AP US History Short-Answer Question on the Interpretation of Immigrants

👋 Welcome to the APUSH Unit 6 SAQ (Interpretation of Immigrants). These are shorter questions, but you'll still want to grab some paper and a pencil, or open up a blank page on your computer. After you finish, you can see how you did with Unit 6 SAQ (Interpretation of Immigrants) Answers.

⏱ The AP US History exam has a mixture of free-response questions and allotted times. For these types of questions, there will be 3 SAQs, and you will be given 40 minutes to complete the SAQ section. (This means you should give yourself ~13 minutes to go through each practice SAQ.)

• 🤔 Need a quick refresher of the unit as a whole? Check out the Unit 6 Overview.
• • 😩 Getting stumped halfway through answering? Look through all of the available Unit 6 Resources.

Setup

“The new immigrants became laborers, housepainters, stonecutters, ditchdigggers. They were often imported en masse by contractors...their conditions led sometimes to rebellion...As immigrants became naturalized citizens, they were brought into the American two-party system, invited to be loyal to one party or the other.”

• Howard Zinn, historian, A People’s History of the United States, 2003

“The new immigrants, by contrast, were often regarded by Americans as racially inferior, culturally impoverished, and incapable of assimilating American values and traditions. This negative view of the “new immigrants” reflected in part a fear of their alien languages, religions, and economic backgrounds….and most, with the exception of the Jews, were peasants, unaccustomed to urban industrial life.”

• Gary Gerstle, historian Liberty, Equality, Power, A History of the American People, 1999

Questions

(a) Briefly describe ONE major difference between and historical interpretations of immigrants between 1865 and 1898. 

(b) Briefly explain how ONE specific historical event or development during the period 1865 to 1898 that is not explicitly mentioned in the excerpts could be used to support Zinn’s interpretation. 

(c) Briefly explain how ONE specific historical event or development during the period 1865 to 1898 that is not explicitly mentioned in the excerpts could be used to support Gerstle’s interpretation. 

Answers & Rubric

💯 Ready to see how you did? Take a look at the Unit 6 SAQ (Interpretation of Immigrants) Answers.