Podcasting the Immigrant Experience

Students in Tyler Thornburg's class interview
an immigrant about her journey to the U.S.

Eighth grade students at Saints Peter and Paul Catholic School in Tulsa, Oklahoma spent the last month of the school year working on a podcast project to enrich the immigration theme of the school year. While many students at the school come from immigrant families, not many of them had heard their families’ stories about how they came to the United States. Teacher Tyler Thornburg seized an opportunity for authentic learning and engagement.

The idea to develop student-created podcasts on the immigrant experience arose after listening to a “This American Life” podcast on National Public Radio about an immigrant named Abdi, a Somali refugee, and his epic journey to the United States. Thornburg wanted his students to create something like this podcast, which they could then share with their families. He was hoping for students to tell the story of their family’s journey to the United States (or someone else’s they knew) and then ask the people they were interviewing if the sacrifices they made were worth it.

Many of the conclusions reached by the immigrants interviewed surprised students and helped them to develop a fuller understanding of immigrants and immigration. Thornburg’s students had often only experienced the difficulty of living in the United States and thought that life in Mexico or a country in Africa had to be better than here. However, many of the people interviewed said they would not go back if they could because of the impact that their decision has had on their children and grandchildren. These answers forced students to look at their life and the immigrant experience from a larger perspective and to see that small decisions over a lifetime can have a profound impact.   

Practice and Patience

As is often the case, new experiments in the classroom don’t always go as planned, but they offer rich learning experiences for teachers and students. Thornburg said:

Our eighth grade class was behind on our curriculum for the year, so we worked on the podcast at the same time as finishing the school year. If I were to do the project over again, I would only focus on the podcast project and not do any other content. The way the lesson plan is written is how I decided to do things, and some of the things we did, did not take an entire day, while other things took more than one day, and other tasks were somewhere in between. I tried to write the lesson with some flexibility so teachers could use their own creativity to make any and every change.

Reflecting on the project, Thornburg offered some words of advice for teachers wanting to create podcasts with students, primarily regarding practice and patience:

Practice is something both students and teachers need. Create a podcast yourself for students to listen to so you are prepared to show students how to use the software  and hardware. There isn’t a more frustrating moment as a teacher when students ask  you how to do something and you don’t know what they are talking about because you haven’t done it yourself. It’s also important to have your students practice. My students needed a lot of practice and probably could have used more when they were creating their podcasts. 

The two areas that students needed the most practice is recording and editing. The recording is picked up much faster than the editing, and this is where patience comes in. Plan more time than you think to allow students to practice. You will thank yourself later. The thing that I needed to realize is that for many of my students this was the first time they had ever created a podcast and edited audio. They know what the final product is supposed to sound like, so I advise letting them discover how to get there. This forces the teacher to allow the students some autonomy, which can be scary, but they will rise to it if you give them enough encouragement and support. 

Lastly, and this was the most difficult thing for me teaching six preps, is that feedback is essential for students. Students need to know what you are expecting of them and where they can improve. I was surprised at how much they wanted to edit and change things when I gave them feedback. The stories that arose as a result of this project were amazing and the interaction of students with immigrants and technology was incredibly inspiring to watch as their teacher.

Resources

• Click on the link to download student-created podcasts to Music Player for Google Drive or your computer's audio device. These podcasts can serve as exemplars for project-based learning.

Emma and Jaime

Esteban and Enriquez

Olivia and Jannet

• Download the lesson Podcasting the Immigrant Experience” and adapt for your classroom. Start practicing!

Meet the Student Leaders of the Teach Immigration Project

The Teach Immigration Project has selected three student ambassadors to intern this summer at Long Island-based non-profits that works on immigration issues.  The intern experience will foster the students' interest in community and civic engagement and acquaint them with community needs and resources.  The students will interact with community leaders and decision makers.  They will develop leadership skills, have the opportunity to share their experiences with the community at future events, and will present at a student forum in the fall.

Meet this year’s student ambassadors:

William Ban, 17, is an active member of his school, Great Neck South High School, and community. He is the Grand Prize recipient of the Shanti Fund “Youth for Peace” competition, the President’s Volunteer Service Award for over 150 service hours in a year, and a 2015 Deca Nationals Stock Market Game Finalist, placing second out of 1300 regional volunteers. He is an avid skit and song performer on independence movements and world peace and has served as a MC for several community events.

When asked about why he believes immigration is important to the future of Long Island, Ban responded, “when our community becomes more diversified, we gain new ideas, cultures, and perspectives.” He added that it is a civic duty to “integrate immigrants to the Long Island community and discourage racial biases or feelings of hateful nativism.”

Ban will be interning with Long Island Wins.

Shafaq Khan, 16, is a volunteer and leader in her school, Sewanhaka High School, and community. She is the President of her school’s Key Club, a nationwide community service organization, raising awareness and funds for other organizations, including the Make-a-Wish Foundation and UNICEF. She teaches Model UN debate skills to elementary students and organizes elementary and high school level Model UN conferences. She also tutors ELL students, writes for her school newspaper, and is a member of the National Honor Society.

Khan writes, “immigrants help broaden perspectives regarding race, ethnicity, religion, and culture.” Citing Justice Sonia Sotomayor as one of her role models, Khan hopes to become a lawyer or judge, specifically addressing immigration, religious tolerance, women’s rights, and racial profiling.

Khan will be interning with Caracen.

Zairel Luna, 16, is a student at Centereach High School, where she holds several leadership positions including serving as Sophomore Class President, Black History Month and Women’s History Month Committee Coordinators, and as a member of honor societies including the Music Honors Society, the Italian Honors Society, and as an Honor Student.

Luna wrote in her application that she believes “the future of Long Island is in the hands of Millenials” and that she has worked hard to encourage the voices of her peers to be heard on immigration and other issues they feel strongly about.

Luna will be interning with Jobs with Justice.

What a Supreme Court Decision on Executive Action Could Mean for One Undocumented Immigrant

Today, in U.S. classrooms, you will find first, second, or third generation immigrant students. Most of these students are U.S. citizens.  However, among them, there exists an estimated 1.7 million undocumented young people under age 30 who are enrolled in high school, have graduated, obtained a GED, or are currently enrolled in elementary or middle school, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. Each year, about 65,000 undocumented students graduate from American high schools. As undocumented, they are without basic access to the numerous opportunities available to their documented or U.S. citizen counterparts and face significant barriers to higher education. Undocumented students cannot receive federal education benefits, and in some states, may be ineligible for in-state tuition. These barriers add to the social and economic challenges undocumented students already face as a result of their status.

Jong-Min’s Story

Like so many of these students who have aspirations of higher education, I too, came from abroad—Seoul, South Korea—and arrived in the U.S. in 1981 under a student visa. I was only a one-year old baby back then, and when my visa expired in 1985, I became undocumented at the age of 5. I’ve now lived in the U.S. for the last 35 years. I attended public schools, graduating from Stuyvesant High School in New York City in 1998, and later graduating magna cum laude in 2003 from University of Tennessee, Knoxville with a BA in Sociology with a concentration in Criminal Justice and a Minor in Psychology.

Thirteen years later, I am still stuck in my invisible prison behind invisible bars and with invisible chains. This is a prison where my lack of Social Security number prevents me from working, driving, voting, and accessing certain basic human rights, like health care. I am too old for the temporary reprieve from deportation under the 2012 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) initiative, as I missed the cut off by a year. If I were a DACA recipient, I would be eligible for a work permit and temporary protection from removal. However, that obstacle has never deterred me, and even though it been many years since college, I still aspire to go to law school, and ultimately become a federal judge.

As the Supreme Court decides the fate of President Obama’s executive actions in United States v. Texas, which includes two deferred action initiatives – an expanded DACA and a proposed Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (DAPA) initiative –  I, along with an estimated 290,000 persons eligible for expanded DACA and over 3.7 million persons eligible for DAPA, eagerly await their decision. In the absence of congressional reform, this is our hope along with our dream to contribute more fully to the country we have long called home.

Additional Resources 

•  U.S. Children of Undocumented Immigrants Set Up for Failure by Current Policies (American Immigration Council) – This blog demonstrates the profound impact of current immigration policies on pre-K-12 U.S. students.

• What the U.S. Supreme Court Case on Executive Action Means for Schools (American Immigration Council) – This blog details some of the implications of United States v. Texas on schools.

Students Speak Up on Immigration on Long Island

On May 26, 2016, the American Immigration Council invited 69 students and their teachers from selected Long Island schools to discuss historical and current immigration laws and policies at our Teach Immigration Student Forum, a full day event held at the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County, Glen Cove, NY.

Photo: Teach Immigration participating students and teachers in front of the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center, Glen Cove, NY

At the forum, seventh-grade students from Lawrence Road Middle School in Uniondale and ninth-graders from the Brentwood Freshman Center focused on making and articulating historical connections to present day immigration issues and rhetoric. In particular, students closely examined events and policies before and during World War II, such as the Evian Conference, the German steamer MS St. Louis, and the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. They were able to draw comparisons and contrasts to current immigration laws and policies, such as DACA and the expanded DACA and DAPA initiative, challenges to which are before the Supreme Court in United States v Texas.

Photo: Students listen to Ms. Tracy Garrison-Feinberg, Holocaust Museum and Tolerance Center of Nassau County Education Director, describe immigration policies before and during World War II.

Their teachers, Dr. Steven Burby and Ms. April Francis, applied for our two-year Teach Immigration program where we provide educators with free and current educational materials on immigration law and policy and pair them with volunteers who are immigration lawyers. Together, the teacher and lawyer teams have co-taught at least two classroom lessons and helped students find a point of view.

The day of learning was brought to a close by Brentwood native and community organizer, Mr. Hendel Leiva, who spoke with students on the power of voice and social media. He relayed the importance of sharing stories and speaking out with facts -- even if a viewpoint is initially unpopular. Using social media, he demonstrated to students the power to bridge gaps of understanding on immigration through respectful dialogue.

Photo: Mr. Hendel Leiva speaks to students on the power of voice and social media.

One student, Ms. Myriam Arvelo, reflected on what she has learned in her English class and by participating in the Teach Immigration project this year:

“Until ninth grade, I wanted nothing to do with the sadness and pain in this world for I got depressed and thought of the worst for the world's future. Don't get me wrong, I was well aware of the horrors of the Holocaust and America's wars and battles by eighth grade, but I was extremely uncomfortable with the subject and preferred to be distant from the topic all together. I preferred to immerse myself into happy and comical fiction rather than reading the news and recent nonfiction articles on what was going on in the world. However this year, my honors English teacher, Dr. Burby taught me that I have to confront the news and reality no matter how uncomfortable I was with the truth. Because of him, I have a new perspective on learning about the past and having all the facts. The truth of the matter is that we, as intellectual beings, have to educate ourselves on controversial topics such as immigration no matter how uncomfortable we are with these subjects because to be comfortable with a way of thinking, your mind will become narrow and for your mind to become narrow, you'll refuse all other perspectives and ideas which will lead you down a path of ignorance and arrogance which will cause even more pain. So even though I get upset with the history or what is going on now, I want to live a life of enlightenment and in order to do that I will be uncomfortable with these subjects because this is how my mind will broaden.”

To learn more about the Teach Immigration project, please refer to previous posts:

• Spotlight on the Teach Immigration Classroom:An Inspiring Teacher, a Motivated Attorney, and 26 Engaged Middle SchoolStudents

•  A Student-Centered, Project-Based Approach to Teaching about Immigration

• Empowering Educators to Teach Immigration

Stay Connected! 

We seek to connect teachers and students with the most relevant, fact-based information to teach immigration critically and creatively–-at no cost. If you like our work, please tell a friend and give them this link http://bit.ly/1KdE5Zz to receive updates and free resources such as lesson plans, books reviews, and community grants. Follow us on twitter @ThnkImmigration #teachimmigration.