Diversity of Historical Figures in American History

 

This is a webpage for students with cognitive impairments to use to research historical figures from their own cultures. Over the years, my classrooms have had many different cultures represented by my students. I believe that in order for students to be successful in life they need to identify with their ethnicities or cultures.

                                

http://www.archaeolink.com/hispanic_american_latino_america.htm  “Hispanic – Latino – American People” is a site that students can access for a variety of cultures including Hispanic, African-American, and several different Asian-American. The home page is actually an archaeology web site. The link I have listed will get students to the different cultural resources. The author is Rod Polasky of archaeolink.com copyright 2002.

                                                         

 

http://clnet.ucla.edu/Latino_Bibliography.html  “Annotated Bibliography of children’s literature focusing on Latino people, history and culture” is the title of this web site. A quote from the introduction to this site explains why I believe that MY web page is important: “In order for children to identify with the world around them, to appreciate and value the differences and similarities of other people to themselves, it is important for them to first discover their own identities.” This site should actually be used by teachers to find literature to help students of Hispanic background to validate their culture within the context of American ‘culture’. The site would be understandable for most general education students but not for students with mental disabilities. The author is Amy Goldenberg, a graduate student at UCLA in the department of Library and Information Science in March, 1995.

http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/c/s/csr4/PSU3/Hispanic-Latino-Americans/Hispanic-Latino-Americans.html  “Hispanic/ Latino Americans” is a site that gives links to other pages such as famous Hispanics in Entertainment or Humanities or in Science, etc. Several of the links lead to websites that are still under construction but yield enough information for students. This homepage also has pictures or photographs of some famous Hispanic figures in history such as Ellen Ochoa: astronaut, Jaime Escalante: Educator and Mathematician, and Dolores Huerta: Co-founder of United Farm Workers Union. The author is Professor Carey S. Reed of Penn State, Altoona.

 

                                            

 

                                              

http://www.kidinfo.com/American_History/Famous_Historical_People.htm  “Kid Info, The Web’s Best Homework and Student, Teacher/Parent Resource: Famous People” is a good starting point for African-American students. This site is actually a type of search engine for history that students can use to find other websites with the information they need and want. The specific section that gives the needed links is entitled “Sites that Feature Famous African-Americans”. Linda Guterba of Canfield, Ohio is an upper elementary teacher whose site is funded by CBoss, an internet company.

http://www.africanamericans.com/ “African Americans – Culture, History, Legacy and Heritage of a Proud People including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks” is the title of a site that students of African American background will be able to access to research a large number of biographies of famous Black Americans. It has links to pages that detail other aspects of culture such as history, family, Civil Rights, fashion and beauty, as well as the biographies. I could not find the author or creating agency-group but I suspect that it may be some kind of commercial website because of the ads from Google that appear on the home page.

                                                             

                                                                   

http://www.kidinfo.com/American_History/Native_Americans.html  “Kid Info, The Web’s Best Homework and Student, Teacher/Parent Resource: Native Americans” is the starting point for Native American students. It lists all the tribes from the past as well as those still in existence in the Americas. Linda Guterba of Canfield, Ohio is an upper elementary teacher whose site is funded by CBoss, an internet company.

http://www.mce.k12tn.net/indians/famous/famous_native_americans.htm  “Famous Native Americans” gives the biographies of ten famous Native Americans. What I found interesting was that they include two women as well as several that were in favor of making peace with the white man to avoid anymore loss of Indian life. The ‘author’ of the site was a classroom teacher, Gay Miller, and her 5th and 6th grade class during the 2000 – 2001 school year.

                                                                                                           

                                                    

http://teacher.scholastic.com/activities/asian-american/notables.htm “Asian-Americans Who Have Made a Difference” gives short biographies of ten Asian-Americans who have made a difference in the United States and beyond. Michelle Kwan and Amy Tan were the women profiled. There were also scientists, other athletes, politicians, as well as business professionals. The group sponsoring this website was Scholastic, Inc. that has a strong presence in educational publishing. I liked the fact that there were more links if a student wanted to get more information about one of the profiled people.

http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/asiabio.htm “Some Noteworthy Americans of Asian or Pacific Island Heritage” is actually a jumping off point to biographies of a large number of Asian-Americans. It is done as a list with the individuals classified into one of eleven categories. These categories include Asian-Americans in Non-Profit Agencies, Asian-American Scientists, Mathematicians, Asian-American Fashion Designers, Asian-Americans in the Military, and Asian-American Entertainers and Artists. I was fascinated to see all the categories and the amount of work that went into gathering all the names. It is a site from James Madison University and is part of their Internet School Library Media Center.

                                                                          

                                                                  

http://www.adc.org/index.php?id=248 “Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee: Facts about Arabs and the Arab World” discusses what is an Arab, where is the ‘Middle East’, who are Arab-Americans, and names some famous people of Arab-American descent. I was very impressed with the discourse on what a Muslim is and what is the Muslim world. This is information that should be shared with all students. This website is a creation of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee.

http://www.aaiusa.org/arab-americans/23/famous-arab-americans “Famous Arab Americans” is not actually biographies but rather a large discussion of famous Arab-Americans in more than ten areas in America. These include military service, fashion, media, business, entertainment, law, and sports. This would be the ideal site for students to get a good ‘look’ at all the contributions Arab-Americans have made and are continuing to make in the United States. The Arab American Institute is the group that created this particular site.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arab_Americans “List of Arab Americans” from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia is another good starting place for students to see how much this group of individuals has contributed to our country in such areas as business, academics, writing, and performing. I am trying to get my students to understand that just there are some people from a certain ethnicity who are killing Americans does not mean that all individuals from the group are behaving or thinking violence is appropriate. The group creating this site is the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.