What Binds Us Together

Joyce Adams Burner, Curriculum Connections -- School Library Journal, 2/14/2008

Immigration, undocumented workers, visas and green cards, border guards and fences—all volatile words with the buzz amplified in an election year. Several new young adult novels turn the lens of personal narrative onto these issues, seeing past stereotypes to the fallible human beings caught in the controversies and the violence. The characters in these books may dwell on the border, daily straddling nations; they may journey to the United States to escape desperate conditions half a world away; they may be U. S. citizens who travel far (or not so far) and experience being other in a foreign culture. Whatever the specific details of their stories, these are teens who find a common ground that transcends national identity. Each of the titles below is guaranteed to generate spirited discussion in your classroom.

“I mean, I’m American because I was born here but both my parents were born in Mexico. So am I Mexican and American or Mexican American?” ponders Isaiah Contreras in J. L. Powers’ quick-paced tale of nationalism gone awry in El Paso, TX. The Confessional (Knopf, 2007) opens with a Cinco de Mayo suicide bombing. The year that follows is one of simmering tension that erupts with the murder of Mac Malone, a student at a Jesuit boys’ school. The book’s narrative point of view shifts among seven students, and each teen’s back story is succinctly developed. Unease between Mexicans, Americans, and Mexican Americans culminates in a riot as accusations fly regarding Mac’s death. Powers takes readers inside the complex minds of her narrators in this emotionally charged, powerful story.

Sophie, 16, lives in Tucson, AZ, with her British mother and Mexican stepfather in Laura Resau’s Red Glass (Delacorte, 2007). When six-year-old Pedro is orphaned in a disastrous illegal border crossing, she travels with him back to his hometown in Oaxaca, Mexico, accompanied by her aunt Dika, a Bosnian refugee, and Mr. Lorenzo, a survivor of violence in his native Guatemala. Sophie dares to cross into Guatemala to help Mr. Lorenzo’s son Ángel, and returns to Tucson with new maturity and confidence. Cultural boundaries intersect in this warm story, revealing the similarities shared by its diverse cast of sympathetic characters. Springboard from The Confessional and Red Glass into students’ own experiences of international travel and local ethnic interaction. What insight have they gained into people of divergent cultures? Invite guests into the classroom to tell of their work with refugees or immigrants; what experiences and information can they share?

Kek, a young Sudanese refugee, emigrates to Minnesota to live with relatives in Katherine Applegate’s Home of the Brave (Feiwel & Friends, 2007). His courage, hope and resilience are tested daily by barriers of race, culture, and language. “My mouth is going to get very sore,/stumbling on words all day long,” he laments. Kek makes many mistakes, including putting dishes in the washing machine, but manages to connect with his previous life as a herder when he takes a job caring for a cow. Read this book aloud to students, savoring its lyrical free verse; how does this literary style enhance Kek’s voice? Identify local ethnic populations, and connect with them as a class project. Have students view their own lives through Kek’s eyes, noticing the comforts and technology they take for granted.

"The best way to avoid being picked on by high school bullies is to kill someone,” states seventh-grader Karina in the chilling opening line of Touching Snow by M. Sindy Felin (Atheneum, 2007). The biggest bully Karina faces is “the Daddy,” the viciously abusive stepfather in her Haitian-American family living in upstate New York. When he nearly kills her older sister, Enid, Karina hesitates to call the police, knowing it would risk the deportation of certain family members. In a riveting conclusion, Karina ends the abuse by killing “the Daddy.” Discuss the unbearable tensions created by living in conflicting cultures, with the superstitions and habits born of poverty pitted against dreams of independence, education, and success. Did Karina finally have a choice? Was justice served?

Problems of assimilation can occur without crossing an international border. Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (Little, Brown, 2007) takes a painfully comic look at the Native-American experience. Talented cartoonist Junior, 14, leaves his Spokane reservation to attend an affluent white school, where he achieves friendship and success. Back on the “rez,” he is labeled a traitor, with conflict breaking out on the basketball court. Consider Alexie’s keen use of smart-aleck humor and dry wit in portraying the serious problems Junior experiences straddling two worlds while being true to himself. Discuss the nuances of personal and ethnic identity, especially as revealed in Junior’s cartoons.

Shaun Tan’s imaginative, wordless book The Arrival (Scholastic, 2007) adds elements of fantasy and science fiction to a timeless immigrant story that lends itself to social studies, English, and art classes. Sepia-toned pencil drawings portray a man leaving his wife and child and traveling to a strange land where he seeks shelter, food, and work. The finely rendered illustrations convey his overlapping feelings of fear, wonder, confusion, relief, and alienation as he copes with unfamiliar language and customs. Pore over these astonishing pictures with students, and encourage them to respond through their own artwork, inviting them to include exotic detail and bizarre images to “show, don’t tell” the classic experience of arrival and assimilation into a new culture.

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