This
post written by Claire Tesh, Senior Manager of Education at the American
Immigration Council, originally appeared on the LEE
& LOW BOOKS blog, “The Open Book,” featuring our Celebrate America Creative Writing Contest for fifth graders. Coming into
its 19th year, this contest has been bringing attention to the contributions of
immigrants in America through the eyes and pens of our youngest writers.
What
follows is a discussion of the Celebrate America Writing Contest’s mission and
how it has helped to shape the immigration narrative.
To
read the original article and view the large catalog of diverse books for
children and young adults published by LEE & LOW BOOKS, please click
here.
It is impossible to escape the negative vitriol and
hateful rhetoric around the issue of immigration that dominates the headlines,
talk radio, popular culture, and in some cases the dinner table. In an effort
to educate children and communities about the value of immigration to our
society The American Immigration Council teams up with schools and community
groups to provide young people the resources and information necessary to think
critically about immigration from both a historical and contemporary
perspective, while working collaboratively and learning about themselves and
their communities.
The American Immigration Council developed
“Celebrate America,” an annual national creative writing contest for fifth
graders, because they are at the age where they are discovering their place in
the world both locally and globally. They are also finding their own voice,
opinions and ideas through writing, creating and sharing. Students at this
age start making sense of current events; they have a better working knowledge
of basic history, and have a sense of global awareness.
Thousands
of Entries
“Celebrate America” began 19 years ago with just a
couple dozen entries. Today it has grown to over 5,000 entries annually! Since
1997 a total of close to 75,000 students have participated in two dozen cities,
in nearly 750 schools and community centers across the nation.
As the leader of the Council’s education program
since 2006, I have read thousands of entries and have attended numerous events
featuring the writers. It is difficult to pick just one example, but in 2008
the winning entry America is a
Refuge really showed how much a 10-12 year old can comprehend about the
issue. That year, the winner, Cameron Busby, explained to a reporter from the Tucson Citizen that “I want to
be a horror writer when I grow up,” and in order to tell the story of America
being a place people come to be safe and thrive, he used bits and pieces of
some of the true horror stories of the immigration journeys of his classmates
or their family members. . This excerpt shows the young writer’s entry and how
he made sense of injustice and how America has always been a nation symbolic as
a beacon for hope:
A
small child holds out a hoping
hand,
a
crumb of bread,
or
even a penny just to be fed
Hoping
America is a refuge. A
child
weeps over her mother’s
lifeless
body,
the
tears streaming down her
face
Praying
America is a refuge.
Part of the reason why it’s a popular contest is
because it fits neatly with the fifth grade curriculum and it is easy for
teachers to implement by offering timely lessons and expository learning
opportunities from classroom visits by experts to interactive web-based games.
The contest is unique in that it allows for any written work that captures the
essence of why the writer is proud that America is a nation of immigrants and
students can express themselves through narrative, descriptive, expository, or
persuasive writings, poetry, and other forms of written expressions. The
teaching and learning opportunities the contest brings to both the classroom
and the community has made it very popular and most teachers who participate do
so year after year.
In
the Classroom
Monica Chun, a teacher from
Seattle who has participated in the contest for several years and whose
student, Erin Stark, was a national winner in 2013, starts the assignment by
asking students to ask their relatives at home a question: “Who was the first
person in our family to come to America?” No matter what ethnicity or how
recent or distant a family’s arrival be, every student is going to have a unique
answer to this question.
Involving
the Community
”Celebrate America” encourages youth, families and surrounding
communities to evaluate and appreciate the effects of immigration in their own
lives. The unique contest includes the following
components:
- Immigration attorneys or
trained volunteers visit classrooms, whether in person or virtually. The
visitors give short presentations about the history of American immigration and
the contributions immigrants have made over the years;
- Teachers complement the
contest by implementing lessons about immigration, social justice and diversity
into their curriculum;
- The American Immigration
Council provides classrooms with innovative, relevant, and interactive lessons
and resources;
- Communities organize
events, naturalization ceremonies and other celebrations to showcase the local
winners;
- The winning entry from
each locale is sent to the national office and judged by well-known
journalists, immigration judges and award winning authors;
- The winning entry is read
into the Congressional record, a flag is flown over the Capitol in the winner’s
honor and the winner reads their entry at a 700+ person event that celebrates
immigration; and
- In the submissions the
youth voice brings hope that there will be solutions to the immigration debate.
The American Immigration Council believes that
teachers, parents, and students are essential to building a collective movement
toward a better future: in our classrooms, in our schools, and in the larger
society. With the community’s engagement, educators, parents and students
can help bridge this divide and approach the issue of immigration with
intelligence and empathy.
Contest
Impact
The contest has an impact not only in the schools
and communities that participate, but also in the halls of Congress. Each year
when the winning entry is read into the Congressional Record, it is rewarding
to know that our leaders are hearing words of wisdom from a young person who
has big ideas and who has chosen to use their voice to invite others to learn
about immigration and to celebrate America’s diversity.
When the winning entries are read to new citizens
at naturalization ceremonies or at dinner galas in communities of all sizes,
almost every attendee has tears in their eyes because the young readers are
speaking from their hearts and they represent the future. Each and every year
the young writers continue to surprise us with the depth and empathy in their
writings whether it is their common sense solutions to an immigration system or
the story of their own immigrant background. Any writer, no matter how
old and how experienced, should look at these entries to get a sense for
authentic voice and various styles of writing. The thousands of
students who submit to the contest get recognized in their communities and the
affect is exponential because students start in the classroom and their voice
continues to be shared within their schools, within their communities and
beyond.
The students participating in “Celebrate America”
are America’s future citizens, voters, educators and activists and it is truly
an honor to shape the contest so that it provides some of the tools to think
critically about immigration and to learn to explore the economic and moral
effects of immigration policy as they engage in the public debates. But, today
as we try to navigate the complicated maze that is immigration law and policy,
it is through their incredible choice of words, that they are our guides, our
teachers, and our voices of reason.
LEE
& LOW BOOKS is the largest multicultural
children's book publisher in the country. They also
have two writing contests for unpublished authors of color: the New Voices Award, for
picture book manuscripts, and the New Visions Award, for middle
grade and young adult manuscripts. Both contests, which are now open for
submissions aim to recognize the diverse voices and talent among new authors of
color who might otherwise remain under the radar of mainstream publishing.
