Kids Like Me: Voices of the Immigrant Experience (Paperback)

by Judith M. Blohm (Author), Terri Lapinsky (Author)
Key Phrases: section linking, secular country, United States, Activities Some, French Guyana (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
As our neighborhoods grow more diverse, a splendid variety of cultures, values and traditions become an important part of our classrooms and schools. In Kids Like Me,26 personal narratives celebrate the experience of young people making a new home in a strange community—finding common ground as they make new friends, learn a different language, and share their unique cultural identities. Kids Like Me provides a personal backdrop to the important themes of cultures and customs, immigration and citizenship, and learning to appreciate differences.

While written to help youth understand their classmates and friends, Kids Like Me also includes discussion questions, self-directed activities and research ideas for teachers and families that can be used in classrooms, clubs and community settings. Richly illustrated with photos and maps of each home country, the text presents countless opportunities to explore and understand new cultures and new friends. Young people who have come from places all over the world share their stories and invite their new neighbors to see that in so many ways these kids are just like me.

From the Publisher
"Kids Like Me: Voices of the Immigrant Experience provides a valuable resource for educators, volunteers, staff of youth organizations and parents of young people attending schools with the "kids" whose profiles are so sensitively shared. Globalization's young faces and voices come alive in Kids Like Me."

—Frances Hesselbein, former National Executive Director of the Girl Scouts of the USA and Chairman of Leader to Leader Institute

"Kids Like Me: Voices of the Immigrant Experience is at once a delightful, timely, and very serious contribution to intercultural relations by two of the field’s most experienced practitioners. Judee Blohm and Terri Lapinsky offer a creative, compassionate, informative, and ultimately very practical treatment of a topic that is already huge in its implications and only continues to grow in significance. Teachers, students, and interculturalists alike will benefit from this fine book."

—David J. Bachner, Ph.D., Scholar-in-Residence and Director, Intercultural Management Institute, School of International Service, American University

"This book is about understanding from the heart, understanding how being "the other" feels, and helping people who have never experienced that "otherness" to feel what being different feels like – to feel the pain of being ostracized or being made to feel different, as well as the gratitude and wonderment of coming to a new place and being welcomed, accepted, and loved. Your book gives teachers meaningful and accessible ways to help them explore these complex themes with their students, to help them recognize the pain inflicted by racism as well as recognize opportunities for kindness, and valuing diversity."

—Elizabeth Macdonald, Director of the Writing Enhancement Program, Thunderbird, the Garvin School of International Management.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 296 pages
• Publisher: Intercultural Press (March 15, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 193193021X
• ISBN-13: 978-1931930215
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #217,332 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Resource!, March 14, 2007

By	Barbara K. Mikk "Barbara Kappler Mikk" (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

"Kids Like Me: Voices of the Immigrant Experience" offers the reader rich and easy access to immigrant youths' encounters with the United States. The first person narration engages and challenges us to understand the enormous range of experiences families and kids have as they are forced to flee their homes or even when they willingly make an international move. The end result is that readers are bound to be open to and to develop a respect for the challenges these youth have faced. Educators and the general public can gain enormous insights from reading the book and from the straight forward questions at the end of each essay. Classroom teachers can benefit from the broad range of activities that follow the 26 narratives. I strongly recommend this book for all ~ especially those working directly with youth in our schools and other organizations.

Barbara Kappler, Ph.D.
Assistant Director
International Student & Scholar Services
University of Minnesota

4.0 out of 5 stars Timely educational tool, July 9, 2006

By	George F. Simons "at diversophy.com" (Mandelieu Napoule, Cote d'Azur, France) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

At a time when immigration is being debated hotly on both sides of the Atlantic, Judith Blohm and Terri Lapinsky have provided a timely tool for educating US children about each other--and in the process, teachers, parents and other members of society.

Kids Like Me consists of two parts. First there are 26 four or five-page personal stories told by immigrant kids who are growing up or are just becoming young adults in the USA. They tell about such things as their names, where they are from, what cultural customs, values, behaviors even feasts and foods that they and their families brought with them to the USA, More importantly they also tell about the challenges of fitting into a new culture and a new society and both the painful and glorious moments of their integration. This is true both of the immigrant children who come from positions of social privilege as well as those who arrived on US shores as refugees or even as children of illegal immigrants.

Blohm and Lapinsky take nothing for granted in processing the stories. Each story is followed by half a dozen or so questions that encourage the student to understand words and features of the story that are not immediately apparent to those who have not shared this immigration experience. Then there are a couple of research assignments that round out the background or context of the kids' stories. These may be historical, geographical or about cultural customs and send the student to the books or to the Internet to find and discuss the answers. Finally there are activities related to the stories which send the learner to the resources in Part Two of the book.

Part Two of the book is entitled, "Activities and Resources," but it is in fact much more than that. It is a basic course in intercultural communication and living, brought directly to the level of the student. This facilitates the teacher's task of giving the bigger perspective in bite-sized and digestible form. Activities are also analyzed for how they fit with various audiences in school or community. Far from being academic, the lessons of Part Two are reinforced by useful exercises and discussion of the actualities of immigration, refugee status, and the various ways that newcomers can be welcomed and integrated into their local society.

Finally there is an ample and up-to-date collection of resources in the form of organizational contacts, printed and online materials,

The author's agenda is large but feasible. As addressed in the introduction the program of this book is an antidote to harmful stereotyping and provides tools to teacher, parents and others who are willing to both learn with and from the "kids" in their multicultural world. There is enough here both in terms of content and challenges to keep the book's users busy for many months.

The key to the success of the book is the guidance it offers us about encountering real people, and working our way through the inevitable stereotypes and myths that surround difference. Linking the classroom and the community means that this is a source of social education in the best sense of not just providing information but inviting social engagement in a way that education needs much more of. The authors are to be congratulated for their mastery of the dynamics of interculturality and their ability to take them to the level where they can be understood and put into practice by children, parents and teachers