To answer this question correctly, students must determine that Document A is from 1942 and that Document B is from 1931. Students must also contextualize the documents by drawing on relevant historical knowledge, such as:
- The stock market crash of 1929 signaled the start of the Great Depression, a period of high unemployment in the United States, and the U.S. government restricted Mexican immigration to reduce unemployment.
- The bombing of Pearl Harbor by Imperial Japan prompted the United States’ entry into World War II. Military enlistment, wartime manufacturing demands, and the incarceration of Japanese of Americans (many of whom worked in agriculture), created a large labor shortage, especially in the agricultural sector. To address the labor shortage, the United States and Mexico implemented the Bracero Program in 1942, which temporarily brought millions of Mexican farmworkers to the U.S on short-term labor contracts.
Level: Proficient
In proficient responses, the student:
- Selects the correct year for each document.
- Explains that Document A is from 1942 because the United States sought to import Mexican farmworkers to fill its labor shortage during World War II.
- And explains that Document B is from 1931 because the U.S. restricted Mexican immigration during the labor surplus of the Great Depression.
In proficient responses, students might incorporate other specific historical information, like the fact that the immigration of non-Asian Mexicans was notably not banned or limited by quotas in the sweeping Immigration Acts of 1921 or 1924; the heightened restrictions on Mexican immigrants during the Great Depression extended beyond reducing the number of visas to also include Mexican Repatriation, in which hundreds of thousands of Mexicans and Mexican Americans were deported or pressured to leave the U.S.; the temporary importation of Mexican farmworkers that began in 1942 was the Bracero Program; or the executive order that forcibly relocated and incarcerated tens of thousands of Japanese Americans contributed to the agricultural shortage of World War II.
Level: Emergent
Student selects the correct year for each document but only provides a partially correct explanation. For example, the student may correctly contextualize one document but not both or may provide partially incorrect reasoning about both.
Level: Basic
Student misidentifies the year for each document or correctly identifies the years but provides mostly or entirely incorrect explanations for both documents.
