Stories About Immigration

“Dreamers”

Written & Illustrated by Yuyi Morales

Summary

This story is about a Hispanic mother and baby who venture out to migrate to a new country, America. The children’s book brings us on their journey and their experiences migrating to a new land. It briefly talks about the difficulties leaving home, making the journey to a new country, and the language barriers they encounter when they reach the majority English-speaking place. The mother and child felt really lost and out of place until they discovered a public library where their spirits were lifted through reading endless stories.

Personal Reflection

I loved reading this book. It is written from the perspective of a mother immigrating to America with her young child. The artwork is breathtaking and done in a way that each page, the artwork compliments and furthers the story’s purpose. This book has bilingual text in it and has several of the character’s spoken words in Spanish, as she is a Spanish-speaker. I love that the text brings the reader in a full circle. On the first page, we read “love, amor, love” and then on the last page it is written again and bringing new light and meaning to those words after hearing about the journey and reading that they are “two languages”.

Author Authentication

Yuyi Morales (pronounced as Ju-Ji), is a Mexican born immigrant in the United States and has written this book as an autobiography. At the end of the book, we read in the last few pages what the author named as her own story. This explains the journey that the author went on as a young mother with her child when she immigrated to America from Mexico. This book represents her own life and experiences. On the page that the character said “unable to return”, it has a deeper connection after reading that the author wanted to return back to Mexico upon arriving in the United States but was unfortunately denied that and was given the status of a “permanent resident”.

Art Considerations

There are so many things to consider when looking at the artwork and illustrations alone in this story. Yuyi was very considerate and deliberate in how she brought her story to life through her art. Throughout the story we see this very interesting looking dog or coyote creature near the family. It appears to have abnormal markings that almost resemble a canine’s skeleton. In Mexican culture, they believe in protectors, spirit guides, called alebrijes. I believe that seeing this canine throughout the story represents this Mexican culture and is guiding and protecting the mother and child. There are many other creatures found in this story, like monarch butterflies or bats, that Yuyi Morales says are migrant creatures and are symbolic for her own migration. On the page where the mother speaks about the language barriers she’s encountered, there are cloud words spelled backwards in the sky. The words say “Say something” and “what?” In the chimney smoke coming from a building we then see the words “Speak English”. This is significant because it isn’t what the mother is saying to people but what the people are saying to her. It comes off as very cold and unwelcoming to the mother. It speaks to the discrimination the woman and her child face for being Hispanic and the very real discrimination that many Hispanic people face in America for simply being immigrants. Though its not deeply focused on, on one of the first pages in the book, there is a young girl who is laying her head down on a table with artwork surrounding her. In an interview, Yuyi Morales talks about how this girl represents her childhood and how she loved to draw and illustrated. Overall, this story had amazing and beautiful artwork on each page that seems to have very careful consideration.

Awards

Pura Belpre Illustrator Award

A New York Times Bestseller

2019 Boston Globe – Horn Book Honor Recipient

Junior Library Guild Selection

“Freedom Over Me: Eleven Slaves, Their Lives and Dreams Brought to Life”

Written & Illustrated by Ashley Bryan

Summary

This book is a series of poems. Each poem is

a different story but each one links to one another. It starts off with Ms. Fairbanks, a new widow and slave owner. She shares her distress over her husbands death and wonders how her estate will continue without him. The story then follows with each of her eleven slaves and their stories on their life and experiences. After each story of the slaves, it also has their dreams written on the next page. This tells the reader a little more about their past in their homeland and their wishes of their life being different.

Reflection

This story is very rich with meaning and significance. I have have never seen a book written like this where each page is a poem telling a different character’s story with each story interwoven into each other. Besides the style of the writing, reading the stories make me feel very emotional and heated as it should anyone. It makes me wonder how so many people can be so cruel to such a large population without thought. When reading Ms. Fairchild’s poem first, it makes me think about her selfishness and ignorance when only thinking about her estate and thinking her late husband was the one to attribute all the hard work on the estate even though it was the slaves who actually worked. This is a story reflecting on the dark past in America and goes through the realities of what slaves faced back then such as family separation, lack of freedom, name changes, and cruel treatment. They mention a young girl “Dora” a couple of times through each poem. When we finally get to her poem it is her mother who is speaking and explains that Dora was born as a slave and was named Dora by the slave owners. When reading this is struck me because though I knew this was a reality back then, it was still frustrating to hear that the slave owners took ownership of a newborn baby and named her in front of the mother without consent or thought. It was truly heartbreaking to read.

Art Considerations

On each page that the slaves are telling their story, they have their face drawn on the page, behind them is written script of the past, and below their face is their given name, age, and price to be sold. It is hard to make out what the text behind the slaves’ pictures say but it shows a very old style of writing written mostly in cursive. Beside each of their dream poems, they have another illustration beside them, usually working on their given job. Bacus had an illustration that struck me. It is of him working as a blacksmith and hammering away at some metal piece. But with each hammer, words of “freedom”, “justice”, and “respect”, ring out in colorful ways. I can almost hear the clinking of metal in my head as I see him working.

Authenticity

This story was written based on the historic document of a slave owner selling slaves shown at the end of the book. The author was inspired to write this story and the fictional lives of the slaves after viewing this document and understanding the history of slavery in America.

Awards

John Newbery Medal

“The Arabic Quilt: An Immigrant Story”

Written by Aya Khalil

Illustrated by Anait Semirdzhyan

Summary

This story is about a young girl who immigrates with her family to America from Egypt. Going to school is difficult for Kanzi as she tries to assimilate to American culture so that the children in her class don’t tease her for her differences. However, when her welcoming teacher invites Kanzi and her mother to share their culture with the rest of the class, the other students start to open up while Kanzi becomes more proud of her Egyptian culture. She shares her language and customs with her class in her new pride.

Reflection

This was a very sweet story of young Kanzi learning to love her culture through the welcoming love of her parents and teacher. At the end, Kanzi grew and learned as did her entire classroom to be accepting and welcoming of different cultures and languages. This story has bilingual features and words written in Arabic as well as their English form such as the word “shukran” translating to “thank you”. It also shows aspects of a culture in the artwork such as the colorful tablecloth, the mother wearing hijab, Arabic language, and the beautiful quilt her grandmother made in Egypt. This story brings me back to my student teaching experience when I had an Arabic student in the class. I think if I knew this book existed sooner, I would have shared it with him because he might have related to Kanzi in many ways. He seemed to have this push to assimilate to American culture and, unfortunately, said he was stupid because he couldn’t read English. I told him almost the same thing that Kanzi’s teacher told her. That being bilingual is beautiful, makes a person more intelligent, and learning how to read in a different language is no easy task. I hope that many students who immigrated here or are learning English can read this story and learn that their language is something to be proud of, not hidden. I also hope that many teachers see this story and can be as welcoming and creative.

Author Authenticity

The writer, Aya Khalil, wrote this children’s book based on her own childhood experience immigrating to America from Egypt. She used her own experiences as a child to create this story and the character, Kanzi. Using her own experiences with immigration and being Egyptian to create a story speaks to the cultural authenticity of the story. The illustrator, Anait Semirdzhyan, is also an immigrant to America.

Three Books as a Text Set

These three stories have similar themes that you can focus on in the classroom. You can focus on the language differences. In The Arabic Quilt, there is a focus on the Arabic language and how it is written in a different form. At the end, it uses the phrase “bahabek” meaning “I love you” whereas the story Dreamers mentions “amor” meaning “love” in Spanish. The story Freedom Over Me also uses language use when speaking about how their names were different when they lived in Africa and the name meanings in their language.

These books also focus on an aspect of migration in America. Freedom Over Me is a story written about the past but speaks about the characters’ being forced to migrate to America to become slaves to White people. It also speaks about their dreams of migrating away from South part of the United States so they can be free. The story, Dreamers, reflects on the immigration story of a mother and child to America because of their dream to have a better future. The last book, The Arabic Quilt, is about a family that has already immigrated to America from Egypt and the process of acculturation of the family. With these three books, you can talk about the different reasons for immigrating to America in history or present time and the experiences with that.

References

Bryan, A., (2016). Freedom Over Me: Eleven Slaves, Their Lives and Dreams Brought to Life. Autheneum Books.

Holiday House, (2018). Dreamers Video. YouTube. Retrieved on Sep. 30, 2020 from https://youtu.be/CAiTFJaNiD8.

Khalil, A., & Semirdzhayan, A., (2020). The Arabic Quilt. Tilbury House Publishers.

Morales, Y., (2018). Dreamers. Holiday House.