Youth on the Move:
Essays from New Pennsylvanians
Since 2004, the Welcoming Center’s Bridging Cultures program has offered mentoring and tutoring services to immigrant students at South Philadelphia High School. An important part of students’ integration into American life is learning to tell their own stories.
On January 27, 2007, at 2 p.m., students will read from their works at a One Book, One Philadelphia event at South Philadelphia Library. (Contact us at 215-557-2626 for more information.)
Take a sneak peek now at some of their remarkable essays!
Finding My Voice in English (Anonymous)
Leaving My Homeland to Come to a Foreign Country
(Nan Liu)
A Voice From An Immigrant (Chunyan Li Taishan)
Starting School in America (Pryscilla Marshia Dechaviony)
More information about Bridging Cultures
Who is a Bridging Cultures student?
The students we serve hail from every major continent. They come to the U.S. for reasons as different as escaping political persecution and chasing the dream of opportunity. But one commonality among most young immigrants is that they themselves did not choose to come here. Their parents or guardians did – and students often unwillingly left a school and classmates behind.
At a time in these young people’s lives where peer groups take center-stage importance, they must say goodbye to childhood friends and close cousins, neighborhood communities and favorite teachers. And as youth, they may lack coping skills that are gained by life experience and which would help them to make a successful and smooth transition.
When Life Changes Overnight
What a hard thing it is for a teenager to eat different food, find that they have to repeat two grades due to a gap in schooling, or discover that their social position has vastly changed!
Bridging Cultures students begin their day walking through a metal detector at in an inner-city school, and end their day late at night working for a relative in a restaurant, caring for a younger family member, or moonlighting in a factory. Some teens are the primary breadwinners for the family, and many act as their parents’ translator. Many teens are unable to study full time due to their obligation to contribute to the family income.
The challenges that face these students are indeed intimidating: They must learn a new language, learn it well, go to school, help the family economically, bridge the cultural gap between their more traditional parents and American cultural norms.
Most importantly, they must somehow define who they are as individuals while the whole foundation that has supported them is shifting. It is during these formative yet unclear years these students launch themselves into the American landscape.
For more information about Bridging Cultures, please contact Jennifer Chiu at 215-557-2589.
Did You Know...
The Social Security Administration estimates that undocumented immigrants contribute between $6 and $7 Billion in Social Security taxes that they will never be able to claim.
