Without the historical context, viewers never get a sense of how public policy reflected labor demands, international politics, and racial ideology. Additional content would reveal the ways that European immigration generated controversies over issues such as language, education, and values. In my estimation, the video's uncritical representation of America as a melting pot is problematic. This does not mean that these issues are absent. When commenting that almost half of the science and engineering graduate students in the United States are immigrants, the faces of three young Asians appear on the screen.
Many questions can come to mind.
Given the degree to which race and ethnicity influence public policy, the program's relative neglect of these issues is indefensible. T he conflation of illegal and legal immigration debates, the insufficient historical information, and the disregard of race and ethnic concerns detract from the video's overall utility as a classroom tool. A college audience could better spend the half hour directly addressing the issues.