By Siddarth Tumu ’18, Middle School Staff Writer

While many students were sleeping in or playing sports during the summer, the 7^th graders were handling a much harder task: the 7^th grade immigration project.

This project was no simple one. Required were transcripts of hour long interviews of our family members, a map of your ancestor’s travels, a timeline of your ancestor’s important events, your four generation family tree, primary sources from your ancestor’s travels, and a bread recipe from your ancestor’s origin country (and actually making the bread too). So when most students were watching TV or hanging out with friends, 7^th graders were working hard on interviewing their ancestors or creating a four generation family tree.

But this immigration project’s benefits outweighed the efforts. Many 7^th graders agree that it changed the way that they viewed their family’s history. Through learning their family’s immigration history, their thoughts and beliefs about the whole theme of immigration has changed. Jack Galvin, a new 7^th grader at Newark Academy, says, “At first I thought the whole idea of immigration was easy, but now I realize all the whole strain and hardships of leaving their old country and trying to start a new one in a different place.”

Other students also believe that the immigration project was a great way to connect with their ancestors and delve deeper into the facts and details of their family’s immigration. They agree that while working on this project, they learned some exciting new factors about their ancestor’s travels, which gives them the opportunity to bond more with their family’s history, ancestors, and their country of origin. Durga Srivatsan, also of 7^th grade says, “Before the immigration project, I really didn’t know much about India. But now, after the immigration project, I know a lot more about it and feel really connected to it.”

I also interviewed a different 7^th grader, Jonathan Goodison-Orr, and asked him a little bit about how the immigration project has changed the way that he looks at his life and how it has changed his beliefs about immigration. He replied that the 7^th grade immigration project has certainly enhanced appreciation for his family and heritage. Now that he has finished his immigration project, he told me that he understands the US has always been a place of “hope and tears” for many immigrants. Before the project, he said, I had a lot of appreciation for all the hard work and determination of his ancestry coming to America. That feeling deepened after he got info of how his ancestors made it into America. He now feels a special connection to Jamaica after all the facts that he learned about his family’s history.

In addition, I had the chance to interview with the 7^th grade Humanities teacher, Mr. Caldwell. I asked him about what he thought the benefits of a project like the immigration project were, and how much were students getting out of the project. “The three main “qualities” I wish students to attain are helping students connect with families, helping students develop research, speaking, and listening skills, and organization skills,” he says. “But the best part of this project is by far the quality of helping my students to connect with their families.”

The 7^th grade Humanities summer immigration project was a lot of hard work and effort, no doubt about that. But as mentioned before, the benefits outweighed the efforts of it. The 7^th graders had the opportunity to bond with their families, delve deeper into the family’s history and uncover some new facts, and even go to Ellis Island themselves on field trip day! But all of the 7^th graders all came away with something good at the end: a chance to eat the different cultural breads prepared by each student. And they tasted pretty good too.