Comparative Questions

COMPARATIVE QUESTIONS

Document Links

Document 17-1: Pun Chi Appeals to Congress in Behalf of Chinese Immigrants in California

Document 17-2: Mattie Oblinger Describes Life on a Nebraska Homestead

Document 17-3: Texas Rangers on the Mexican Border

Document 17-4: In-mut-too-yah-lat-lat Describes White Encroachment

Document 17-5: A Plea to "Citizenize" Indians

  1. How did Mattie Oblinger's experiences compare with those of In-mut-too-yah-lat-lat, Pun Chi, the Texas Rangers, and the Mexican raiders with whom the Rangers fought? To what extent did they have different concepts of property, ownership, law, and social order?
  2. What similarities and differences characterized the migrant experiences of the Chinese in San Francisco, the Oblingers in Nebraska, and Native Americans?
  3. Do the documents in this chapter suggest that Americans in the West had conflicting ideas about civilization and race? Why or why not?
  4. Based on the documents in this chapter, what part did migrants' assumptions about their familiar worlds play in their adjustments to their new lives in the West? To what extent did their experiences in America cause them to change their old assumptions?