Voices Unheard and Lessons Learned
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“I was feeling inadequate because I could not read or write well. My oldest brother often ran away from home, and my younger brother was always to himself in his room. Our family was falling apart. Sometimes, we had some family members who stayed with us for one reason or another. There was this family friend who was frequently at our house. His name was Carlos and he was twenty years old. It seemed like my mom treated him as her other child. I must have been about eight and a half years old when Carlos used to come to my room and sleep in my bed. He would pretend to read me stories.”
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About the Book
As immigrants, Professor Dahi and her family have had their own share of experiences coming to the US and learning to assimilate while trying to make a good life for themselves. Over the years, Dahi has heard many stories of other migrants and how their lives were before they embarked on their arduous journeys to make it to the US. They had often talked to her about the reasons for their migration, such as the systematic injustices in their own countries, fear of persecution, family situations, or poverty. In this book, Dahi decides to give voices to those people by writing fictionalized stories that represent similar aspects of those experiences and journeys. Professor Dahi highlights the power of education and having a good support system in each of the stories as ways to overcome obstacles and to dream bigger. Even though most characters in these stories face a contradictory reality to their idea of what living in America entails, some of them find ways to assimilate and settle down, and others continue to do whatever it takes to succeed in accomplishing what they had initially set out to do. The author hopes to broaden the reader’s understanding of migrants’ situations and their reasons for choosing to come to America as well as what struggles they must overcome and what difficulties they must endure in order to find better lives for them and their families. Each story in this book is followed with activities that promote vocabulary building, grammar and critical thinking. This reader can be used for language learners and young readers because it compels them to reminisce about their own initiation into a new culture or new life situations in general. In each story, there are lessons to be learned or voices with which to identify.
About the Author
Khetam Dahi is a Professor of ESL and Vice-Chair of the English Department at east Los Angeles College where she has taught since 2007. She has a BA in English Composition, an MA in English Composition with concentration in Teaching English as a Second Language, A certificate in Reading and a certificate in GATE (Gifted and Talented Education). Khetam Dahi is Syrian American and came to the U.S. with her family in 1978 when she was only 13 years old. She was in an ESL program throughout high school, so she understands some of the struggles of second language learners and immigrants in general. She has already published two ESL readers, The Mulberry Tree, and Uprooted, which have been used in some community college ESL programs. Dahi focuses in her books on the immigrant experience and the often ignored voices. Students will be enmeshed in her stories because many can relate to some aspects of each story. Lastly, all three books include activities that promote vocabulary building, grammar and critical thinking. Other books written by Khetam Dahi are: The Mulberry Tree, 2nd Edition, ISBN # - 978-1490770970 Uprooted, 2nd Edition, ISBN # - 978-1490770963