Telling Family Immigration Stories

Telling family immigration stories is a powerful way to build community within and outside of the classroom. Whether the story comes from a student, parent, or a school professional, giving voice and an audience to the story opens channels for empathy and understanding on what can be a divisive topic.

Our latest lesson plan, created by English Language Learner (ELL) teacher Ms. Angeline Sturgis from Eldridge Park School in Lawrence, NJ, demonstrates how to record, illustrate, and share family immigration stories from individuals in your school and community. Ms. Sturgis implemented this project as the result of our Community Grants program.

The finished product of this lesson is an illustrated book and an opportunity to read the story aloud to others. Although this project can be done digitally, the physical book makes an important gift. A culminating public reading with a focus on celebrating, acknowledging, and supporting the immigrant author's triumphs, struggles, and continued efforts to build a new life in the U.S. transforms a lesson into a truly special and unforgettable event. 

Reflecting on the project, Ms. Sturgis wrote, “I've always believed that everyone has a story to tell. Encourage your families to share their stories, whether orally or written and illustrated, like I was able to do. One of the authors, a mother who came to this country as an impoverished child, said to me at the end of our event, ‘I actually feel different. My story needed to be told. All those years, it was living inside me, and I needed my children to hear it. Not only have they heard it---they illustrated it! Now my story is a part of all of us.’ To read the full article, please click here (and scroll down).

Students illustrate a story.

Teacher Ms. Angeline Sturgis records Eldridge Park School staff member William Perez's immigration story from Cuba.

Books wrapped for presentation on the night of the event.

Illustrations are presented on a large screen as the audience listens and watches.

The American Immigration Council grant program is an initiative to provide educators and community organizers with the resources they need to implement a successful immigration curriculum or an immigration-themed project. Grants are awarded on a bi-annual basis. The deadline for the next grant is July 1, 2016, so it’s not too late to think of an idea and apply by clicking here.

What Are Your State’s Policies Towards Immigrant Access to Higher Education?

It’s October and many high school seniors across the country are busy preparing to apply for college, which means that teachers, guidance counselors, parents and others are also busy — helping students fill out FAFSAs, select schools, revise essays, and write recommendation letters among other tasks.  Each year, an estimated 65,000 of these soon-to-be graduated youth are unauthorized immigrant students who were brought to the U.S. as children, and who face distinct challenges from their peers when accessing college. 

While guaranteed a right to public K-12 education under the 1982 Supreme Court ruling in Plyer v. Doe, there is no corresponding federal edict for how unauthorized youth are to be treated in a post secondary setting. As a result, many states have responded in diverse ways with some states allowing for tuition equity and financial aid and others barring unauthorized students from enrollment, and still others with no explicit policy governing access towards higher education for unauthorized youth. 

You can find out what your state policies are towards immigrant access to higher education on this map from the National Immigration Law Center (NILC). Specific state information and context can also be found on this interactive map from America’s Quarterly.

A recent commentary on state legislation from the Migration Policy Institute (MPI) notes that “since 2001, 17 states have enacted measures that would allow qualified unauthorized immigrant youth, often referred to as DREAMers, to pay resident tuition rates at their postsecondary institutions.”  Click to read the full commentary and to view a chart of the post secondary policies for the top 15 states of residence for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) youth.

Immigrants have and will continue to contribute to American public education. As our demography continues to shift, the contributions immigrants make in our communities and classrooms will help bring to light that education opens opportunities for career and civic engagement as proven by our immigrant past.  Simply put, we have much to lose in our immigrant future by not investing in the aspirations of all our students.

Additional Resources:

• Read our previous blog post, “Navigating College Application for Unauthorized Students” addressing frequently asked questions that may arise when assisting youth.  In particular, we highlighted Educators for Fair Consideration (E4FC)’s Educator’s Guide as another good source of information on broaching potentially sensitive topics with students.

• The DACA program created in 2012 provides temporary relief from deportation and work permits for up to two years if unauthorized youth meet age and other requirements. For information on DACA, please read the American Immigration Council’s DACA Resource Page.

The American Immigration Council offers free lesson plans, resources, book/film reviews, and grants to teach immigration. We also welcome teacher and student book reviews and contributions to our blog. Email us at teacher@immcouncil.org and follow us on twitter @ThnkImmigration. 

Three Books by Dinaw Mengestu to Explore the Immigration Experience with Students

As educators, one of the great joys is introducing students to fiction that allows students to see themselves in characters they thought were nothing like them and which they shared little in common. It is one of the most effective ways to teach empathy, broaden understanding, and disprove stereotypes. It is the stuff of “a-ha” moments, meaningful connections that transcend the classroom, and Dinaw Mengestu’s novels are ripe with these potential moments for high school students. His character-driven narratives highlight the universal tensions between home and displacement, loss and renewal, as explored in the migration experience.

The award-winning novelist and Mac Arthur Fellow has published three novels The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears (Penguin 2007), How to Read Air (Penguin 2010), and All Our Names (Knopf 2014).  An Ethiopian-American, his family left Addis Ababa when he was two-years-old during a violent period in Ethiopia known as “Red Terror.” He was raised in Peoria, Illinois, the setting used in his second novel.

Multi-Dimensional Character-Driven Narratives

Of his characters Mengestu said, in an interview with National Public Radio (NPR), they are “driven for a sort of home…what I think is a pretty universal and pretty common feeling.” Never does a character seem to fully understand his or her place, what they have lost in leaving and what they hope to find in a new home.

Mengestu’s debut novel, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, explores the isolation and frustration of immigrant life through the eyes of the Ethiopian immigrant storekeeper Sepha Stephanos in a rapidly-gentrifying Washington D.C. How can Stephanos ever make a home in America that he feels a part of if he has never truly left Ethiopia?

 

In How to Read Air, we encounter the narrator Jonas Woldemariam, a second-generation Ethiopian-American struggling with his failed marriage as he takes a road trip to understand the complicated relationship of his parents, Yusef and Mariam, who emigrated from eastern Africa. The result is four skillfully-woven narratives, Yusef, Mariam, Jonas, and his estranged wife, Angela, each telling a similar but particular story of home and loss and the struggle to belong.

The most recent novel All Our Names is set after the Ugandan independence and alternates point of view between Helen, a social worker in the Midwest, and her lover who calls himself “Isaac.” Through flashbacks, we learn of Isaac’s troubled past – an Ethiopian who travelled to Uganda via Kenya who becomes, along with a boyhood friend, drawn into military activity. While a love story, it is also a war story exploring how violent leaders rise to power and how names and identity can change with perspective and time.

Universal Themes

While the themes in Mengestu’s novels explore the immigrant experience through unforgettable characters, they also convey universal themes. Mengestu said in an interview with German media, Deutsche Welle, “We often think that the immigrant story is unique to people who have left their homes. But for me it has increasingly become a story of people who have lost something essential to who they are and have to reinvent themselves and decide who they are in the wake of that loss.”  What student (or person) hasn’t questioned who they are or lost someone or something dear to them? 

These novels give students the opportunity to explore the immigrant experience through the fresh eyes of complex characters dealing with familiar struggles. In an effort to get students to think beyond media headlines, more than anything these novels portray the human experience of immigration.

Additional Resources

·       The National Education Teachers Association (NEA) has a free downloadable lesson plan to use with high school students along with capstone ideas and essay topics.

·       Our free lesson plan on Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche’s Ted Talk “The Danger of a Single Story” pairs well with Mengestu’s novels and lends itself to a discussion on the benefits of diversity.

Stay Connected!

The American Immigration Council offers free lesson plans, resources, book/film reviews, and grants to teach immigration. We also welcome teacher and student book reviews and contributions to our blog. Email us at teacher@immcouncil.org and follow us on twitter @ThnkImmigration.