Serving Refugee Children
Listening to Stories of Detention in the USA
Published on 30. July 2021
Book
Paperback/Softback
228 pages
978-1-4331-7949-5 (ISBN)
Description
Serving Refugee Children shows the struggles and traumatic experiences that unaccompanied and undocumented children undergo they seek safety in the United States and instead find imprisonment, separation from their families, and immigration enforcement raids. Current legislation and bureaucracy limit publication of first-person narratives from unaccompanied and undocumented children, but service providers and grassroots activists authoring the pieces in this collection bear witness to the children's brave human spirits in their search for safety in the United States. Through the power of storytelling, Serving Refugee Children exposes the many hardships unaccompanied and undocumented children endure, including current detention center conditions. No child should have to live the persecution suffered by children featured in these stories, nor should they have to embark upon perilous journeys across Latin America or be subjected to the difficult immigration court process unaided. Researchers and readers who believe that the emotional bonding of storytelling can humanize discussions and lead to immigration policies that foster a culture of engagement and interconnectedness will be interested in this volume.
Reviews / Votes
"For reasons both ethical and bureaucratic, child migrants rarely tell their own stories. Yet the world needs to hear them if we are to find a way to end their suffering. In this valuable collection of reflections by activists and scholars, the reader begins to hear children's voices, to understand the lives of their caregivers, and to gain the possibility to stand with them in solidarity."-Donna R. Gabaccia, Professor Emerita, University of Toronto "Serving Refugee Children is timely and it's essential. The historical context provided by the introduction is a fact often neglected when trying to understand the desperate act of leaving everything behind in search of-not a better life but often, simply-a a life.The narratives of service providers that have come out of their experience caring for detained youth are an invaluable historical record and everlasting testimony. They reveal the human cost of policies fashioned by ideologues blinded by their own prejudices. The simple act of listening to the stories of these children dignifies their saga and is, in itself, an act of social justice."-Luis Argueta, Director of the Documentary Series abUSEd: The Postville Raid, ABRAZOS, and The U Turn
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Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
08/2021
1st Edition
Peter Lang Verlag
€47.99
Available for download
E-Book
08/2021
1st Edition
Peter Lang Verlag
€47.99
Available for download
Book
08/2021
Peter Lang Verlag
€119.05
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Persons
Montse Feu (Ph.D., University of Houston) is Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies at Sam Houston State University. She is the author of Correspondencia personal y política de un anarcosindicalista exiliado: Jesús González Malo (1943-1965) (2016) and Fighting Fascist Spain (2020). She is the co-editor of Writing Revolution: Hispanic Anarchism in the United States (2019).
Amanda Venta (Ph.D., University of Houston) is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Houston. Her research focuses on how relationships between children and caregivers affect mental health with more than 100 publications and funding from the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities.
Content
Preface - Acknowledgments - Introduction, Serving Refugee Children and Their Families - Escapes and Crossings - Seth Michelson, "Looking for Luz" (Buscando a Luz) - Paloma Villegas, "Los ninos florero. Cruzaron como floreros" (They Crossed the Border Inside Floreros) - Cassandra Bailey, "Growing Up Too Fast" (Crecer muy rapido) - Memories and Bonds - Melissa Briones, Alfonso Mercado, Abigail Nunez-Saenz, Paola Quijano, and Andy Torres, "Buscando un destino" (Looking for a Destino) - Yessica Colin, "Camila" (Camila) - Ana Maria Fores Tamayo, "Elegy to a Refugee Girl" (Oda a una nina refugiada) - Silencing - Maria Banos Jordan, "Spanish Silencio" (Silencio) - Francisco Villegas and Paloma Villegas, "Reflection on schooling experiences as undocumented migrants in the U.S." (Una reflexion sobre nuestra propia escolarizacion como migrantes indocumentados en los EE.UU.) - Estrella Godinez, "A Yearning Desire" (Un deseo anhelante) - Jaime Retamales, "Jeremias" (Jeremias) - The Love of Strangers - Luz M. Garcini and Martin La Roche, "An Undocumented Journey in Search of a Heart" (Un viaje indocumentado en busca de un corazon) - Juan A. Rios Vega, "An ESL Classroom as a Healing Space" (El aula de ingles como segunda lengua: un lugar de sanacion) - Amelia Cotter, "The Love of Strangers" (El amor de extranos) - About the Authors.