I Learn America is a national multifaceted storytelling/making project giving migrant youth and their peers the opportunity to write, produce/create, and activate their stories from their own perspectives on their own terms, while giving their communities the opportunity to listen, learn, and embrace youth for who they are.
Our schools and communities are meeting a growing influx of students who speak little to no English, who are new to American culture, and, in some cases, who lack formal education. The fate of these young immigrants is at the core of America’s continually emerging identity.
Efforts to educate and integrate young immigrants across the country are limited, especially in neighborhoods and regions where demographics have changed dramatically in recent years. Communities are generally ill equipped to serve immigrant youth. Schools lack the resources and understanding to meet the needs of new immigrant youth. The traditional paradigm relegates them to the sidelines. Yet, it is through interactions with their new “receiving” communities (from classmates, peers, teachers, coaches, employers, parishioners, social services providers, families…) that the children of immigration shape their identities and determine (and define) where they belong in the reality and imagination of their new culture. Schools and communities can offer the first chance for sustained and meaningful participation in a new society.
With 25 percent of our students in school from immigrant families, I Learn America creatively helps youth, educators, and communities promote connections and increase understanding, while addressing the urgent issues impacting migrant youth. Using an assets-based Freirian model, I Learn America gets youth to tap into their own strengths (resilience, cultural pride, strong familial ties, life experiences) and wrestle with challenges (learning a new language, trauma of the journey, loss of family and friends, xenophobia in the US) which have shaped their experiences of migrating to a new country. Using film and storytelling as powerful levers for both personal and societal change, I Learn America empowers young people to engage with unique yet universal narratives of forging a new identity and coming of age both within and in-between cultures. We aim to get youth to engage their schools and communities to fully harness their life experience as educational assets and cultural capital. The children of migration should not be issues in American life, but rather our windows on the world.
To reach our goals with use the power of storytelling/making to get our partnered youth to tap into their own life shaping experience of migrating to a new country, building oneself in a new language and coming of age in between cultures – the personal yet universal narratives of the teenagers and young adults we work with, by promoting connection and understanding, can be powerful levers for both personal and societal change.
Learn More: https://www.ilearnamerica.com/