Celebrating our Heritage

Our school is beautifully diverse and we celebrate this every November with an International Night.  I like to celebrate in some way in our library as well.  Last year's celebration included reading Yuyi Morales' Dreamers, and virtual traveling with Legos and green screens.  This year, I was inspired by Yamile Saied Mendez's Where Are You From?

This made for an ideal read for me because

1.  It is about a young girl with big questions, much like many of my students.
2.  Identify and belonging drive the story which felt so natural to read as we celebrate our heritage.
3.  The poetic use of language made it an exquisite read.   

We lingered over the word choice.

I read this page slowly, deliberately.  There is no other way to read it.

We finished and students asked, "But WHERE is she from?"  After reading more about the author, we decided that perhaps the girl in the story was just like the author, from Rosario, Argentina.  I asked if anyone was from Argentina.  No one was, but students started sharing how they had something in common with her, in that where THEY were from, they spoke Spanish too. 

I used this opportunity to cycle back to our "books as mirrors and windows" conversations of the last few weeks.  We talked about how this book feels like a "window" book because we aren't from the same country, but maybe it has a little "mirror" feel to it because like many of our students, the girl in our story is from another country and she has many questions about where she is from and how she fits in.

Next, students moved through several choices of activities:

Students draw the flags of their countries

Students explore books about different countries

Books like these were available but weren't a top pick.

We returned to the rug for a wrap-up and I offered students an opportunity to share where they are from.  

My takeaways

I was short on time this year.  We got wrapped up in other fabulous conversations and I didn't leave us enough time to really dig in to our heritage, but I couldn't let this opportunity pass me by.  This book served as a great conversation starter.  Students were so proud to share where they were from.  I was concerned that students like myself (who claim the United States as "home") might feel isolated by this activity, but they proudly drew their American flag and we had a conversation about how ultimately, we are ALL from another country (more than likely, several).   The social nature of the activities (writing on a shared paper and working from large tables) always generates conversation.