Our Beautiful Homelands as Told in Self Portraits by Global Youth is forthcoming in
September right on time for the start of school. This follows Chin Music’s publication of We Are the Future: Poems with A Voice for Peace (2020) and the Skipping Stones
Magazine award winning anthology The Voice of My Heart: Unforgettable Memories in an Unforgettable Year (2022).
This beautiful, full color book was created this spring by the students in a Multilanguage Learners class at Foster High School. Most the young people in the group are newcomers, having been in the U.S. for less than a year. These young refugees, immigrants, and asylum seekers created their own self-portraits in celebration and honor of their unique individual and cultural identities. Using their very new skills as English Language Learners, they wrote their own artist statements and poetry.
At this time, when the domestic asylum law and the U.S. obligation under the Refugee Convention are under dire threat with new border policies, this book becomes all the more meaningful and important in the ways it reflects the humanity and the dreams of each young person who contributed his or her art and poetry to create the book.
 
Multilingual Education, Young Adult School Poetry, Integrated Arts Education