Angel Island: Gateway to Gold Mountain

Freedman, Russell. Angel Island: Gateway to Gold Mountain. Clarion, 2013. 96pp. Lexile 1140.

While most people think of Ellis Island as the historic entry point for immigrants, more than a half a million newcomers entered the U.S. through Angel Island in San Francisco Bay.  From 1910 to 1940, immigrants mostly from Asia spent weeks and even months anxiously waiting to see if they would be admitted.  This excellent history quotes from transcripts of the interrogations that decided their fates and incorporates poignant poems in Chinese characters that still adorn the walls of the buildings.  Well-chosen historic photographs enhance the exploration of the island’s history, individual stories, and the discrimination and hardship that Asians faced here.  One chapter focuses on women and another on non-Asian immigrants.  The narrative wraps up gracefully with the story of how the island and buildings were preserved and became part of a state park in 2009, thanks to activism by the Asian-American community.  A gem for the curriculum or independent reading.

Enrique's Journey: The True Story of a Boy Determined to Reunite with His Mother

Nazario, Sonia. Enrique's Journey: The True Story of a Boy Determined to Reunite with His Mother. Delacorte, 2013. 288pp. Lexile 770.

This complex, moving story focuses on one of the 100,000 children and teens who leave Central America and Mexico each year to try to cross the border into the U.S. Nazario, who won a Pulitzer Prize for her L.A. Times series on the topic, located and interviewed an impoverished boy from Honduras whom she calls Enrique.  His mother left for the U.S. when he was five, hoping to send money back to Enrique and his sister to build a better life.  When he was 17, the boy decided to seek out the mother he hadn’t seen since she left. He tries multiple times to make his way to the U.S. border but is sent back by immigration officials.  The journey entails riding on the roofs of trains where many young people are injured or die. They are also vulnerable to bandits and corrupt officials, illness and lack of food.  Stark details about his attempts and his mother’s tough life in the U.S. will draw in readers and open their eyes to a modern tragedy.

Reading Std #3: Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.  Although Enrique hasn’t seen his mother since he was five, she has always played a large role in his life.  Have students cite specifics in the text to describe how Enrique and his mother interact over the course of the book, and how their relationship evolves.  What are their feelings about each other and how do those change?  How realistic are their hopes about reuniting and what it might mean to them?  Note:  Like many memoirs and biographies, this does not meet CCSS Lexile levels for middle school  yet it is a strong choice for that age group and will introduce many readers to a part of our world they don't know.

Denied, Detained, Deported: Stories from the Dark Side of American Immigration

 Bausum, Ann. Denied, Detained, Deported: Stories from the Dark Side of American Immigration. National Geographic, 2009. 112pp. Lexile 1170.

Bausum takes a look at past U.S. immigration policies focusing on five groups chronologically from 1882, when the U.S. first started keeping specific groups from immigrating, to recent issues about illegal Mexican immigrants.  Sections examine Chinese immigrants in the 1800s; Jewish refugees during the 1930s and 40s; and the internment of Japanese and Japanese Americans in the U.S. during World War II.  While the author does not advocate limitless immigration, she raises questions about biases and fairness in government policies.  She weaves quotations from those involved into the text; black-and-white photographs also add information.  Back matter includes an extensive timeline; bibliography; resource guide; and index.

Speaking Std. #2: Integrate and evaluate information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.  Timelines are a useful graphic tool in understanding the chronology of a historical topic.  The six-page timeline in this book is unusually extensive and attractive, incorporating small photographs and short paragraphs of text.  Have students use it as a model in conjunction with a different historical text that follows a chronological structure; then have them explain the historical event, using the timeline, to fellow students.  Several free websites such as www.xtimeline.com offer digital timeline templates that can include images and different structures. 

Fiction Tie-ins:  Considering pairing with Cynthia Kadohata's Weedflower, about a Japanese-American family at an internment camp, or Tropical Secrets by Margarita Engle, a verse novel about Jewish refugees in Cuba in 1939.

Shutting Out the Sky: Life in the Tenements of New York, 1880-1924

Hopkinson, Deborah. Shutting Out the Sky: Life in the Tenements of New York, 1880-1924. Orchard, 2003. 144pp. Lexile 990.

When 16-year-old Marcus Ravage left Romania in 1900 to move alone to the U.S., he couldn’t understand his mother’s despair at his departure.  Later he did understand, as he never saw her again.  Ravage is one of five young people who add a personal voice to this excellent, very readable account of life in Manhattan’s tenements in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  Instead of a chronological structure, the chapters look at different aspects of immigrant life, with an emphasis on young people.  It starts with their journeys here and what the newcomers, mostly Jews and Italians, thought of their new homes and overcrowded living quarters.  It goes on to look at work, life in the busy streets, learning English, and education, with effective quotes from the five teenagers, all of whom wrote about their experiences.  Short sections near the end tell about their later lives.  Sepia-tinted period photographs, many by Lewis Hine and Jacob Riis, enrich the text.  Back matter includes a time line, bibliography, notes, and index. 

Reading Std #4: Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including technical, connotative, and figurative meanings; analyze role of specific word choices.  In chapters on work, housing, and education, Hopkinson discusses efforts to improve tenements, reform child labor, and require education.  In doing so she uses terms important to government and trying to change government.  Have students find and analyze terms such as “regulations,” “codes,” “implementation,” and “enforcement.” Have them also consider language about trying to change conditions such as “boycott,” “strike,” “rent strike,” and “work stoppage.” 

Flesh and Blood So Cheap: The Triangle Fire and Its Legacy

Marrin, Albert. Flesh and Blood So Cheap: The Triangle Fire and Its Legacy. 2011. 182pp. Lexile 1000.

In 1911, 146 workers—most of them young women—died in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in Manhattan.  Veteran nonfiction writer Marrin goes beyond recounting the tragedy to analyzing immigration, limitations on women, and the rise of unions in conjunction with the fire.  He explains why most of the women, ages fourteen to twenty-three, were Russian Jews and Italian Catholics.  He describes tenement life, with the portrayal reinforced by black-and-white photographs including some from photojournalist Jacob Riis, whose words provide the title: "Oh, God!  That bread should be so dear, and flesh and blood so cheap!"  Marrin discusses the aftermath of the fire and the movement to improve working conditions.  He wraps up with a look at garment workers today in the U.S. and internationally, some of whom face sweatshop conditions similar to those in the past. 

Reading Std #3: Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.  Marrin brings together topics of immigration, the labor movement, and safety issues and laws in his account of the Triangle Fire.  Have students analyze how he connects these topics, including the role of important people in the different sub-topics.

Across America on an Emigrant Train

Murphy, Jim. Across America on an Emigrant Train. 1993, available in paperback. 150pp. Lexile 1180.

In this outstanding book, readers take a journey across America by train in 1879 with 29-year-old Robert Louis Stevenson, starting in New York City and ending in California.  The text uses many quotes from Stevenson’s writing to add color and detail about what it was like to travel in trains filled with mostly poor immigrants.  Murphy expands beyond Stevenson’s journey to descriptions of various trains, how they worked, accidents and problems, the building of the Transcontinental Railroad, and the effect the railroads had on the countryside and Native Americans.  Black-and-white etchings and photographs with useful captions show train workers, the scenery, the interiors and exteriors of many trains, and more. 

Reading Std #3: Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.  While Stevenson conveys the excitement of travel and the rich possibilities of the West, he also develops the theme of how Native Americans were treated as the West was settled and the railroads built.  Have students look in the text for Stevenson's own words on the subject and how Murphy integrates them into the whole.