Immigration: Home

This series takes a look at the different cultures that have helped shape America into what it is today

This series takes a look at the different cultures that have helped shape America into what it is today

This series takes a look at the different cultures that have helped shape America into what it is today

Angel Island, off the coast of California, was the port of entry for Asian immigrants to the United States between 1892 and 1940. Following the passage of legislation requiring the screening of immigrants, "the other Ellis Island" processed around one million people from Japan, China, and Korea. Drawing from memoirs, diaries, letters, and the "wall poems" discovered at the facility long after it closed, the nonfiction master Russell Freedman describes the people who came, and why;the screening process; detention and deportation; changes in immigration policy; and the eventual renaissance of Angel Island as a historic site open to visitors. Includes archival photos, source notes, bibliography, and index.

Abraham Rodriguez speaks for many Puerto Ricans when he writes, "Of course I'm Puerto Rican. I am also American. I'm both." Puerto Rican Americans have created a rich culture that spans two places and two identities. Many travel back and forth between the island of Puerto Rico and the U.S. mainland. Discover what it means to be a Puerto Rican American. Learn more about the history, art, and culture of Puerto Rico. Read the stories of important Puerto Rican Americans who have made the United States stronger. Book jacket.

In the United States today, Hispanics make up the largest minority group. "Hispanic," however, is a broad term that covers many different backgrounds. Within this large term, people from Central America are the fastest-growing group. Many Central Americans came to America seeking safety from violence and war. Find out more about these immigrants-the turmoil that drove them to the United States, and the struggles they faced upon arrival. Learn what Central Americans are doing to better their home countries, the United States, and the world. Book jacket.

Provides information on the history of China and on the customs, language, religion, and experiences of Chinese Americans.

This series takes a look at the different cultures that have helped shape America into what it is today

Provides information on the history of Cuba and on the customs, language, religion, and experiences of Cuban Americans.

Provides an overview of the life and culture of East Indian Americans and presents some information on India. Includes a recipe for spinach and cheese curry.

Provides information on the history of Korea and on the customs, language, religion, and experiences of Korean Americans.

Did you know that José is the most popular name for baby boys in both California and Texas? Or that tacos are nearly as popular as hamburgers? More and more, the tastes and flavors of Hispanic culture play a role in American life. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Latinos will make up two-thirds of the population growth in the United States for the first half of the twenty-first century. At this rate, Latinos will number 80 million by the year 2050! Hispanic Americans make the United States a stronger and more exciting nation. This book will help you understand all that Latinos have to offer to the United States!

This series takes a look at the different cultures that have helped shape America into what it is today

Provides information on the history of Mexico and on the customs, language, religion, and experiences of Mexican Americans.

"Presents a global look at the reasons people move from one country to another, the effects that immigrants and refugees have on the economy, and their contributions to multicultural societies"--Provided by publisher.

Provides information on the history of Puerto Rico and on the customs, language, religion, and experiences of Puerto Ricans living within the United States.

The Ringling Brothers began their business under the most modest of circumstances and through hard work, business savvy, and some luck created the largest, most famous circus in the world. They became wealthy men, one 50 cent admission ticket at a time. Ringlingville USA chronicles the brothers' journey from immigrant poverty to enduring glory as the kings of the circus world. The Ringlings and their circus were last studied in depth over four decades ago. Now, for the first time, the brothers' detailed financial records and personal correspondence are available to researchers. Jerry Apps weaves together that information with newspaper accounts, oral histories, colorful anecdotes, and stunning circus ephemera and photos, many never before been published, to illuminate the importance of the Ringlings' accomplishments. He describes how the Ringling Brothers confronted the challenges of taxation, war, economic pressure, changing technology, and personal sorrows to find their place in history. The brothers emerge as complex characters whose ambition, imagination, and pure hucksterism fueled the phenomenon that was the Ringling Brothers' Circus. 

Provides an overview of the life and culture of Somali Americans and presents some information on the history of Somalia.

By the year 2050, Latino Americans will number 80 million. South Americans make up an important part of that population. South American immigrants come from different backgrounds. Some are dark-skinned, dark-haired, Spanish-speakers. Others are fair-skinned, blue-eyed people of European ancestry. Some are Inca Indians who speak their own ancient Quechua language. Discover more about South America's immigrants! Book jacket.

This series takes a look at the different cultures that have helped shape America into what it is today

Provides information on the history of Vietnam and on the customs, language, religion, and experiences of Vietnamese Americans.

This series takes a look at the different cultures that have helped shape America into what it is today

Readers may not realize that a large part of the American Southwest once belonged to Mexico. Young readers will learn how our southern neighbors have helped to build America in the past and continue to do so today. Colorful photos and illustrations combined with easy-to-read text make this book an important addition to any school library.

In a heartbreaking parting, a man gives his wife and daughter a last kiss and boards a steamship. He's embarking on the most difficult journey he's leaving home to build a better future for his family. In this wordless graphic novel, Shaun Tan captures the immigrant experience through clear, mesmerizing images. The reader enters a strange new world, participating in the main character's isolation and ultimately his joy.

When twelve-year-old Seema Trivedi learns that she and her family must move from their small Indian town to Iowa City, she realizes she'll have to say good-bye to the purple-jeweled mango trees and sweet-smelling jasmine, to the monsoon rains and the bustling market. More important, she must leave behind her best friend and cousin, Raju. Everything is different in Iowa City, where Seema feels like an outsider to the language and traditions. As she begins to plant roots in the foreign soil, however, her confidence starts to bloom, and she learns she can build a bridge between two homes. With lyrical language and poignant scenes, Kashmira Sheth unearths the meaning of "home" and "family" in this tender debut novel. Kashmira Sheth's own experiences as a teenager who moved by herself from India to America inspired her to write this novel. She is a microbiologist and lives with her family in Madison, Wisconsin.

The first day of school can be scary, especially when no one else speaks your language. Carmen, who speaks only Spanish, knows she must be brave. Her teacher's Spanish is muy terrible; but with a little encouragement from la Senora, Carmen teaches the class Spanish words andnbsp;numbers, and she in turn learns English from her new friends.nbsp;

This middle-grade historical novel follows three young girls living very different lives who are connected by one bottle that makes two journeys across the ocean. It's 1854 and eleven-year-old Bones is a slave on a Virginia plantation. When she finds her name in the slave-record book, she rips it out, rolls it up, and sets it free, corked inside a bottle alongside the carved peach pit heart her long-lost father made for her. Across the Atlantic on the Isle of Wight, motherless Lady Bess Kent and her sister discover Bones's bottle half-buried on the beach. Leaving Bones's name where it began and keeping the peach pit heart for herself, Bess hides her mother's pearl-encrusted cross necklace in the bottles so her scheming stepmother, Elsie, can't sell it off like she's done with other family heirlooms. When Harry, a local stonemason's son, takes the fall for Elsie's thefts, Bess works with her seafaring friend, Chap, to help him escape. She gives the bottle to Harry and tells him to sell the cross. Back across the Atlantic in Boston, Mary Margaret Casey and her father are at the docks when Mary Margaret spies something shiny. Her father fishes it out of the water, and they use the cross to pay for a much needed doctor's visit for Mary Margaret's ailing sister. As Bess did, Mary Margaret leaves Bones's name where it belongs. An epilogue returns briefly to each girl, completing the circle of the three unexpectedly interconnected lives.

A poignant story about the difficulties of leaving everything behind and the friendships that help you get through it. Fleeing war-torn Kosovo, ten-year-old Drita and her family move to America with the dream of living a typical American life. But with this hope comes the struggle to adapt and fit in. How can Drita find her place at school and in her new neighborhood when she doesn't speak any English? Meanwhile, Maxie and her group of fourth-grade friends are popular in their class, and make an effort to ignore Drita. So when their teacher puts Maxie and Drita together for a class project, things get off to a rocky start. But sometimes, when you least expect it, friendship can bloom and overcome even a vast cultural divide.

When five year old Gabriella hears talk of Castro and something called revolution in her home in Cuba, she doesn't understand. Then when her parents leave suddenly and she remains with her grandparents, life isn't the same. Soon the day comes when she goes to live with her parents in a new place called the Bronx. It isn't warm like Havana, and there is traffic not the ocean outside her window. Their life is different- it snows in the winter and the food at school is hot dogs and macaroni. What will it take for the Bronx to feel like home?

Inside Out and Back Again is a #1 New York Times bestseller, a Newbery Honor Book, and a winner of the National Book Award! Inspired by the author's childhood experience as a refugee ;fleeing Vietnam after the Fall of Saigon and immigrating to Alabama;this coming-of-age debut novel told in verse has been celebrated for its touching child's-eye view of family and immigration. For all the ten years of her life, she has only known Saigon: the thrills of its markets, the joy of its traditions, and the warmth of her friends close by. But now the Vietnam War has reached her home. and her family are forced to flee as Saigon falls, and they board a ship headed toward hope. In America, discovers the foreign world of Alabama: the coldness of its strangers, the dullness of its food . . . and the strength of her very own family.

In the middle of the night the world can seem huge andfrightening, especially when you've just moved far from home. On Abena and Kofi's first night in America, it is late and it is dark and they are up worrying. What if a giant lizard or a slender-snouted crocodile crawled into their suitcases? What if the people in their new school laugh at them? What if they forget Grandmother and their cousins, now that they are an ocean away? But Abena knows a secret to help them. It is a secret that can make the world and the night seem small again. She reaches for her new flashlight and turns it on. She says to her little brother, Kofi, "Pretend this is the moon. Close your eyes." And then she begins ...

Sun is ready to leave his village in China for America, the place known as Gum Saan, Gold Mountain. His father warns him, though, that passage will not be easy. Because of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, new immigrants like Sun are detained at Angel Island until they are called to take a difficult oral exam before they can "land" – leave Angel Island and go ashore. On the boat, Sun had studied maps of his village and memorized facts about his ancestors. But as the weeks pass in detainment, the map's compass points swirl in his memory, and Sun worries that he will lose his direction and be turned away. The oil paintings are rich with historical details in this vivid recounting, based on the author's father-in-law's experiences, of a disturbing chapter in Chinese American history.

Erin Entrada Kelly, the author of the acclaimed Blackbird Fly, writes with grace, imagination, and deepest heart about family, sisters, and friendship, and about finding and holding on to hope in difficult times. Two sisters from the Philippines, abandoned by their father and living with their stepmother in Louisiana, fight to make their lives better in this remarkable story for readers of Cynthia Kadohata and Rita Williams-Garcia, and for anyone searching for the true meaning of family.

Bestselling Newbery Medalist Christopher Paul Curtis delivers a powerful companion to his multiple award-winning ELIJAH OF BUXTON. Benji and Red couldn't be more different. They aren't friends. They don't even live in the same town. But their fates are entwined. A chance meeting leads the boys to discover that they have more in common than meets the eye. Both of them have encountered a strange presence in the forest, watching them, tracking them. Could the Madman of Piney Woods be real? In a tale brimming with intrigue and adventure, Christopher Paul Curtis returns to the vibrant world he brought to life in Elijah of Buxton. Here is another novel that will break your heart -- and expand it, too.

Newbery Medalist Paul Fleischman and Bagram Ibatoulline tell a breathtaking immigration tale with appeal across generations. "Pick whatever you like most. Then I’ll tell you its story." When a little girl visits her great-grandfather at his curio-filled home, she chooses an unusual object to learn about: an old cigar box. What she finds inside surprises her: a collection of matchboxes making up her great-grandfather’s diary, harboring objects she can hold in her hand, each one evoking a memory. Together they tell of his journey from Italy to a new country, before he could read and write — the olive pit his mother gave him to suck on when there wasn’t enough food; a bottle cap he saw on his way to the boat; a ticket still retaining the thrill of his first baseball game. With a narrative entirely in dialogue, Paul Fleischman makes immediate the two characters’ foray into the past. With warmth and an uncanny eye for detail, Bagram Ibatoulline gives expressive life to their journey through time — and toward each other.

One night, young Amada overhears her parents whisper of moving from Mexico to the other side of the border to Los Angeles, where greater opportunity awaits. As she and her family make their journey north, Amada records her fears, hopes, and dreams for their lives in the United States in her diary. How can she leave her best friend behind? What if she can't learn English? What if her family never returns to Mexico?From Juarez to Mexicali to Tijuana to Los Angeles, Amada learns that with her family's love and her belief in herself, she can make any journey and weather any change here, there, anywhere."

A timely and inspiring story. Mario is leaving his home in El Salvador. With his father by his side, he is going north to join his mother, who lives in the United States. She has sent Mario a new pair of shoes. He will need good shoes because the journey north will be long and hard. He and his father will cross the borders of three countries. They will walk for miles, ride buses, climb mountains, and cross a river. Mario has faith in his shoes. He believes they will take him anywhere. On this day, they will take him to the United States, where his family will be reunited.

A double celebration for Independence Day! In this wonderfully unique book, Jane Yolen and Jim Burke weave two stories at once, as readers see young Gitl in Russia leaving her home for faraway America, wondering what new name she will choose for herself when she arrives, and young artist Frederic Auguste Bartholdi dreaming of a monument he wants to build to honor freedom. It is an arduous journey for Gitl as she and her family travel across land and sea to arrive on this shore, but when she sees the magnificent Statue of Liberty standing in New York Harbor, she knows her name in this great new country must be ?Liberty.' Just in time for Independence Day, Jim Burke's magnificent paintings capture Yolen's inspired tale of a girl and an artist and their passionate belief in freedom.

In this allegorical picture book, a young rabbit named Pancho eagerly awaits his papa's return. Papa Rabbit traveled north two years ago to find work in the great carrot and lettuce fields to earn money for his family. When Papa does not return, Pancho sets out to find him. He packs Papa's favorite meal--mole, rice and beans, a heap of warm tortillas, and a jug of aguamiel--and heads north. He meets a coyote, who offers to help Pancho in exchange for some of Papa's food. They travel together until the food is gone and the coyote decides he is still hungry . . . for Pancho! Duncan Tonatiuh brings to light the hardship and struggles faced by thousands of families who seek to make better lives for themselves and their children by illegally crossing the border.

"This rich story reminds us that America can be at its best as a melting pot. A page-turner for all the right reasons." --VINCE VAWTER, Newbery Honor-winning author of Paperboy  In this gripping and poignant companion to Sydney Taylor Honor Award winner Black Radishes, Gustave faces racism and anti-Semitism in New York City during World War II, but ultimately finds friendship and hope.   After escaping the Germans in Nazi-occupied France, Gustave and his family have made it to America at last. But life is not easy in New York. Gustave's clothes are all wrong, he can barely speak English, and he is worried about his best friend, Marcel, who is in danger back in France. Then there is September Rose, the most interesting girl in school, who doesn't seem to want to be friends with him. Gustave is starting to notice that not everyone in America is treated equally, and his new country isn't everything he'd expected. But he isn't giving up.

The story of one family's journey north during the Great Migration starts with a little girl in South Carolina who finds a rope under a tree one summer. She has no idea the rope will become part of her family's history. But for three generations, that rope is passed down, used for everything from jump rope games to tying suitcases onto a car for the big move north to New York City, and even for a family reunion where that first little girl is now a grandmother. Newbery Honor-winning author Jacqueline Woodson and Coretta Scott King Award-winning illustrator James Ransome use the rope to frame a thoughtful and moving story as readers follow the little girl's journey. During the time of the Great Migration, millions of African American families relocated from the South, seeking better opportunities. With grace and poignancy, Woodson's lilting storytelling and Ransome's masterful oil paintings of country and city life tell a rich story of a family adapting to change as they hold on to the past and embrace the future.

In West of the Moon, award-winning and New York Times bestselling author Margi Preus expertly weaves original fiction with myth and folktale to tell the story of Astri, a young Norwegian girl desperate to join her father in America. After being separated from her sister and sold to a cruel goat farmer, Astri makes a daring escape. She quickly retrieves her little sister, and, armed with a troll treasure, a book of spells and curses, and a possibly magic hairbrush, they set off for America. With a mysterious companion in tow and the malevolent "goatman" in pursuit, the girls head over the Norwegian mountains, through field and forest, and in and out of folktales and dreams as they steadily make their way east of the sun and west of the moon.

Xochitl and her family, newly arrived in San Francisco from El Salvador,reate a beautiful plant nursery in place of the garbage heap behind theirpartment, and celebrate with their friends and neighbors.