The Uprooted: Refugees and The United States

by David M. Donahue, Nancy Flowers, Amnesty International Human Rights Education Steering Committee (With)

Overview

An important curriculum: learning about our country's refugees

Despite the United States' historic role as "Mother of Exiles," most American cannot distinguish between a refugee and an immigrant. At a time when powerful voices are questioning the nation's ability and obligation to accommodate those who have come to the U.S. (between 1975 and 1992 more than 1.7 million refugees were resettled in the United States), this legal and moral distinction becomes imperative.

Refugees do not want to leave their country. The forces that drive them to flee are human rights issues: armed conflict, economic and social injustice, and political persecution. A complex subject like refugees—and how they must be treated—requires education and needs to be approached through many disciplines and thoughtful examinations.

Teaching sensitivity and awareness
Written by members of Amnesty International, this teaching guide offers educators and group leaders information, activities, and strategies for teaching about refugees in the United States. The material is appropriate for any learning setting: schools, adult civic groups, youth organizations, or English as a Second Language (ESL) courses.

The goal of The Uprooted program is to help students examine the plight of refugees by providing information, building empathy, stimulating social action, and exploring different paths toward conflict resolution. Activities have been developed to:

1. Put a human face on facts about political and economic instability, and examine the emotional trauma of flight, loss, and exclusion.
2. Promote informed, critical thinking as a function of U.S. and world citizenship.
3. Affirm a humane concept of justice and look at the responsibility everyone has to respect and protect the rights of others.
4. Help students express themselves with verbal precision and factual accuracy.
5. Show ways to approach other complex global and national issues.

All of the activities can be used independently, and each is accompanied by full background information, ready-to-use handouts (such as flash cards and maps) that can be copied for students or reproduced as overhead transparencies, estimated time needed, and suggestions for further studies and action by students. Also included are a teaching bibliography and filmography, a list of refugee organizations, and resources, and a copy of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.

All royalties from the purchase of this book go to the non-profit organization Amnesty International, and support their ongoing struggle for human rights around the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780897931229
Publisher:	TURNER PUB CO
Publication date:	12/01/1995
Edition description:	1st ed
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 11.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	12 - 17 Years

Table of Contents

	List of Activities	xi
	Preface	xii
Part I	Introduction
	Background	2
	Why Learn about Refugees?
	Goals of This Curriculum
	Using This Curriculum
	Learning about Refugees: An Overview
	Activities
1.	Fact or Fiction? An Introductory Activity	9
Handout 1	Fact or Fiction? Cards
Handout 2	Information Cards
2.	What's the News? A Current-Events and Geography Activity	14
3.	"Three Strikes--You're Out!" An Introduction to Refugee Studies	16
Handout 3	Asylum Application
Handout 4	Where Do They Come From? Where Do They Go?
Handout 5	U.S. Admissions Statistics
Handout 6	Resettlement and Asylum Statistics
4.	Packing Your Suitcase: A Simulation Activity	24
Part II	Refugees and U.S. History
	Background	29
	Historical Overview of Global Refugee Movements
	Refugees in U.S. History
Handout 7	U.S. Immigration and Refugee Policy Timeline
Handout 8	Growth of a Nation: A Historical Perspective on Immigrants and Refugees in the United States
	Activities
5.	Jewish Refugees from Eastern Europe: 1890-1990: Case Studies in Changing Policy and Circumstances	44
Handout 9	Jewish Refugees from Eastern Europe: 1890-1990, Historical Overview
Handout 10	Jewish Refugees from Eastern Europe: 1890-1990, Case Studies
6.	From Exclusion to Acceptance: Restrictions Against Asian Immigrants and Refugees During the Last 150 Years	56
Handout 11	From Exclusion to Acceptance: Restrictions Against Asian Immigrants ...
7.	Getting the Words Right: A Vocabulary Activity Using Immigration and Refugee Terms	64
Handout 12	Getting the Words Right: A Vocabulary Activity...
8.	Interpreting Cartoons: Refugees in the United States as Seen Through Editorial Cartoons	69
Handout 13	Refugees in Political Cartoons
9.	The Numbers Tell the Story: Interpreting Timelines and Charts	74
Handout 14	The Numbers Tell the Story: Interpreting Timelines and Charts
Part III	Refugees and the United States Today
	Background	79
	United States Refugee and Asylum Policy
	Applying for Refugee Status and Asylum in the United States
	Activities
10.	United States Refugee Law: Case Studies of Refugees in the United States	88
Handout 15	Interpreting U.S. Refugee Law (Part 1): The Case of Canas-Segovia ...
Handout 16	Interpreting U.S. Refugee Law (Part 2): The Decision of the Ninth Circuit Court ...
Handout 17	A Well-Founded Fear of Persecution? The Case of Florvil Samedi
11.	You Be the Judge: A Mock Trial to Determine Eligibility for Asylum	98
12.	How Far Should We Open the Door? Judging Criteria for Deciding How Many Refugees to Admit	100
Handout 18	How Far Should We Open the Door?
13.	Are Some More Equal than Others? Evaluating Who Should be Granted Asylum	104
Handout 19	Are Some More Equal that Others?
14.	How Generous Are We? Statistics about Refugee Assistance and Asylum	107
Handout 20	Who's Paying the Bill?
Handout 21	Top Donors to Refugee Relief in 1993
Handout 22	Asylum Cases Filed with U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service Directors
15.	Locking Up Refugees? Practicing and Analyzing Discussion Skills	112
Handout 23	Detention of Persons Seeking Asylum in the United States
16.	Sanctuary and the Law: A Decision-Making Activity	117
Handout 24	The Sanctuary Movement in the United States
Handout 25	A Case of Sanctuary
17.	Crossing the Schoolhouse Border: Determining Responsibility for Helping Refugees Adjust to a New School	125
Handout 26	Voices of Refugee Schoolchildren
Handout 27	My Story by "Rebeca Rivera"
18.	Calculating the Escape	132
Handout 28	Human Rights Abuses in Haiti
Handout 29	Calculating the Escape: Problems
19.	Using the Movie El Norte in the Classroom: Discussion Questions and Suggested Activities	141
Part IV	Refugees and Your Community
	Background	145
	Refugees in Your Community
	Organizations Working for Refugees
	Activities
20.	Refugees in Your Community: A Cooperative Fact-Finding Activity	151
Handout 30	Refugees in Your Community: Assessing What You Already Know
Handout 31	Refugees in Your Community: Verifying and Expanding Your Information
Handout 32	Refugees in Your Community: Compiling Your Investigation Results
21.	You Can Do More: Activities Involving Refugees in Your Community	162
22.	The Power of the Pen: A Letter-Writing Activity	165
Handout 33	Writing Letters that Have an Effect
Handout 34	Facts for Letter Writing
Part V	Appendices
A.	Immigration and Refugee Terms	172
B.	Refugees and the United States: A Teaching Bibliography	175
C.	Refugee Filmography	181
D.	Directory of Refugee Resources	186
E.	The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
	Official Version
	Colloquial Version	198
	Index	205

Editorial Reviews

"This exciting new book is a welcome addition to the field of youth education. It comes at a time when refugees are daily in the news and when anti-immigrant sentiment is fueled by misinformation and myth. The book is an easy-to-use set of curriculum materials describing the historical and current treatment of refugee issues....No other single resource is as comprehensive." —Nancy D. Arnison, Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights.

From the Publisher

This multidisciplinary instructional guide is geared toward students from middle school to adulthood. In the beginning, refugees are clearly distinguished from immigrants as people forced to flee their homeland because of race, religion, or politics. The text is divided into five major parts, with the introduction for each section serving as background information that is further supplemented with various recommended activities. Most useful are the appendixes, which list terminology, refugee organizations, and resources. While there are illustrations, most feature Asian refugees, giving the book a sense of imbalance. Recommended for informed lay readers at large public libraries.-Samuel T. Huang, Northern Illinois Univ. Libs., DeKalb

Library Journal