Description
Book SynopsisServing 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 proces
Trade Review
“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
Table of Contents
Preface – Acknowledgments – Introduction, Serving Refugee Children and Their Families – Escapes and Crossings – Seth Michelson, “Looking for Luz” (Buscando a Luz) – Paloma Villegas, “Los niños florero. Cruzaron como floreros” (They Crossed the Border Inside Floreros) – Cassandra Bailey, “Growing Up Too Fast” (Crecer muy rápido) – 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 niña refugiada) – Silencing – Maria Baños Jordan, “Spanish Silencio” (Silencio) – Francisco Villegas and Paloma Villegas, “Reflection on schooling experiences as undocumented migrants in the U.S.” (Una reflexión sobre nuestra propia escolarización como migrantes indocumentados en los EE.UU.) – Estrella Godinez, “A Yearning Desire” (Un deseo anhelante) – Jaime Retamales, “Jeremías” (Jeremías) – 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 corazón) – Juan A. Ríos Vega, “An ESL Classroom as a Healing Space” (El aula de inglés como segunda lengua: un lugar de sanación) – Amelia Cotter, “The Love of Strangers” (El amor de extraños) – About the Authors.
