Isaias’ Story: The Struggles and Dilemmas Facing Children of Immigrants
Isaias Ramos (second from left) walks with his friends in Memphis, TN. (Photo courtesy of Daniel Connolly)
In the midst of all the rancor surrounding the debate over immigration – reaching new heights of vitriol and divisiveness in the 2016 presidential campaign season – it may be easy to forget that communities across the country, especially in their public schools, are working with many undocumented families to try to forge some path of success for their children.
Educators at Kingsbury High School in Memphis, TN., never saw Isaias Ramos as a “problem” or a “statistic” – he’s just one of the best students they ever taught. Isaias‘ family came to this country in 2003 from Hidalgo, Mexico and settled in Memphis, where his parents would set up a small house-painting business. Isaias excelled at school, and in 2012, as he prepared for his senior year, he met Daniel Connolly, a reporter with the Memphis Commercial Appeal. Connolly, who had been covering immigration from Mexico to the American south for a decade, wanted to take a closer look at the lives of immigrant children. With the blessing of Isaias and his family and school administrators, Connolly spent the 2012-13 school year embedded in Kingsbury, tracking Isaias and some of his classmates as they navigated their way through the difficult senior year, and the educators who intervened to help them make the right choices about their future.
What began as an award-winning multimedia project for the Commercial Appealevolved into “The Book of Isaias: A Child of Hispanic Immigrants Seeks His Own America,” published in October by St. Martins Press. Connolly recently spoke with NEA Today about how the story of one teenager and his classmates illustrates how Isaias' Story: The Struggles and Dilemmas Facing Children of Immigrants:
