Rethinking Media and Popular Culture - Who Can Stay Here? Documentation and citizenship in children’s literature
Who Can Stay Here?
Documentation and citizenship in children’s literature
By Grace Cornell Gonzales
This chapter appealed to me because I see the fear and effects of children with undoumented, detained, or deported parents. Fear and intimidation tactics that ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) use to raid neighborhoods and schools of bilingual children. There was one story In Oakland parents, teachers and students were warned about a raid. This terrified a class of first graders because they saw a helicopter around their school and they feared that they would go home to an empty house or a parent missing.
Due to this unfortunate scenario, Grace Gonzales searched for books with themes that discussed immigration issues like raids, language barriers, and intergenerational ties and gaps. But one theme that seemed to be missing in these picture books was issues of documentation and unequal access to citizenship. The message these picture books and curriculums that Grace found about immigration show happy times with immigrants at the courthouse, pledging the flag with their little American flags to become a citizen. This is not true for all immigrants! So Grace provides a framework with three broad categories for what is needed for “critical analysis of children’s literature about immigration”. Here is what they are:
Creating the Image that U.S. Citizenship Is Equally Available to All - books that do not create a false sense of security.
Someone Else’s Problem - books’ message need to tell that some immigrants take risks migrating and deportation and the separation of families does occur and can occur to the main character of the book.
Tackling the Subject - books need to tackle several key issues, including the seemingly
arbitrary nature of the immigration process (e.g., papers can be delayed for extended periods of time without explanation) and the fact that many families must work illegally to survive while applying for documents. There are also issues of Mental health of immigrant children, racism, language barriers, and neighborhood violence that should be addressed.
Grace Gonzales stresses the importance of teaching “Critical Thoughts” to the diverse population of immigrant children in your classroom through children books. Teachers should look critically at their books. Your library should represent immigration books with these injustices of immigration. Books should be of a different ethnicity population so that the children can see that other kids go through the same experiences and struggle of immigration as them . Grace Gonzales also mentions that teachers without immigrant children should also look critically at books about immigration and confront these unequal justice issues with their students.
Grace Gonzales suggests that teachers do read alouds with these books so there can be discussion topics of documentation and inequitable access to citizenship with their students. She expresses that these topics need to be ” treated with care, care, given the attention they deserve, and dealt with in a safe environment mediated by a caring adult.” (pg. 79) These children of deported/detained immigrants suffer great effects from these issues. The effects include racism, economic, mental, and behavioral outbursts in schools. Teachers and schools are their safe haven and they need to feel reassured that we empathize with their pain and be there to support and protect them during their troubles.
Websites of picture books on immigration:
https://www.thissimplebalance.com/picture-books-on-immigration/
https://childrenslibrarylady.com/best-immigration-picture-books/
https://bookshop.org/lists/immigration-picture-books
Elena, in my school, we have had experiences where families were afraid to be involved in their child's school because they were worried about being deported. It creates a sense of fear in the families and in the children. This is a very important topic that we need to have more discussions about with our students. Like you said, we need to show them that we empathize with them and we care about them.
ReplyDeleteElena, you post has helped me see common themes that I suspect are likely present throughout most, if not all, of the chapters of Rethinking Media and Pop Culture:
ReplyDelete1. Teachers need to create opportunities for students to have critical conversations about topics that influence students' lives (in this case deportation and ICE raids)
2. Teachers need to provide counter-narrative so that their students can have an alternative perspective that pushes against mainstream media
3. Teachers need to approach these conversations and/or topics with empathy and support.
I noticed all three of these themes present in my own chapter (Storytelling as Resistance).
Elena, I found this post to be helpful. I liked that you linked further resources to your blog and I plan to use these within my classroom as well. Like you said, it is important to show case books in the classroom that show different stories about immigration rather than just the positive experiences. Children need real books that they can relate to.
ReplyDeleteThank you for this post. I really liked how you laid out the three broad categories and included the links for resources. It is extremely helpful and I look forward to going back to this and utilizing the resources in the future with my students.
ReplyDeleteElena, I'm glad you brought up an issue that so many of us have been connected to in someway teaching in urban public school districts. I had a student mention on the last day of school that he was being deported soon - but he casually said that he expected to be back before the start of the next school year. It's so easy to see the smiling faces and have no idea what's going on behind the scenes. It's unfortunate that there is also a huge assault of books promoting diversity and equity. It seems that many in this country would prefer we stay a white-majority country and are threatened by anything other than that. I will always strive to be a resource for my students, even though I know there are forces working against them that are out of my control.
ReplyDelete