A true story of young immigrants who get detained by U.S. Border Patrol—on purpose—and put in a shadowy for-profit detention center. Marco and Viri are members of a group of radical Dreamers on a mission to stop deportations, and they believe the best place to do that is in detention.

The Infiltrators,directed by Cristina Ibarra and Alex Rivera, is a true story about a rag-tag group of undocumented youth - Dreamers - deliberately get detained by Border Patrol in order to infiltrate a shadowy, for-profit detention center.

Adult Nonfiction

Arce, Julissa.My (underground) American Dream: My True Story as an Undocumented Immigrant Who Became a Wall Street Executive.Center Street, 2016.
For an undocumented immigrant, what is the true cost of the American dream? Julissa Arce shares her story in a riveting memoir. When she was 11 years old Julissa Arce left Mexico, and came to the United States on a tourist visa to be reunited with her parents, who dreamed the journey would secure her a better life. When her visa expired at the age of 15, she became an undocumented immigrant. Thus, began her underground existence, a decades long game of cat and mouse, tremendous family sacrifice, and fear of exposure.

Bixler, Mark.The Lost Boys of the Sudan: An American Story of the Refugee Experience.University of Georgia Press. 2006.
Jacob Magot, Peter Anyang, Daniel Khoch, and Marko Ayii were among 150 or so Lost Boys who were resettled in Atlanta. Like most of their fellow refugees, they had never before turned on a light switch, used a kitchen appliance, or ridden in a car or subway train-much less held a job or balanced a checkbook. We relive their early excitement and disorientation, their growing despondency over fruitless job searches, adjustments they faced upon finally entering the workforce, their experiences of post-9/11 xenophobia, and their undying dreams of acquiring an education.

Coan, Peter M.Toward a Better Life: America’s New Immigrants in Their Own Words: From Ellis Island to the Present.Prometheus Books, 2011.
This book offers a balanced, poignant, and often moving portrait of America's immigrants over more than a century. The author has organized the book by decades so that readers can easily find the time period most relevant to their experience or that of family members. The first part covers the Ellis Island era, the second part America's new immigrants-from the closing of Ellis Island in 1955 to the present.

Cornejo Villavicencio, Karla.The Undocumented Americans.One World, 2020.
Looking well beyond the flashpoints of the border or the activism of the DREAMERS, Cornejo Villavicencio explores the lives of the undocumented as rarely seen in our daily headlines. In New York, we meet the undocumented workers who were recruited in the federally funded Ground Zero cleanup after 9/11. In Miami we enter the hidden botanicas, which offer witchcraft and homeopathy to those whose status blocks them from any other healthcare options. In Flint, Michigan, we witness how many live in fear as the government issues raids at grocery stores and demands identification before offering life-saving clean water.

Motomura, Hiroshi.Americans in Waiting: The Lost Story of Immigration and Citizenship in the United States.Oxford University Press, 2007.
In Americans in Waiting, Hiroshi Motomura looks to a forgotten part of our past to show how, for over 150 years, immigration was assumed to be a transition to citizenship, with immigrants essentially being treated as future citizens--Americans in waiting. Challenging current conceptions, the author deftly uncovers how this view, once so central to law and policy, has all but vanished.

Urrea, Luis Alberto.The Devil’s Highway: A True Story.Back Bay Books, 2004.
In May 2001, a group of men attempted to cross the Mexican border into the desert of southern Arizona, through the deadliest region of the continent, the “Devil’s Highway.” Three years later, Luis Alberto Urrea wrote about what happened to them. The result was a national bestseller, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, a “book of the year” in multiple newspapers, and a work proclaimed as a modern American classic.

In Our Time Machine,filmmakers S. Leo Chiang and Yang Sun follow Chinese artist, Maleonn’s (Ma Liang), attempt to honor his father’s memory – not his life, his actual memory. Ma Ke, himself an accomplished artist as longtime Peking Opera director, has not yet died, but has Alzheimer’s disease. Using art (his comfort zone), Maelonn is trying to preserve their father-son memories.

He creates “Papa’s Time Machine,” a magical, autobiographical stage performance featuring life-size mechanical puppets. The performance provides teachers and students an opportunity to consider the themes we relate to in autobiography, how it can help us to find and reflect on our own stories, and how we choose to tell our stories.

Students will use the stories that Maleonn chooses to tell as a springboard for telling their own autobiographical story, and in doing so, connecting their own life story to universal human themes.

A Note from Curriculum Creator, Dr. Faith Rogow

Adolescents commonly experience feelings that no one understands what they are experiencing. For some, that can lead to feelings of disconnection, isolation, and even alienation. Finding the universal themes in their own life stories can help them understand that they are, indeed, unique, but also connected. At a time when many people are pulling away from those who are different (racially, religiously, ethnically), finding the themes that are common to humanity can provide common ground, helping people better understand those they define as “other.” As an added benefit, recognizing the universal themes in their own stories can help students identify (and perhaps even connect with) themes in the literature they are assigned to read.

Subject Areas

● English/Language Arts

● Art

● Media Literacy

● Creative Writing

Grade Levels:[10-12]

Objectives:

In this lesson, students will:

● Understand the potential benefits of reading autobiographies

● Explore what makes a literary theme “universal”

● Tell their own parent-child story

● Identify the universal theme(s) in their own personal stories (and through that, see
their stories as valuable)

● Consider various options we have for sharing our stories: writing, oral, film, stage
performance, etc.

● [optional] Investigate how do some people’s stories come to be part of the literary
canon that we study in schools, while other people’s stories are left out

Materials:

● Film Clips from Our Time Machine and a way to screen them

Time Needed:

One 45-minute class period with homework and an option for students to share their work.

When artist Maleonn realizes that his father is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, he creates “Papa’s Time Machine,” a magical, autobiographical stage performance featuring life-size mechanical puppets. Through the production of this play, the two men confront their mortality before time runs out and memories are lost forever.

When artist Maleonn realizes that his father suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, he creates “Papa’s Time Machine,” a magical, autobiographical stage performance featuring life-size mechanical puppets. Through the production of this play, the two men confront their mortality before time runs out and memories are lost forever.

ADULT NONFICTION

Cheng, Nien. Life and Death in Shanghai.New York, NY: Grafton Books, 1986.
A first-hand account of China's Cultural Revolution. Nien Cheng, an anglophile and fluent English-speaker who worked for Shell in Shanghai under Mao, was put under house arrest by Red Guards in 1966 and subsequently jailed. All attempts to make her confess to the charges of being a British spy failed; all efforts to indoctrinate her were met by a steadfast and fearless refusal to accept the terms offered by her interrogators. When she was released from prison she was told that her daughter had committed suicide. In fact Meiping had been beaten to death by Maoist revolutionaries.

Harper, Lynn Casteel. On Vanishing: Mortality, Dementia, and What it Means to Disappear. New York, NY: Catapult, 2020.
In On Vanishing, Lynn Casteel Harper, a Baptist minister and nursing home chaplain, investigates the myths and metaphors surrounding dementia and aging, addressing not only the indignities caused by the condition but also by the rhetoric surrounding it. Harper asks essential questions about the nature of our outsized fear of dementia, the stigma this fear may create, and what it might mean for us all to try to "vanish well." Weaving together personal stories with theology, history, philosophy, literature, and science, Harper confronts our elemental fears of disappearance and death, drawing on her own experiences with people with dementia both in the American healthcare system and within her own family.

Ingram, Jay. The End of Memory: A Natural History of Aging and Alzheimer’s. New York, NY: Thomas Dunne Books, 2015.
It is a wicked disease that robs its victims of their memories, their ability to think clearly, and ultimately their lives. For centuries, those afflicted by Alzheimer's disease have suffered its debilitating effects while family members sit by, watching their loved ones disappear a little more each day until the person they used to know is gone forever. The disease was first described by German psychologist and neurologist Alois Alzheimer in 1906. One hundred years and a great deal of scientific effort later, much more is known about Alzheimer's, but it still affects millions around the world, and there is no cure in sight.

Jebelli, Joseph. In Pursuit of Memory: The Fight Against Alzheimer’s. New York, NY: Little, Brown Spark, 2017.
Alzheimer's is the great global epidemic of our time, affecting millions worldwide - there are more than 5 million people diagnosed in the US alone. And as our population ages, scientists are working against the clock to find a cure.
Neuroscientist Joseph Jebelli is among them. His beloved grandfather had Alzheimer's and now he's written the book he needed then - a very human history of this frightening disease.

Kozol, Jonathan. The Theft of Memory: Losing my Father one Day at a Time. New York, NY: Crown Publishers, 2015.
National Book Award-winning author, Jonathan Kozol, shares his father’s life story. Dr. Harry Kozol was a nationally recognized neurologist who treated prominent figures, such as the playwright Eugene O’Neill. When diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, his father was able to narrate his own descent into memory loss. Jonathan captures his connection with his father, even as Harry’s verbal and cognitive skills disappear.

Leavitt, Sarah. Tangles: A Story about Alzheimer’s, my Mother, and Me. New York, NY: Skyhorse Publishing, 2012.
This graphic memoir written and illustrated by Sarah Leavitt shares how the Alzheimer’s disease affected her mother, Midge, as well as the whole family who came together to be caretakers and support for each other. The simple black and white drawings go through all of the stages of her family’s journey with Alzheimer’s and emphasizes the strong bond between mother and daughter.

McDermott, Simon. The Songaminute Man: A Tribute to the Unbreakable Bond between Father and Son. New York, NY: Park Row Books, 2018.
Ted McDermott enjoyed a long career as an entertainer before his Alzheimer's diagnosis in 2013. As the disease took its toll on Ted's relationships, memory, and mood, his son Simon found a way for them to connect again: carpool karaoke.

Mitter, Rana. Modern China: A Very Short Introduction.Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2016. China today is never out of the news: from international finance to human rights controversies, global coverage of its rising international presence, and the Chinese 'economic miracle'. It seems to be a country of contradictions: a peasant society with some of the world's most futuristic cities, heir to an ancient civilization that is still trying to find a modern identity. This Very Short Introduction offers the reader an entry to understanding the world's most populous nation, giving an integrated picture of modern Chinese society, culture, economy, politics, and art.

Powell, Tia. Dementia Reimagined: Building a Life of Joy and Dignity from Beginning to End.New York, NY: Avery Publishing Group, 2019
Despite being a physician and a bioethicist, Tia Powell wasn't prepared to address the challenges she faced when her grandmother, and then her mother, were diagnosed with dementia - not to mention confronting the hard truth that her own odds aren't great. In the U.S., 10,000 baby boomers turn 65 every day; by the time a person reaches 85, their chances of having dementia approach 50 percent. Dr. Powell's goal is to move the conversation away from an exclusive focus on cure to a genuine appreciation of care--what we can do for those who have dementia, and how to keep life meaningful and even joyful.

VanderMeer, Jeff. The Steampunk Bible: An Illustrated Guide to the World of Imaginary Airships, Corsets and Goggles, Mad Scientists, and Strange Literature. New York, NY: Abrams Image, 2011. Steampunk, a grafting of Victorian aesthetic and punk rock attitude onto various forms of science-fiction culture, is a phenomenon that has come to influence film, literature, art, music, fashion, and more. The Steampunk Bible is the first compendium about the movement, tracing its roots in the works of Jules Verne and H. G. Wells through its most recent expression in movies such as Sherlock Holmes.

Zukerman, Eugenia. Like Falling Through a Cloud: A Lyrical Memoir.Glasgow, UK: East End Press, 2019.
What if the dreaded world of Alzheimer's was also a world of emotional discovery? Eugenia Zukerman's poetry and simple prose, both heartbreaking and ultimately inspirational, ushers the reader into her world as she unflinchingly examines familial loyalties, moments from her past and present, and the need to face an uncertain future due to the diagnosis of a condition that she truly hopes "will remain unnamed." Flutist, writer, artistic director of major music series, television journalist, educator and internet entrepreneur, Zukerman addresses her "lapses and losses" as she confronts and deals with a future under the shadow of her Alzheimer's diagnosis.

In My Blood It Runs is a film about Dujuan, a ten-year-old Arrernte/Garrwa child healer whose family advocates for him to have a culturally sustaining education that affirms his Arrernte identity, while he also navigates western schooling in Australia. Central to this film are the themes of cultural and linguistic revitalization, Aboriginal peoples sovereignty, Land relations, and settler colonialism and schooling.

In this lesson, educators, youth, and community members will be guided through practices of critically engaging with western schooling, settler colonialism, school curriculum and the overt and concealed prejudices towards Aboriginal and Indigenous peoples. This may involve engaging in the process of unlearning and relearning to think critically about the history of settler colonialism and learning from Aboriginal and Indigenous peoples while also centering their stories. Each lesson section is an opportunity for learners to engage in (re)storying conversations about traditional and ancestral homelands. Through creative and open-ended activities, learners are guided to learn about the Indigenous territory they are currently living on and the responsibilities they have as guests. The lesson can be modified to meet the needs of learners and linked to units of study related to history, geography, literature, environmental science, art, culture, language, and creative writing.

A Note from Curriculum Creators, Pablo Montes & Judith Landeros

We felt called to create this particular lesson plan because of our deep commitment to teach and engage in respectful and ethical ways when learning from and with Indigenous peoples, their knowledges and cosmologies, and Land relations. Our intention is to center the stories of Indigenous and Aboriginal peoples that too often are erased from the whitestream schooling system or when included, distorted and told from the perspective of the settlers. Therefore, much of what emerges from the lesson is guided by the learner, and varies by position, context, and place. We hope that Indigenous and Aborigional youth in Turtle Island can connect with Dujuan’s story and that it affirms their identity, culture, and ways of knowing and doing. This lesson can also serve as an initial introduction for non-Indigenous youth and educators to begin to think critically about the territory they currently live on and how they can be respectful guests by acknowledging the Indigenous peoples who are from those Lands. We purposefully did not use words such as “objectives”, “Standards”, and “expected outcomes” because these words are rooted in Western ways of thinking. In other words, we did not want this to become a lesson where teachers and students learn about Indigenous people but we want this lesson to guide you all in learning with and from Indigenous people to disrupt Western schooling. We invite teachers to also think about how Indigenous knowledges and ways of being can be forms of curricular resurgence, meaning that there are multiple ways to think about learning, knowledge, and education that encompasses the way Indigenous people have always viewed the world and continue to pass on their teachings. Therefore, this is not a lesson plan but a living curriculum that must be attended to constantly. Like the river suggests, there are different paths one can take, that learning is fluid, knowledge is shaped and co-created with other forces, and that there is no such thing as an “objective truth” but many truths that can co-exist.

Grade Levels: 9-12th

Materials:

• Film clips
• Collage making materials (i.e. old magazines)
• Glue
• Construction Paper
• Scissors
• Writing and drawing utensils
• Chart paper
• Computer/Internet access
• Post-its

Time Needed:

Five 60-minute class periods to watch the film and complete the activities.

POV acknowledges the unceded lands of the many First Nations people, upon which we live, work and tell stories.   We also acknowledge the unceded lands of the Arrernte and Garrwa people in Mparntwe and Borroloola, Australia, where this film was made. We pay our respects to all their elders past present and emerging.

FILM SUMMARY

Ten-year-old Arrernte Aboriginal boy Dujuan is a child-healer and a good hunter and speaks three languages. Yet Dujuan is failing in the Australian school system and facing increasing scrutiny from welfare authorities and the police. As he veers perilously close to incarceration, his family fights to give him a strong Arrernte education alongside his western education. We walk with him as he grapples with these pressures and shares his truths.

In My Blood It Runs, directed by Maya Newell, is an intimate and compassionate observational documentary from the perspective of a 10-year-old Aboriginal boy in Alice Springs, Australia, struggling to balance his traditional Arrernte/Garrwa upbringing with a state education.

Adult Nonfiction

Behrendt, Larissa. Finding. UQP, 2016.
A vital Aboriginal perspective on colonial storytelling Indigenous lawyer and writer Larissa Behrendt has long been fascinated by the story of Eliza Fraser, who was purportedly captured by the local Butchulla people after she was shipwrecked on their island in 1836. In this deeply personal book, Behrendt uses Eliza's tale as a starting point to interrogate how Aboriginal people – and indigenous people of other countries – have been portrayed in their colonizers' stories. Citing works as diverse as Robinson Crusoe and Coonardoo, she explores the tropes in these accounts, such as the supposed promiscuity of Aboriginal women, the Europeans' fixation on cannibalism, and the myth of the noble savage. Ultimately, Behrendt shows how these stories not only reflect the values of their storytellers but also reinforce those values – which in Australia led to the dispossession of Aboriginal people and the laws enforced against them.

Broome, Richard. Aboriginal Australians: A History Since 1788. Allen & Unwin, 2019.
Richard Broome tells the history of Australia from the standpoint of the original Australians: those who lost most in the early colonial struggle for power. Surveying over two centuries of Aboriginal-European encounters, he shows how white settlers steadily supplanted the original inhabitants, from the shining coasts to inland deserts, by sheer force of numbers, disease, technology and violence. He also tells the story of Aboriginal survival through resistance and accommodation, and traces the continuing Aboriginal struggle to move from the margins of a settler society to a more central place in modern Australia.

Grant, Stan. Australia Day. Harper Collins, 2019.
In this book, Australia Day, his long-awaited follow up to Talking to My Country, Stan talks about our country, about who we are as a nation, about the indigenous struggle for belonging and identity in Australia, and what it means to be Australian. A sad, wise, beautiful, reflective and troubled book, Australia Day asks the questions that have to be asked, that no else seems to be asking. Who are we? What is our country? How do we move forward from here?

Leahy, Cathy and Ryan, Judith. Colony: Australia 1779-1861/Frontier Wars. Thames & Hudson Australia Pty, Limited, 2019.
It is now over 250 years since James Cook and his crew set sail in the Endeavour to explore the Pacific. In 1770 they reached the east coast of a continent that has been inhabited for more than 65,000 years by many indigenous groups with different languages and diverse cultures. Cook’s landing marked the beginning of a history that still has repercussions today, a history that both unites and divides Australia and highlights the continuing need for reconciliation. Colony explores the immediate and far-reaching impact of British colonisation of Australia through historical, twentieth-century and contemporary art. Through 1000 essential pieces of our cultural heritage, this book highlights the confronting and complex perspectives of the shared history of First Peoples and European settlers.

Moreton-Robinson, Aileen. Talking Up to the White Woman: Indigenous Women and Feminism. University of Queensland Press, 2002.
In this accessible and provocative analysis of the whiteness of Australian feminism the author applies academic training and cultural knowledge in revealing the invisible position of power and privilege in feminist practice. This is a uniquely Australian contribution to the increasing global discourse on feminism and race.

Moreton-Robinson, Aileen. The White Possessive: Property, Power, and Indigenous Sovereignty. University of Minnesota Press, 2015.
The White Possessive explores the links between race, sovereignty, and possession through themes of property: owning property, being property, and becoming propertyless. Focusing on the Australian Aboriginal context, Aileen Moreton-Robinson questions current race theory in the first world and its preoccupation with foregrounding slavery and migration. The nation, she argues, is socially and culturally constructed as a white possession.
Moreton-Robinson reveals how the core values of Australian national identity continue to have their roots in Britishness and colonization, built on the disavowal of Indigenous sovereignty. Whiteness studies literature is central to Moreton-Robinson’s reasoning, and she shows how blackness works as a white epistemological tool that bolsters the social production of whiteness—displacing Indigenous sovereignties and rendering them invisible in a civil rights discourse, thereby sidestepping thorny issues of settler colonialism.Throughout this critical examination Moreton-Robinson proposes a bold new agenda for critical Indigenous studies, one that involves deeper analysis of how the prerogatives of white possession function within the role of disciplines.

Morgan, Sally. My Place. Seaver Books, 1988.
Looking at the views and experiences of three generations of indigenous Australians, this autobiography unearths political and societal issues contained within Australia's indigenous culture. Sally Morgan traveled to her grandmother's birthplace, starting a search for information about her family. She uncovers that she is not white but aborigine--information that was kept a secret because of the stigma of society. This moving account is a classic of Australian literature that finally frees the tongues of the author's mother and grandmother, allowing them to tell their own stories.

NPY Women's Council Aboriginal Corporation. Traditional Healers of the Central Desert, 2013.
This book contains unique stories and imagery and primary source material: the ngangkari speak directly to the reader. Ngangkari are senior Aboriginal people authorized to speak publicly about Anangu (Western Desert language speaking Aboriginal people) culture and practices. It is accurate, authorized information about their work, in their own words.
The practice of traditional healing is still very much a part of contemporary Aboriginal society. The ngangkari currently employed at NPY Women’s Council deliver treatments to people across a tri-state region of about 350,000 sq km, in more than 25 communities in SA, WA and NT. Acknowledged, respected and accepted these ngangkari work collaboratively with hospitals and health professionals even beyond this region, working hand in hand with Western medical practitioners.

Pascoe, Bruce. Dark Emu Black Seeds: Agriculture or Accident?Magala Books, 2014.
Dark Emu puts forward an argument for a reconsideration of the hunter-gatherer tag for pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians. The evidence insists that Aboriginal people right across the continent were using domesticated plants, sowing, harvesting, irrigating and storing - behaviors inconsistent with the hunter-gatherer tag. Gerritsen and Gammage in their latest books support this premise but Pascoe takes this further and challenges the hunter-gatherer tag as a convenient lie. Almost all the evidence comes from the records and diaries of the Australian explorers, impeccable sources.

Pearson, Noel. Up from the Mission: Selected Writings. Black Inc., 2011.
Pearson evokes his early life in Hope Vale, Queensland. He includes sections of his epoch-making essay Our Right To Take Responsibility, which exposed the trap of passive welfare and proposed new ways forward. There are pieces on the apology; on Barack Obama and black leadership; on Australian party politics – Keating, Howard and Rudd; and on alcoholism, despair and what can be done to mend aboriginal communities that have fallen apart.

Pederson, Howard and Woorunmurra, Banjo.Jandamarra and the Bunuba Resistance. Magabala Books, 1995.
The true story of the Aboriginal resistance fighter, Jandamarra, whose legend is etched into the Australian landscape. Set in the Kimberley outback during the late nineteenth century, the last stage of Australia's invasion is played out in the lands of the Bunuba people. Leases are marked across Aboriginal country and, amidst the chaos and turmoil, extraordinary and sometimes contradictory relationships develop. A powerful collaboration between a non-Indigenous historian and the Indigenous custodians of the Jandamarra story.

Reynolds, Henry. The Other Side of the Frontier: Aboriginal Resistance to the European Invasion of Australia. NewSouth Publishing, 2006.
The publication of this book in 1981 profoundly changed the way in which we understand the history of relations between indigenous Australians and European settlers. It has since become a classic of Australian history. Drawing from documentary and oral evidence, the book describes in meticulous and compelling detail the ways in which Aborigines responded to the arrival of Europeans. Henry Reynolds' argument that the Aborigines resisted fiercely was highly original when it was first published and is no less challenging today.

Tilmouth, William. 7 August, 2018. “Indigenous Children do not need to be fixed – they need rights and opportunities.” The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/aug/07/indigenous-children-dont-need-to-be-fixed-they-need-rights-and-opportunitiesIn this article, a key advisor on In My Blood it Runs examines the deficit views that Western schooling structures, systems, and practices placed upon Aboroginal children and advocates for a contemporary approach to educating indigenous children in ways that support their identity-formation and honors their ancestral heritage as Aborginal children.

Turner, Margaret Kemarre. Iwenhe Tyerrtye: What It Means to Be an Aboriginal Person. IAD Press, 2010.
Written from the heart of Australia’s central deserts by Dujan’s grandmother, a respected Arrernte elder, this account explains the Australian Aboriginal approach to kinship in personal and poetic terms. Revealing a sophisticated and robust culture deeply connected to its native land, this book describes the far-reaching and penetrating organization of every respectful relationship—such as those between family members, amongst the society as a whole, and with regard to the denizen plants and animals. Through story-telling, the aboriginal community as well as non-Indigenous peoples will come to appreciate this fascinating culture.

Wright, Alexis. Tracker.Artarmon, Australia: Giramondo Publishing, 2017.
Taken from his family as a child and brought up in a mission on Croker Island, Tracker Tilmouth worked tirelessly for Aboriginal self-determination, creating opportunities for land use and economic development in his many roles, including Director of the Central Land Council of the Northern Territory.
Tracker was a visionary, a strategist and a projector of ideas, renowned for his irreverent humour and his determination to tell things the way he saw them. Having known him for many years, Alexis Wright interviewed Tracker, along with family, friends, colleagues, and the politicians he influenced, weaving his and their stories together in a manner reminiscent of the work of Nobel Prize–winning author Svetlana Alexievich. The book is as much a testament to the powerful role played by storytelling in contemporary Aboriginal life as it is to the legacy of an extraordinary man.

Iranian teachers, Sahand and Leila, are university educated and economically secure. They speak English – not well, but enough to get by. Theirs is not the stereotypical refugee story. Nevertheless, they have been refugees since 2012.

When Mani was born, his parents were both legally married to other people. Mani is evidence of their adultery, a sin which is also a capital crime in Iran. Afraid for their lives, they flee to seek asylum in Turkey, and a more permanent home someplace in the West, beyond the reach of Iranian intelligence.

Because Danish filmmaker, Eva Mulvad, documented their complicated and frustrating journey for six years, Love Child provides a case study that students can examine. In this lesson, students will consider American immigration practices and policies and take on the role of the immigration judge, studying relevant ethics and laws, and then providing a written “verdict” on whether Leila, Sahand, and Mani should be permitted to resettle in the U.S.

A Note from Curriculum Creator, Dr. Faith Rogow

Adolescents commonly experience feelings conjured by stories and these feelings can be difficult to understand; for some, that can lead to feelings of disconnection, isolation, and even alienation. Finding the universal themes in their own life stories can help them understand that they are, indeed, unique, but also connected. At a time when many people are pulling away from those who are different (racially, religiously, ethnically), finding the themes that are common to humanity can provide common ground, helping people better understand those they define as “other.” As an added benefit, recognizing the universal themes in their own stories can help students identify (and perhaps even connect with) themes in the literature they are assigned to read. Pay close attention to the learners in your care as you engage in this lesson - check-in with them, create community rules to ensure that no harm is fostered in your classroom.

Subject Areas

• Global Studies
• Civics
• Research Skills
• Ethics
• Law

Grade Levels: [9-10]

Objectives:

In this lesson, students will:

• Learn the definitions of: refugee, asylum, statelessness, well-founded fear
• Use research skills to find current U.S. policy on granting asylum
• Hear and read “testimony” from a family applying for asylum
• Apply what they learn about U.S. policy to the situation of the family in Love Child, taking into account ethical responsibilities, as well as the law
• Issue a written “verdict” based

Materials:

• Film Clips from Love Child and a way to screen them; also ongoing access to the clips for students to review as needed
• “Testimony” Handout – This is a document compiled from scenes in Love Child that cannot be screened as part of this lesson. It fills in important parts of the story. If you are in a position to screen the entire film with students, you do not need this handout.
• Internet access for research purposes

Time Needed:

One 45-minute class period, preceded and followed by homework. Optional follow-up class for students to share and discuss their verdicts.

View the trailer hereand sign up to receive updates here.

With adultery punishable by death in Iran, a young couple make the fateful decision to flee the country with their son. Love Child follows the trio on their life-threatening journey to plead asylum and witnesses a mother’s heartbreaking fight to keep her family together and secure a future for her son.

With adultery being punishable by death in Iran, a young couple makes the fateful decision to flee the country with their son Mani. Love Child, is the intimate love story about an illicit family on a journey to seek asylum in Turkey and start a new life.

ADULT NONFICTION

Boochani, Behrouz. No Friend But the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison. Toronto, Canada: House of Anansi Press Inc, 2019.
Winner of the Victorian Prize for Literature, “No Friend but the Mountains” was written, text message by message, by Behrouz Boochani, as he documented his experience in Manus Island, a refugee detention center off the coast of Australia.

Bui, Thi. The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir. New York: Abrams Comicarts, 2018.
The past and future clash for one family after the fall of Saigon in Thi Bui’s debut graphic memoir. Bui recounts her family’s journey from South Vietnam to a Malaysian refugee camp and finally the Bay Area. The sacrifices she must make as an immigrant and new mother are uncovered in this family tale that questions what makes a family, especially in times of crisis.

Luiselli, Valerie. Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Coffee House Press, 2017.
In “Tell Me How It Ends” Valeria Luiselli describes what happens to the tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors arriving in the US without papers, through the construct of the 40 questions they are asked in the court forms.

Nayeri, Dina, The Ungrateful Refugee: What Immigrants Never Tell You. New York, New York: Catapult, 2019.
In “The Ungrateful Refugee” Nayeri confronts notions like ‘the swarm.’ and, on the other hand, ‘good’ immigrants. She calls attention to the harmful way in which Western governments privilege certain dangers over others. With surprising and provocative questions, this book challenges the reader to rethink how they consider the refugee crisis.

Nguyen, Viet Thanh. The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2018.
Edited by Viet Thanh Nguyen, “The Displaced” features essays about exile and dislocation by 17 refugee writers from around the world.

Shukla, Nikesh. The Good Immigrant: 26 Writers Reflect on America. New York, New York: Little Brown and Company, 2019.
In this book, editors Nikesh Shukla and Chimene Suleyman hand the microphone to an incredible range of writers to share their powerful personal stories of living between cultures and languages while struggling to figure out who they are and where they belong.

Wamariya, Clemantine. The Girl Who Smiled Beads: A Story of War and What Comes After. New York, New York: The Crown Publishing Group, 2018.
Clemantine Wamariya was six years old when her mother and father began to speak in whispers, when neighbors began to disappear, and when she heard the loud, ugly sounds her brother said were thunder. In 1994, Clemantine Wamariya and her Claire, fled the Rwandan massacre and spent the next six years migrating through seven African countries, searching for safety -- perpetually hungry, imprisoned, and abused, enduring and escaping refugee camps, finding unexpected kindness, and witnessing inhuman cruelty.

Portraits and Dreams revisits photographs created by Kentucky schoolchildren in the 1970s and the place where the photos were made. The film is about the students, their work as visionary photographers and the lives they have led since then, as well as the linkage of personal memory to the passage of time.