. History survey or other courses on U.S. immigration, ethnicity and race, an instructor has many options in approaching how to do so – the initial peopling of the Americas which might entail Africa, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia across Beringia into the Americas, the American Southwest and Caribbean with the arrival of the Spanish, and then the English, other Europeans, and Africans along the Atlantic Coast. From there, the narrative typically moves westward, with the Atlantic World predominating until reaching California when Asians from the Pacific World also become part of the story. Yet, both the Atlantic and Pacific worlds met in a number of different ways and places from the earliest colonial times into the 19^th century, highlighting ways in which the location of a particular ethnic group resulted in experiences that differed from the usual narrative.