Immigration

The Change Agent: (High Beginner - High Intermediate ESOL) A biannual electronic magazine for adult educators and learners published by the New England Literacy Resource Center (NELRC) at World Education, with curated submissions from adult learners across the U.S. (MA adult educators have free access to this site with login massachusetts / changeagent). There are many issues on topics related to Immigration themes appear in:

• Creating New Community (Issue #57, November 2022)

• Our Immigration Stories (Issue #56, August 2022)

• Immigration (Issue #38, Mar 2014)

• Tales of Resilience (Issue #35, Sept 2012)

Green Card Voices: Non-profit organization dedicated to building inclusive and integrated communities between immigrants and their neighbors through multimedia storytelling. Materials include digital immigrant stories, with special focus groups including immigrant youth voices, entrepreneurs, STEM leaders, and artists, as well as community interviews focused on current events. 

ESL Story Bank: (Pre-Beginning - Beginning ESOL) This story collection was developed specifically to support beginning English learners.  The stories, which focus on simple everyday activities, are organized in Wakelet collections and include interactive Jamboard activities and Flippity typing practice. 

I Learn America Human Stories Library: (Low Intermediate - Advanced ESOL) Built from youth-led storytelling workshops, I LEARN AMERICA resources (the film and its Human Library) can spark creative “home-grown” community conversations around migration, identity and education. 

The Immigrant Learning Center: (Intermediate - Advanced ESOL) The ILC's Public Education Institute creates, collects, curates and shares information on the economic and social contributions of immigrants in the U.S. 

• Immigrant Entrepreneur Resource Hub: This collection showcases the contributions of immigrant entrepreneurs in the United States, and includes the "Hall of Fame" recognizing significant leadership, news stories, interviews, research, and resources for immigrant entrepreneurs. 

Immigrant Stories: (Low Intermediate - Advanced ESOL) Immigrant Stories is a digital storytelling and archiving project run by the University of Minnesota’s Immigration History Research Center (IHRC), which collects & archives videos narrating the personal stories of immigrants to MN. The site also provides lesson planning support to enable teachers to replicate the digital storytelling project with ESOL learners. 

Listenwise Audio Story Collections (Intermediate - Advanced ESOL) A library of audio podcast excerpts with associated supports on topics of interest.  Highlighted collections related to immigration focus on themes of diversity, overcoming challenges, and exploring identify. 

• The American Dream:  This collection of 11  audio stories explores the theme of the American Dream through the perspectives of various individuals, inviting consideration of how the dream manifests in reality for people of different backgrounds. 

• Shaping Identity: This audio story collection focuses on individuals who feel conflict among aspects of their identities. They may be torn between who they are and who others want them to be. Ultimately, by embracing their own personal stories and the complexity of their identities, these figures ultimately come to accept themselves for who they are and make deliberate choices about who they want to be. 

Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition: (Intermediate - Advanced ESOL) MIRA’s work spans policy analysis, legislative and administrative advocacy, organizing, training and education, and strategic communications. Data and statistics on MA immigrant populations are especially helpful for teachers. 

Newsela: (Low Intermediate - Advanced ESOL) Sets of thematically connected texts on a wide range of topics related to race, culture, history, social justice, and more.  

• History of Immigration:  Text set provides an overview of history of immigration to the United States and details about how the immigration debate has evolved over time. 

• Immigration: Text set focused on questions around immigration policies through history and in recent years, and how to address the challenges faced by immigrants. 

• Immigrant Experiences: Text set explores the experience of several different ethnic groups immigrating to America over history of the U.S. 

PBS: (Intermediate - Advanced ESOL) NEPM and PBS have curated FREE, standards-aligned videos, interactives, lesson plans, and more for Massachusetts K-12 teachers; many materials can easily be adapted for use with adult learners. Of note is Immigrant Stories Revealed: A program featuring immigrant stories across cultures and generations. 

Pulitzer Center: (Advanced ESOL) The Pulitzer Center raises awareness of underreported global issues through direct support for quality journalism across all media platforms and a unique program of education and public outreach.  Of particular interest is the Migration and Refugees Issue, which exposes the risks and dangers refugees and migrants face as they leave one nation to seek a better home and a fresh start—only to find more obstacles and new threats. 

Reimagining Migration: (Low Intermediate - Advanced ESOL) Lesson plans, primary sources and literary text, videos, audio stories, blogs, art, and political cartoons, for use with K-12 and adult learners to promote a deeper understanding of the experience of migration. 

Ten Myths About Immigration (Learning for Justice):  (High Intermediate - Advanced ESOL): A few of the most frequently heard misconceptions—along with information to help learners separate fact from fear (updated in 2017). 

The World: (High Intermediate - Advanced ESOL): Global Nation, the immigrant desk of The World, public radio's longest running daily global news program, focuses on the real-world stories of immigrants in the US — their challenges, successes and how uneven immigration laws affect their lives. 

Stories from the Stage: (Intermediate - Advanced ESOL) An award-winning WORLD Channel original series featuring live storytelling broadcast weekly on public television on a range of topics with a diverse array of storytellers.

• Suitcase Stories Part 1: Stories about coming to America. 

• Suitcase Stories Part 2: Immigrant stories of yesterday and today. 

StoryCorps: (High beginner - Intermediate ESOL) An archive of StoryCorps interviews, including animated excerpts for many, that help "build connections between people and create a more just and compassionate world."  Collections  Recommended stories focused on immigration include:

• A Mother's Promise (Maria Rivas & Emily) animated: story of potential termination of temporary protected status (TPS) for a Salvadoran mother

• Because I've Already Achieved My Dream... (Connie & Blanca Alvarez) animated: mother shares her memories of struggles as a recent immigrant with her adult daughter

• Language is Not a Barrier for Love (Tariq Sheikh & Tabinda Sheikh) animated: nostalgic retelling of how 2 immigrants from different countries met and fell in love

• Facundo the Great (Ramon Sanchez) animated: funny memory about an immigrant who didn't get an Anglicized American name

• Memoir of Yusor Abu-Salha (Yusor Abu-Salha & Mussarut Jabeen) animated: dialogue between a young Muslim woman and the principal of her high school, recorded before her killing in a hate crime in 2015 in NC 

• On Thanksgiving We're Going to Open Our Doors to Anybody and Everybody (Saboor Sahely and Jessica Sahely) 

• To This Day, I Can Smell the Dirt and the Fear (Vito de la Cruz and Maria Sefcheck-Del Paso) (migrant farmworker)

• We Are Americans: Somali Father and Son Remember Fleeing War to Resettle in U.S. (Jamal Batar and Aden Batar) 

• I Have These Dreams Where I Go Back: Dad and Daughter Mourn a Syria They Once Knew (Magda Sakaan and Walid Sakaan)