Essential Questions:
Why is it important to consider human rights when discussing immigration?
Why do people leave their home country and emigrate to the United States without documentation?
What are the paths immigrants without documentation take to arrive to the U.S. and the challenges they face?
What are some challenges that undocumented immigrants encounter once they arrive in the U.S.?
Hover over to see a description of the book.
A moving account of a family's odyssey by "one of the brightest voices of a new generation of Hispanic writers" ( Washington Post )The U.S.-Mexican border is one of the most permeable boundaries in the world, breached daily by Mexicans in search of work. Yet the migrant gambit is perilous. Thousands die crossing the line and those who reach "the other side" are branded illegals, undocumented and unprotected.In Crossing Over, Ruben Martinez puts a human face on the phenomenon, following the exodus of the Chávez clan, an extended Mexican family with the grim distinction of having lost three sons in a tragic border incident. He charts the migrants' progress from their small south-Mexican town of Cherán through the harrowing underground railroad to the tomato farms of Missouri, the strawberry fields of California, and the slaughterhouses of Wisconsin. He reveals the effects of immigration on the family left behind and offers a powerful portrait of migrant culture, an exchange that deposits hip hop in Indian villages while bringing Mexican pop to the northern plains. Far from joining the melting pot, Martinez argues, the migrants - as many as seven million in the U.S. - are spawning a new culture that will alter both countries as Latin America and the U.S. come increasingly to resemble each other.Intimate, compelling, written with passion and engagement, Crossing Over tells the epic story of a family, a town, a world in motion.
Written by a gifted journalist, a powerful account of four young Mexican women coming of age in Denver;two of whom have legal documentation, two of whom who don't; See the challenges they face as they attempt to pursue the American dream. This book takes readers on a compelling journey with four young women who have lived in the U.S. since childhood, delving deep into an American subculture and the complex and controversial politics that surround the issue of immigration. After a Mexican immigrant shoots and kills a local police officer, Colorado becomes the place where national arguments over immigration rage most fiercely. As the girl's lives play out against this backdrop of intense debate over whether they have any right to live here, readers will gain remarkable insight into both the power players and the most vulnerable members of society as they grapple with understanding one of the most complicated social issues of our times. Moving, timely, and passionately told, Just Like Us is a riveting story about girlhood, friendship, identity, and survival.
A compelling collection of essays providing a comprehensive vision of immigration to the United States in the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries--the indispensable companion to Immigrant Voices. Filled with moving narratives by authors from around the world, Immigrant Voices: Volume II delivers a global and intimate look at the challenges modern immigrants confront. Their stories, told with pride, humor, trepidation, candor, and a touch of homesickness, offer rarely glimpsed perspectives on the difficult but ultimately rewarding quest to become an American. From the humorous experiences of Firoozeh Dumas, author of Funny in Farsi, to the poignant struggles of Oksana Marafioti, author of American Gypsy, this collection travels from Burundi to Afghanistan, Egypt to Havana, and Cambodia to Puerto Rico, to present incredible contemporary portraits of immigrants and illustrate that America is, and always will remain, a fresh and ever-changing melting pot. Features Firsthand Accounts.
The poet's voice...
Featuring 25 drawings in charcoal, conte crayons, and pastels, this handbook pairs portraits of people who live and work along the U.S.-Mexico border with bilingual poems that have been inspired by each of the drawings. A testimony to the people of the Rio Grande Valley, these drawings and poems capture their spirit, their quest for happiness, and their struggles to overcome economic hardship. This remarkable book highlights characters such as the "young street musician," the "six-year-old street vendor," and the "wise woman with rings." Compassionate and aesthetically compelling, this record raises awareness about social and cultural issues associated with border life, such as education, literacy, and poverty, and fosters cross-cultural understanding.
Immigrants in Our Own Land
BY JIMMY SANTIAGO BACA
We are born with dreams in our hearts,
looking for better days ahead.
At the gates we are given new papers,
ouroldclothesaretaken
and we are given overalls like mechanics wear.
We are given shots and doctors ask questions.
Then wegatherinanotherroom
where counselors orient us to the new land
we will now live in. We take tests.
Some of us were craftsmen in the old world,
good with our hands and proud of our work.
Others were good with their heads.
They usedcommonsenselikescholars
use glasses and books to reach the world.
But most of us didn’t finish high school.
The performer's voice...
Rowing to America by Kitty Chen (Play for two women)
Afro-Latino by Elizabeth Acevedo (Spoken Word Poetry)
What does an Illegal Immigrant Look Like by Christy Namee Eriksen (Poem)
"Bursting of photographs after trying to squeeze old memories" by Sonia Guinansaca (Spoken Word Poetry)
Juana's Poem by Alejandro Jimenez (Spoken Word Poetry)
Arizona by Ela Barton (Spoken Word Poetry)
Shelter, written by Marissa Chibas, directed by Martin Acosta, performed by the CalArts Center for New Performance
( Information | Performance Video)
Audio books...
The Book of Unknown Americans by
Checkout in Overdrive - MGHS
The Circuit by
Check out on PlayAway.
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by
Into the Beautiful North
Checkout on Overdrive - Public Library
The Same Sky by
Checkout on CD at Madison Public Library
We Never Asked for Wings by
Checkout in Overdrive - Public Library
Web Documentaries...
"Children Don't Migrate They Flee Event At The American Red Cross - ATEST". ATEST. N. p., 2016. Web. 22 Mar. 2017.
"One Family Faces the Immigration Debate." NYTimes.com Video Collection, 18 Aug. 2014. Global Issues in Context.
"The Hidden Life of an Undocumented US Immigrant." AFP News Footage, 2014. Global Issues in Context.
Zehr, Mary Ann. "'Unaccompanied Minors' Land in School." Education Week, 8 Nov. 2006, p. 24. Student Resources in Context
Cinema...
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The body of an unidentified immigrant is found in the Arizona Desert. In an attempt to retrace his path and discover his story, director Marc Silver and Gael Garcia Bernal embed themselves among migrant travelers on their own mission to cross the border, providing rare insight into the human stories, which are so often ignored in the immigration debate. |
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Tells the story of Negro who gets hired to smuggle a group of undocumented migrants into the United States. During the troubled crossing that lasts seven days across the Arizona desert, Negro now finds himself on the run from his former associates and the law. This is a movie that will allow the world to visualize the cruel tragedy that many undocumented immigrants suffer in the Arizona desert everyday. The scenes are based on real testimonies from those that have survived the journey across the devils highway. |
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Every year there are more than 400,000 American children who are torn away from their friends, schools and homes to pick the food we all eat. Zulema, Perla and Victor labor as migrant farm workers, sacrificing their own childhoods to help their families survive. This cinematic documentary profiles these three as they journey from the scorching heat of Texas onion fields to the winter snows of the Michigan apple orchards and back south to the humidity of Florida's tomato fields to follow the harvest. An intimate glimpse into the lives of these children who struggle to dream while working 12 14 hours a day, 7 days a week to feed America. |
37 Maps that Explain how America is a Nation of Immigrants (collection)
Amnesty International (organization)
DHS: Violence, poverty, is driving children to flee Central America to U.S. (Pew Research)
The High Cost and Diminishing Returns of a Border Wall (American Immigration Council) Factsheet.
Latin Americans' Motives for Migration (Gallup Polls)
Migrant Crisis: Why They're Fleeing, Where They're Going (Voice of America)
Protecting the Forcibly Displaced: Latin America's Evolving Refugee and Asylum Framework (Online Journal of the Migration Policy Institute)
Turning Migrants Into Criminals (Human Right's Watch)
What it's like to ride the 'Train of Death' from Mexico to the US (Business Insider)
Library Information and Media Center - Monona Grove High School - Monona, Wisconsin