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I learn America

Building on youth-led storytelling workshops in schools, students are using I LEARN AMERICA (the film and its Human Library) to spark creative “home-grown” community conversations around migration, identity and education.

Next Wave Film Festival NYC Doc Film Festival Starz Denver Film Festival AFI Film Festival Nantucket Film Festival HIF Film Festival Thessaloniki Film Festival St Louis Film Festival
I Learn Arles I Learn Marseille / New York

Human Library

Get Involved

1

HOST A SCREENING

Bring the film to your school or community

2

Organize a Workshop

Harness the voices of immigrant youth

3

TELL YOUR STORY

The Issue

TODAY IN AMERICA…

 

Nearly one in four children is an immigrant or the children of immigrants.

Our classrooms are meeting a growing influx of students who speak little to no English, who are unfamiliar with American culture, and, in some cases, who lack formal education.

The children of immigration are here to stay. How we fare in welcoming them will define who we are for years to come.

SCHOOLS – the first and ultimate hope for integration – are generally ill-equipped to serve immigrant teenagers. The traditional paradigm relegates them to the sidelines. Yet, it is in school that the children of immigration determine where they belong in the reality and imagination of their new culture.

You can also follow the link to the essay writing service.

WHO ARE OUR NEW AMERICANS?

The Students

BRANDON

After ten years apart, Brandon made the perilous journey from Guatemala to America to reunite with his mother. Crossing the desert by himself was easy compared to getting to know his mom again.

"When I came to America, my first goal was to see my mother. But after ten years it's totally different. For ten years she didn't know me. It was kind of like putting two persons in a room, kind of to meet each other."

Sing is a refugee from Myanmar who recently relocated to Brooklyn, leaving his family behind. He feels isolated and angry and barely speaks English.

"What I want to say, I have in my brain, but ... I can't speak in English. It makes me sometimes confused."

SING
ITRAT

ITRAT came to America from Pakistan to join a father she hardly knew after the passing of her mother. What kind of future is waiting for her in America?

"I am part of Pakistan because I was born there and I was raised in the beginning part of my life. But at the same time I was only eleven days and my dad came here. And I started hearing, 'America ... America ... America'. And, 'This country has everything'. Now I'm divided. In two parts."

SANDRA is a tomboy from Poland, undocumented and a class leader. She and Dominican-born JENNIFFER, her sassy classmate, are inseparable – “like a flower with water.”

"Being different is like a part time job. You are half yourself and half the time you try to be someone better for the people to show how you want to be. I want to be myself. I want to open the eyes and hearts to really show I am still the same person inside with the same feelings, same identity and the same human rights as anybody else in this world."
-Sandra

SANDRA & JENNIFFER

The School

In Brooklyn, New York, the International High School at Lafayette serves newly arrived immigrants from more than 50 different countries. This high school is part of a growing network of small public schools where new immigrant students are valued and nurtured in the challenge to participate fully in the American Dream. The model uses heterogeneous and collaborative learning to give students the rigor and support they need to achieve academically, socially, and linguistically.

"We need to serve these students. Regardless of how you may feel about the immigration issue, they are children, and they did not choose to come here. But they are here. So the options are to serve them, nurture them, and educate them, or not.Then what?"
-Principal Michael Soet

The School

Screenings

  • Date
  • City
  • Venue
  • More Info
  • 11/21/2019
  • Roslyn, NY
  • Buckley Country School
  • School District of Palm Beach County
  • Week of November 12th
  • Los Angeles, CA
  • Week of October 28th
  • 10/23/2019
  • Queens, NY
  • Queens College
  • 10/22/2019
  • Vineland, NJ
  • Vineland School District
  • 10/21/2019
  • Vineland, NJ
  • VIneland School District
  • 10/10/2019
  • Puebla, Mexico
  • Migration Forum Universidad Iberoamericana Puebla
  • School District of Palm Beach County
  • Week of October 1st
  • San Mateo County, CA
  • Welcoming Week -- Sept 13th to 22nd
  • Link
  • 09/26/2019
  • Sylmar, CA
  • Tia Chucha's Centro Cultural
  • Link