In these vivid recollections, recorded both in Mexico and the U.S., 90 Mexican-Americans share their innermost thoughts and feelings and reveal a wealth of experiences: the risks they take, what they left behind, their dreams versus the realities, and how immigration has changed their lives.

This book presents the struggle for dialogue and understanding between teachers and refugee and immigrant families, in their own words. Forging a stronger connection between teachers, newcomers, and their families is one of the greatest challenges facing schools in the United States. Teachers need to become familiar with the political, economic, and sociocultural contexts of these newcomers' lives, and the role of the U.S. in influencing these contexts in positive and negative ways. The important contribution of American Dreams, Global Visions is to bring together global issues of international politics and economics and their effects on migration and refugee situations, national issues of language and social policy, and local issues of education and finding ways to live together in an increasingly diverse society. Narratives of four immigrant families in the United States (Hmong, Mexican, Assyrian/Kurdish, Kosovar) and the teacher-researchers who are coming to know them form the heart of this work. The narratives are interwoven with data from the research and critical analysis of how the narratives reflect and embody local, national, and global contexts of power. The themes that are developed set the stage for critical dialogues about culture, language, history, and power. Central to the book is a rationale and methodology for teachers to conduct dialogic research with refugees and immigrants--research encompassing methods as once ethnographic, participatory, and narrative--which seeks to engage researchers and participants in dialogues that shed light on economic, political, social, and cultural relationships; to represent these relationships in texts; and to extend these dialogues to promote broader understanding and social justice in schools and communities. American Dreams, Global Visions will interest teachers, social workers, and others who work with immigrants and refugees; researchers, professionals, and students across the fields of education, language and culture, ethnic studies, American studies, and anthropology; and members of the general public interested in learning more about America's most recent newcomers. It is particularly appropriate for courses in foundations of education, multicultural education, comparative education, language and culture, and qualitative research.

Winner of the CEP Mildred Garcia Award for Exemplary ScholarshipAbout 2.4 million children and young adults under 24 years of age are undocumented. Brought by their parents to the US as minors—many before they had reached their teens—they account for about one-sixth of the total undocumented population. Illegal through no fault of their own, some 65,000 undocumented students graduate from the nation's high schools each year. They cannot get a legal job, and face enormous barriers trying to enter college to better themselves—and yet America is the only country they know and, for many, English is the only language they speak. What future do they have? Why are we not capitalizing, as a nation, on this pool of talent that has so much to contribute? What should we be doing?Through the inspiring stories of 16 students—from seniors in high school to graduate students—William Perez gives voice to the estimated 2.4 million undocumented students in the United States, and draws attention to their plight. These stories reveal how—despite financial hardship, the unpredictability of living with the daily threat of deportation, restrictions of all sorts, and often in the face of discrimination by their teachers—so many are not just persisting in the American educational system, but achieving academically, and moreover often participating in service to their local communities. Perez reveals what drives these young people, and the visions they have for contributing to the country they call home.Through these stories, this book draws attention to these students’ predicament, to stimulate the debate about putting right a wrong not of their making, and to motivate more people to call for legislation, like the stalled Dream Act, that would offer undocumented students who participate in the economy and civil life a path to citizenship. Perez goes beyond this to discuss the social and policy issues of immigration reform. He dispels myths about illegal immigrants’ supposed drain on state and federal resources, providing authoritative evidence to the contrary. He cogently makes the case—on economic, social, and constitutional and moral grounds—for more flexible policies towards undocumented immigrants. If today’s immigrants, like those of past generations, are a positive force for our society, how much truer is that where undocumented students are concerned?

When Viviana Salguero came to the United States in 1946, she spoke very little English, had never learned to read or write, and had no job skills besides housework or field labor. She worked eighteen-hour days and lived outdoors as often as not. And yet she raised twelve children, shielding them from her abusive husband when she dared, and shared in both the tragedies and accomplishments of her family. Through it all, Viviana never lost her love for Mexico or her gratitude to the United States for what would eventually become a better life. Though her story is unique, Viviana Salguero could be the mother, grandmother, or great-grandmother of immigrants anywhere, struggling with barriers of gender, education, language, and poverty. In I Don't Cry, But I Remember, Joyce Lackie shares with us an intimate portrait of Viviana's life. Based on hours of recorded conversations, Lackie skillfully translates the interviews into an engaging, revealing narrative that details the migrant experience from a woman's point of view and fills a gap in our history by examining the role of women of color in the American Southwest. The book presents Vivana's life not only as a chronicle of endurance, but as a tale of everyday resistance. What she lacks in social confidence, political strength, and economic stability, she makes up for in dignity, faith, and wisdom. Like all good oral history, Salguero's accounts and Lackie's analyses contribute to our understanding of the past by exposing the inconsistencies and contradictions in our remembrances. This book will appeal to ethnographers, oral historians, students and scholars of Chicana studies and women's studies, as well as general readers interested in the lives of immigrant women.

Of Borders and Dreams is an intelligent, probing portrayal of the problems that face bilingual and bicultural children. Through Alejandro's story, we are moved and enraged by the failure of the American school system to offer better opportunities for all children regardless of race, sex, or class. This book is of enormous importance to teachers and educators on all levels, and anyone interested in the future of education in America

Examines the history of Mexican immigration to the United States, discussing why Mexicans come, what their lives are like after they arrive, where they settle, and customs they bring from home.

Voices of Marginality is theoretically grounded in the theology of the diaspora, which according to Fernando F. Segovia has been forged in the migratory experience of American Hispanics. This theological perspective views Judean exiles (587 B.C.E.) and contemporary Mexican migrants as part of a recurring diasporic human experience. The present analysis «reads across» from the exile and return envisioned in the poetry of Second Isaiah (40-55) to the corridos (ballads) about Mexican immigration to the United States. More specifically, the diasporic categories of exile and return in Second Isaiah inform our reading of exile and return in the Mexican immigrant corridos. Conversely, the rhetorical ability of these corridos to transmit a collective Mexican identity for immigrants in the United States provides a compelling lens for understanding the images of exile and return in Second Isaiah. Ultimately, both literary productions reflect voices of marginality.