The newcomers : finding refuge, friendship, and hope in an American classroom / Helen Thorpe.
Publisher: New York : Scribner, 2017Edition: First Scribner hardcover editionDescription: xv, 396 pages ; 24 cmContent type:- text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9781501159091
- 1501159097
- Teenage immigrants -- Education (Secondary) -- Colorado -- Denver
- Teenage refugees -- Education (Secondary) -- Colorado -- Denver
- English language -- Study and teaching -- Foreign speakers
- Teenage immigrants -- Colorado -- Denver
- Teenage refugees -- Colorado -- Denver
- Americanization
- EDUCATION / Multicultural Education
- FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDY / English as a Second Language
- SOCIAL SCIENCE / Emigration & Immigration
- English language -- Study and teaching -- Foreign speakers
- 373.1826/9120978883 23
- LC3732.C6 T56 2017
Item type | Current library | Home library | Collection | Shelving location | Call number | Copy number | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Book | Cherry Hill Public Library | Cherry Hill Public Library | Non-fiction | Non-Fiction Collection | 373.1826 THO (Browse shelf(Opens below)) | 1 | Available | 33407004422513 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
"A delicate and heartbreaking mystery story...Thorpe's book is a reminder that in an era of nativism, some Americans are still breaking down walls and nurturing newcomers, the seeds of the great American experiment." -- The New York Times Book Review
"The teens we meet have endured things none of us can imagine...and [this book has] never been more crucial than at this moment." -- USA TODAY
"Helen Thorpe has taken policy and turned it into literature." --Malcolm Gladwell
From the award-winning, "meticulously observant" author of Soldier Girls and Just Like Us comes a powerful and moving account of how refugee teenagers at a public high school learn English and become Americans, in the care of a compassionate teacher.
The Newcomers follows the lives of twenty-two immigrant teenagers throughout the course of the 2015-2016 school year as they land at South High School in Denver, Colorado. These newcomers, from fourteen to nineteen years old, come from nations convulsed by drought or famine or war. Many come directly from refugee camps, after experiencing dire forms of cataclysm. Some arrive alone, having left or lost every other member of their original family.
At the center of their story is Mr. Williams, their dedicated and endlessly resourceful teacher of English Language Acquisition. If Mr. Williams does his job right, the newcomers will leave his class at the end of the school year with basic English skills and new confidence, their foundation for becoming Americans and finding a place in their new home. Ultimately, " The Newcomers reads more like an anthropologist's notebook than a work of reportage: Helen Thorpe not only observes, she chips in her two cents and participates. Like her, we're moved and agitated by this story of refugee teenagers...Donald Trump's gross slander of refugees and immigrants is countered on every page by the evidence of these students' lives and characters" ( Los Angeles Review of Books ).
With the US at a political crossroads around questions of immigration, multiculturalism, and America's role on the global stage, Thorpe presents a fresh and nuanced perspective. The Newcomers is "not only an intimate look at lives immigrant teens live, but it is a primer on the art and science of new language acquisition and a portrait of ongoing and emerging global horrors and the human fallout that arrives on our shores" ( USA TODAY).
Follows the lives of twenty-two immigrant teenagers from nations devastated by drought or famine or war, over the course of their first school year in America. The talented and endlessly resourceful Denver South High School teacher Mr. Eddie Williams welcomes these students, who speak fourteen different languages but no English and are completely unfamiliar with American culture, to his specially created English Language Acquisition class. He guides them through the enormous challenges of gaining basic English skills, adapting to life in the developed world, and coping with the usual pangs of adolescence. Together their class represents a microcosm of the global refugee crisis, and highlights the moral issues of immigration, inclusion, and America's role on the global stage.
Table of contents provided by Syndetics
- The Newcomers and Those Who Welcomed Them (p. xiii)
- Author's Note (p. xv)
- Part I Fall
- 1 Nice to Meet You (p. 3)
- 2 The Chair Is Short (p. 18)
- 3 Smile (p. 36)
- 4 Do You Want a Pencil? (p. 44)
- 5 Have You Seen War? (p. 59)
- 6 Bonita (p. 70)
- 7 Does She Know Jesus? (p. 87)
- Part II Winter
- 1 Delicious Stick of Butter (p. 109)
- 2 The Realist (p. 131)
- 3 What Five Times (or, "I Work My Ass Off") (p. 147)
- 4 Our Souls at Night (p. 165)
- Part III Spring
- 1 Well-Taped Boxes (p. 183)
- 2 We Hate Sheep (p. 203)
- 3 Wir schaffen das (p. 219)
- 4 Silly One (p. 233)
- 5 Qalb (p. 249)
- 6 Busy, Busy, Busy (p. 269)
- 7 Miss, I Have Nerves (p. 290)
- Part IV Summer
- 1 Heal Africa (p. 327)
- Part V Fall
- 1 Careless Driving (p. 357)
- 2 What Is Resolution? (p. 374)
- Acknowledgments (p. 393)
Excerpt provided by Syndetics
Reviews provided by Syndetics
Library Journal Review
There are millions of refugees in the world today, displaced by conflict and famine. Many seek a new life in the United States. For the school year 2015-16, journalist Thorpe volunteered in the newcomers' classroom at Denver's South High School. She chronicled her observations of the dedicated teachers and administrators and of the students who came from a dozen countries, including Mexico, Nicaragua, Eritrea, -Mozambique, Congo, Syria, Iraq, Tajikistan, and Burma. She met the students' parents and interviewed the caseworkers from the social agencies working with resettlement. Thorpe describes the challenges of adapting to contemporary U.S. culture, both in school (homecoming and pep rallies) and out of school (rent subsidies, buying a car, paying bills). Some of the newcomers picked up English quickly and progressed to advanced classes. Thorpe followed up on the school year with a summer trip to Congo, where she met the relatives of two of the South High students. The experience was life-changing for Thorpe. She writes that "working with these students helps you find your humanity. They fill our hearts with hope, not fear." The narration by Kate Handford is excellent. She refrains from "foreign" accents and reads in a straight-forward manner. VERDICT This is an important and timely book; highly recommended. ["Highly recommended for readers hoping to learn more about the refugee experience in the United States. A heartfelt examination of student and family life that speaks to the human experience": LJ 1/18 review of the Scribner hc.]-Nann Blaine Hilyard, Winthrop Harbor, IL © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.Publishers Weekly Review
The latest work of narrative nonfiction from Thorpe (Soldier Girls) brings readers face to face with the global refugee crisis through the story of a Denver English-acquisition class composed of teenage refugees from all over the world. Set against the backdrop of Donald Trump's presidential campaign, the book follows the 21 students over the course of the school year-for many, their first months in America-as they adapt to their new lives and grow comfortable in the classroom. Their heartening stories of learning English are interspersed with comical mistranslations of American customs (the concept of a haunted house fails to track with some students who can't get past why anyone would want to make his or her house look terrifying) as well as the harsh reality of what it means to be a migrant and the difficulties of acquiring a language. Thorpe provides a layered portrait of the students and explains the daunting refugee crisis in America and elsewhere. Many of the students have harrowing stories, such those of Jakleen and Mariam, two Iraqi sisters who moved to Syria after their father disappeared, only to be forced to relocate again to Turkey and then the United States. In their new lives, the sisters form friendships with other students across language barriers, date other students, play soccer matches, and act in a play about Cesar Chavez. Along the way, Thorpe tackles the systemic issues resettlement programs face, as well as the Western world's role in creating the crisis. Thorpe puts an agonizingly human face on a vast global problem. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.Booklist Review
The students in Room 142 are unlike most others at Denver's South High School. It is to this room that the students who know the least English are sent, students who fled countries torn by war and strife. As Thorpe follows the young people of Room 142 through an academic year at the thriving school, she comes to learn their stories and, through them, see the larger narrative of refugees in America. Thorpe puts you in the classroom with the students, who come from places such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar (Burma), and Iraq, as they grapple with an unfamiliar language and culture and slowly emerge from their silence. She discovers the unimaginable hardships they have endured in their young lives bombings, refugee camps, bullet-riddled homes and gets to know a handful of the families trying to build a new life from nothing. Set during the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, The Newcomers is an extensive, riveting account that presents the manifold challenges of the refugee crisis through the microcosm of one classroom.--Thoreson, Bridget Copyright 2017 BooklistKirkus Book Review
Personal stories of child refugees as they integrate into American society.Focusing on one classroom in South High School in Denver, Colorado, Thorpe (Soldier Girls: The Battles of Three Women at Home and at War, 2014, etc.) dives deep into the lives of 22 students, all refugees, who were just some of the many who enrolled in South High School's newcomer class, a basic English acquisition class taught by kindhearted Eddie Williams. The students came from the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, running from civil war, extreme persecution, drought, famine, and a variety of other atrocities. As in her previous books, Thorpe writes with great compassion, and she demonstrates a profound understanding of how difficult it must have been for these children to leave everything they'd ever known and move to a foreign country where the language, customs, and culture were so vastly different. She shares Williams' methodology, which allows these boys and girls to cast aside their fears and bond with one another and their teacher, all while gaining a basic understanding of the English language. Thorpe also includes information on the general refugee situation in the U.S., discussing the various needs that must be provided for these newcomers and their families, including adequate clothing, housing, and money for apartment rentals, as well as job training and integration into the work force. She is candid about the occasional difficulties using an interpreter to learn each student's personal story and how some children refused to discuss aspects of their long journeys to the U.S., a decision she respected despite her innate curiosity. Interviewing these young adults enhanced Thorpe's understanding of the world, and reading her story will entertain and enlighten readers, creating a wider, more sympathetic view of the world and its inhabitantscertainly something we need right now. Humane and informative stories about refugees and their plights in America. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.There are no comments on this title.