What Can Kids Do - Refugee and Immigrant Stories

I'm back. Thanks for tuning in. Although I haven't posted in a couple of years, these stories have inspired me to pick up again. I won't post a ton, but will keep ideas coming when the inspiration hits. Thank you to Penny Novak, an open-minded, hard-working, loving, caring, knowledgeable, courageous IB teacher that has me searching for stories to engage and challenge her students with new units. I found this to share with her and you all... Check-out these amazing stories. The first poem will make you cry and gasp; it is so raw, so real, so breathtakingly horrible. But, despite their brushes with death, their boredom, their struggles between two worlds, these students are resilient and their voices are powerful. We have a lot to learn, if we only take the time to listen. Last spring, students in Julie Kasper’s ESL classes at Catalina Magnet High School in Tucson, Arizona—all refugees and immigrants—received an unusual assignment. They were asked to explore the concept of “Home,” through photography and writing. Coached by professional photographer Josh Schachter, the students captured daily life in their new neighborhoods—a boy sitting alone outside his house, a Sudanese family eating dinner, a neighbor sleeping after a hard day’s work, a young girl hanging upside down at the playground. With Kasper, the students wrote essays or poems to accompany their photos, comparing their lives in Tucson to those in their home countries. More often than not, they spoke about the isolation and loneliness they felt in their new neighborhoods: “The lonely neighborhood, the place / With barren streets, with bored kids / And the sadness inside our veins. / The yelling of a manager, the crying of a kid / Which always is afraid of losing his grin.” (Daninza Bautista, age 17) At the end of the school year, the students’ work was exhibited at the City of Tucson’s Ward Six office. A book of the students’ photos and writing will debut this April. In June, the exhibit—and some of the students—may travel to the Senate in Washington DC. Meanwhile, a new group of ESL students at Catalina Magnet High School has spent the year documenting, through images and text, their lives across two worlds.