Comments (1)Student Immigrant Stories Anew
The Jewish Museum explores the immigrant experience with a student stories program.
September 25, 2009Barbara Pash
Associate Editor
The three girls are in high school — two juniors and a freshman. The older two come from Togo and Uzbekistan, the younger from Somalia. They tell stories about life in their native countries and their first days in the United States.
In a project that began as a pilot last May and is continuing as a full-fledged project this fall, the Jewish Museum of Maryland is exploring the immigrant experience with students from Patterson High School.
The joint partnership of the museum and the school is being facilitated by Jennifer Rudick Zunikoff, a Jewish storyteller and storytelling coach who worked with the three girls and is now working with another group of 14 students.
Ilene Dackman-Alon, the museum’s program director, said the project grew out of an annual program coordinated by the JMM with a funder whose interest is immigrant issues. The program is being funded by the Frank and Helen Risch Philanthropic Fund at the Associated: Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore, in honor of their parents, Herbert H. and Irma B. Risch.
Over the years, the museum has sponsored different programs dealing with immigration. But a year ago, the idea came up of turning to immigrant students and exploring their stories.
“Other cities are doing this,” said Ms. Dackman-Alon, citing a multi-cultural youth center in Silver Spring that has a similar project. “We want to empower the students to tell their stories, but they are also teaching their peers about the immigrant experience.”
But the challenge was to find the students. Ms. Dackman-Alon turned to the Baltimore City public school system for suggestions and was given the names of middle and high schools that have sizable immigrant populations.
One was East Baltimore’s Patterson High, which agreed to participate. One-fifth of the student population there is immigrants, according to Ms. Dackman-Alon.
“This is the first time we’ve done something like [the project],” said Dianna Ford, chair of Patterson High’s guidance department. Ms. Ford said the school figured it would be good for the students to share their stories.
“We saw it as a cultural exchange,” she said. “It helps the kids to express their feelings and understand that they’re not alone. Others are having a similar experience coming [to the U.S.], especially with the barrier of language.”
The school’s English as a Second Language teacher identified students who qualified for the project and parental consent was obtained. Ms. Zunikoff meets weekly for a 1 1/2-hour session with the students, who come from such countries as El Salvador, Iraq and Nepal, and include two of last spring’s original group.
“Everyone has stories within them. It’s a matter of getting them out,” she said.
Ms. Zunikoff said she uses a visualization technique. “I tell [the students] to see what is in your mind. Describe the image,” she said. “I want the students to have fun with it, even if it’s a serious subject.”
So far, Ms. Zunikoff is scheduled to meet with the students through November, although the project may be extended beyond that time frame.
Last spring’s sessions culminated in a performance by the three girls for the ESOL classes at Patterson. Other performances may result from the current group and Ms. Zunikoff talked about possible shows before different classes at Patterson, perhaps a school-wide assembly and even shows at other schools.
Ms. Dackman-Alon said the three girls in the spring pilot were reluctant at first. They had been in this country from two to five years.
“They were shy. They feel a lot of pressure from the non-immigrant community. They get teased,” she said. “They showed a lot of guts.”
Ms. Zunikoff called the performance “wonderful.” Each spoke for about 20 minutes.
“They gave their recollections of home life, the foods, coming to America, their first night in America, and when they learned enough English so they could converse with someone,” she said. “One girl remembered sitting with her girlfriends picking grapes under an arbor. Another girl remembered that her grandmother took her to dance classes while her mother was working.”
Ms. Dackman-Alon said the museum would be willing to continue the project beyond this school year with other funders.
“For the museum, the goal of the project is to study immigration and how it works today,” said Ms. Dackman-Alon. “It is also important for the immigrants to realize, ‘I have a story and what I have to say is important.’”