Giving Compass' Take:

· At Hawkins Street School in Newark, students ranging from pre-kindergarten to eighth grade share their immigration stories through a new, self-published book. Patrick Wall at Chalkbeat explains the contents of the book and how it gives these students a voice. 

· How does sharing these stories help immigrant children?

· Read about the Immigration Opera—a performance telling the stories of the DACA generation. 

Today, Yorleny is a sixth-grader at Hawkins Street School in Newark’s Ironbound section. But not long ago, she was a young immigrant making a treacherous journey to the United States in pursuit of a better life.

“My story of how I came to America to find the American dream is a very hard one,” she wrote in a personal essay about her journey. “I gave up so much to be here. I fought to be here.”

At a time when many immigrants to the U.S. are beset by fear and uncertainty after thousands of children were recently separated from their parents at the border, Yorleny is part of a group of students and teachers at her neighborhood school, which includes prekindergarten through eighth grade, who are speaking up about their own immigration stories. More than 70 of their reflections are collected in a new, self-published book called, “The Hispanic American Dreamers of Hawkins Street School.”

The project began long before the current border crisis and President Trump’s claim that people trying to enter the U.S. “could be murderers and thieves and so much else.” But in that context the book has gained new significance — a way to remind the students of their own dignity and tenacity, and their right to live and dream in America.

Read the full article about students sharing their immigration stories by Patrick Wall at Chalkbeat.