Building Bridges and Crossing Borders: Engaging all Learners through the Immigrant Experience in Literature

1
Building Bridges and Crossing Borders Engaging
all Learners through the Immigrant Experience in
Literature

• Carlos Barrera, NBCT
• Osborne High School
• February 16, 2009

2
Cobb County Schools Superintendent Fred Sanderson
State of the District Speech -February 12, 2009

• Two years ago the district became "majority
  minority" for the first time. That means that
  minority students now account for more than half
  of our enrollment. In the last 10 years, our
  Hispanic population alone has increased more than
  400 percent. Cobb is no longer just an isolated
  suburb quietly existing on its own."

3
Duong, immigrant from Vietnam

• I fell under the domination of a fiercely
  burning enthusiasm that rapidly spread deep
  within the abyss of my heart, as if my soul was
  speaking to me, using this bonfire of hope to
  guide me through the darkness of an emotionless
  life. Nevertheless, I have found myself an
  aspiration, one that I will devote my life and
  endeavors to it in order to be able to perform
  those exquisite movements, allowing them to
  represent my characters and tell everybody of my
  identity.

4
Walt Whitman
Excerpt from Song of Myselfby Walt
Whitman1819-1892 I celebrate myself, and sing
myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For
every atom belonging to me as good belongs to
you. I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and
loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer
grass.
5
Rodolfo Corky Gonzales

• Yo soy Joaquín, perdido en un mundo de
  confusión I am Joaquín, lost in a world of
  confusion, caught up in the whirl of a gringo
  society, confused by the rules, scorned by
  attitudes, suppressed by manipulation, and
  destroyed by modern society.
• (excerpt from I am Joaquin)

6
Edwidge Danticat was awarded the 2008 National
Book Critics Circle Award for Brother Im Dying
7
Junot Diaz, immigrant from the Dominican Republic
is awarded the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for The Brief
Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
8
At the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, God Grew
Tired of Us won both the "Grand Jury Prize
Documentary" and the "Audience Award" in the
"Independent Film Competition Documentary"
category.

9
Tony Buis (an immigrant from Vietnam)1999 film
Three Seasons, which debuted at the Sundance Film
Festival became the only film ever to win both
the Audience Award and the Grand Jury Prize
there.