Dreamers by Eileen TruaxDreamers is a movement book for the generation brought to the United States as children--and now fighting to live here legally Of the approximately twelve million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, as many as two million came as children. They grow up here, going to elementary, middle, and high school, and then the country they call home won't--in most states--offer financial aid for college and they're unable to be legally employed. In 2001, US senator Dick Durbin introduced the DREAM Act to Congress, an initiative that would allow these young people to become legal residents if they met certain requirements. And now, more than ten years later, in the face of congressional inertia and furious opposition from some, the DREAM Act has yet to be passed. But recently, this young generation has begun organizing, and with their rallying cry "Undocumented, Unapologetic, and Unafraid" they are the newest face of the human rights movement. In Dreamers, Eileen Truax illuminates the stories of these men and women who are living proof of a complex and sometimes hidden political reality that calls into question what it truly means to be American.
Call Number: JV6483 .T78 2015
187 Reasons Mexicanos Can't Cross the Border, 1971-2007 by Juan Felipe HerreraA hybrid collection of texts written and performed on the road, from Mexico City to San Francisco, from Central America to central California, illustrated throughout with photos and artwork. Rants, manifestos, newspaper cutups, street theater, anti-lectures, love poems, and riffs tell the story of what it's like to live outlaw and brown in the United States. Juan Felipe Herrera is a professor of creative writing at the University of California, Riverside. The author of twenty-one books, he is also a community arts leader and a dynamic performer and actor. He is the son of Mexican immigrants and grew up in the migrant fields of California.