America meant "freedom" to the immigrants of the early 1900s—but a freedom very different from what they expected. Cities were crowded and jobs were scare. Children had to work selling newspapers, delivering goods, and laboring sweatshops. In this touching book, Newberry Medalist Russell Freedman offers a rare glimpse of what it meant to be a young newcomer to America.
Describes the flood of immigration into the United States in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, focusing on the experiences of the youngest immigrants, both on their journeys and in their new country.
“This immigration story is universal.” —School Library Journal, Starred Dan Yaccarino’s great-grandfather arrived at Ellis Island with a small shovel and his parents’ good advice: “Work hard, but remember to enjoy life, and never forget your family.” With simple text and warm, colorful illustrations, Yaccarino recounts how the little shovel was passed down through four generations of this Italian-American family—along with the good advice. It’s a story that will have kids asking their parents and grandparents: Where did we come from? How did our family make the journey all the way to America? “A shovel is just a shovel, but in Dan Yaccarino’s hands it becomes a way to dig deep into the past and honor all those who helped make us who we are.” —Eric Rohmann, winner of the Caldecott Medal for My Friend Rabbit “All the Way to America is a charmer. Yaccarino’s heartwarming story rings clearly with truth, good cheer, and love.” —Tomie dePaola, winner of a Caldecott Honor Award for Strega Nona
Grounded in both theory and practice, with implications for both, this book is about children’s perspectives on the borders that society erects, and their actual, symbolic, ideational and metaphorical movement across those borders. Based on extensive ethnographic data on children of immigrants (mostly from Mexico, Central America and the Philippines) as they interact with undergraduate students from diverse linguistic, cultural and racial/ethnic backgrounds in the context of an urban play-based after-school program, it probes how children navigate a multilingual space that involves playing with language and literacy in a variety of forms. Immigrant Children in Transcultural Spaces speaks to critical social issues and debates about education, immigration, multilingualism and multiculturalism in an historical moment in which borders are being built up, torn down, debated and recreated, in both real and symbolic terms; raises questions about the values that drive educational practice and decision-making; and suggests alternatives to the status quo. At its heart, it is a book about how love can serve as a driving force to connect people with each other across all kinds of borders, and to motivate children to engage powerfully with learning and life.
The Immigrant Child is an entertaining, exciting, thought-provoking children's book. It chronicles a child's experience moving from a developing country to a developed one with her parents. The initial excitement dwindled when she was faced with many cultural differences. A highlight of the book is the questions at the end that target the different levels of comprehension.
This alphabet picture book companion to the popular B Is for Brooklyn weaves together a multitude of immigrant experiences in a concise, joyful package. For readers of Dreamers by Yuyi Morales. What do African dance, samosas, and Japanese gardens have in common? They are all gifts the United States received from immigrants: the vibrant, multifaceted people who share their heritage and traditions to enrich the fabric of our daily lives. From Jewish delis to bagpipes, bodegas and Zen Buddhism, this joyful ABC journey is a celebration of immigrants: our neighbors, our friends.
"In a green town in the middle of America, a bright 18-year-old Hispanic student named Isaias Ramos sets out on the journey to college. Isaias, who passed a prestigious national calculus test as a junior and leads the quiz bowl team, is the hope of Kingsbury High in Memphis, a school where many students have difficulty reading. But Kingsbury's dysfunction, expensive college fees, and forms printed in a language that's foreign to his parents are all obstacles in the way of getting him to a university. Isaias also doubts the value of college and says he might go to work in his family's painting business after high school, despite his academic potential. Is Isaias making a rational choice? Or does he simply hope to avoid pain by deferring dreams that may not come to fruition? This is what journalist Daniel Connolly attempts to uncover in The Book of Isaias as he follows Isaias, peers into a tumultuous final year of high school, and, eventually, shows how adults intervene in the hopes of changing Isaias' life. Mexican immigration has brought the proportion of Hispanics in the nation's youth population to roughly one in four. Every day, children of immigrants make decisions about their lives that will shape our society and economy for generations.
Whether fleeing the ravages of war or coming in search of opportunities, the story of immigration remains the principal narrative of our times. As our neighborhoods grow more diverse, a splendid variety of cultures, values and traditions become an important part of our classrooms and schools. In Kids Like Me, 26 personal narratives celebrate the experience of young people making a new home in a strange community-finding common ground as they make new friends, learn English, share their cultural identities, their challenges, successes and dreams. Kids Like Me provides a youthful perspective on the important themes of crossing cultures, immigration and citizenship and learning to appreciate differences. These stories are intended to foster intercultural awareness and sensitivity and encourage individual and community action to assist newcomers in their adjustment. While written to help youth understand their classmates and friends, Kids Like Me also includes discussion questions, self-directed activities and research ideas for teachers and other mentors that can be used in classrooms, youth clubs and community settings. Richly illustrated with photos and maps of each home country, the text presents countless opportunities to explore and understand different cultures and new friends. Young people who have come from all over the world share their stories and invite their new neighbors to see that in so many ways these kids are just like me.
The contributors to this volume probe systematically and in depth the adaptation patterns and trajectories of concrete ethnic groups. They provide a close look at this rising second generation by focusing on youth of diverse national origins—Mexican, Cuban, Nicaraguan, Filipino, Vietnamese, Haitian, Jamaican and other West Indian—coming of age in immigrant families on both coasts of the United States. Their analyses draw on the Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Study, the largest research project of its kind to date. Ethnicities demonstrates that, while some of the ethnic groups being created by the new immigration are in a clear upward path, moving into society's mainstream in record time, others are headed toward a path of blocked aspirations and downward mobility. The book concludes with an essay summarizing the main findings, discussing their implications, and identifying specific lessons for theory and policy.
