Migrant
Written by Maxine Trottier
Illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault
Social Justice Element 3: Issues of Social Injustice
Summary:
Migrant is a picture book narrated by a young girl named Anna, a child to a constantly migrating farmer family of Mennonites, based in Mexico. Anna is an insightful little girl, and as she details some of her experiences, she constantly uses different metaphors of animals and nature to explain what her life with this big family of hers that's in poverty, has to perform physical labor, and is constantly on the move.
Social Justice Aspect:
This book raises awareness of the hardships that people like Anna face. As young as she is, she recognizes that she feels overwhelmed by her family constantly moving and that she yearns for stability. Her choice of metaphors suggest that the socioeconomic conditions her family faces makes her feel almost dehumanized--she describes herself as a mere feather in the wind every time she is uprooted for her temporary home, describes her siblings' crowded sleeping quarters as like bundles of puppies and kittens sleeping together, and her family like a bunch of worker bees when they go picking tomatoes. Through Anna's narration, readers get her perspective on the issues of social justice that she and her family faces.
Classroom Use & Additional Thoughts on Relevance:
I think this book would be especially effective in a diverse school or school district. They call America this "melting pot" country of all sorts of different cultures, yet I feel there's a terrible lack of education of the matters of diversity, immigration, and just social injustice that so many American residents face. That matter and awareness of those matters are especially prevalent with anti-immigrant sentiments of today, and I think this book does a good job a raising awareness and empathy of these people's experiences.
If students as young as Kindergarten age (4-7) are curious as to say, why there are separate ESL classes in their school (we read a similar book when I was a child to cover the topic) or why other kids at school look/speak/live differently than them, I think it would be useful to read this book aloud and prompt the kids into a discussion on immigration, diversity, and the importance of having empathy for one another's circumstances. Related classwork could include setting a day for the kids to either share aspects of their families' own hardships, or to go out and learn about a social justice issue that other people or groups may face to share what they learned with the class. For example, a child may choose to share their grandparents' story coming to the states, or instead the story of a musical artist they like who rose from poverty.
Teacher Resource:
Another lesson idea where kids have different countries for them that they can learn about as if they were suddenly to move to those, just as Anna's family moved from place to place.
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