Michele LeNoir

Hear Our Voices! by Michele LeNoir

Hear Our Voices! shout fascinating, young adult refugee immigrants who struggle, albeit with humor and gratitude, to acclimate to the USA.

You could read Homeland Security’s annual yearbook–pages of statistics–stats per foreign country, for each state’s intakes, for human trafficking victims, and more! But no human faces, no stories. No worries; I gotcha with A-Z chapter “Voices.” Like Voice O: Oo Meh, who wandered her family’s small, dank apartment, confused by no elevator. Don’t all Americans have elevators? And Voice F: Frederic Ndayirukiye, now mentored by a well-known artist, whose father allows him to go to college, as long as he works thirty-six hours in the factory to help pay bills. And Voice Y: EstefannY Hernandez, who tells how she was rescued from human trafficking in Mexico and became a proud legal citizen.

But this born-in-the-USA woman to tell their stories? Well, yes. They first shouted them out to me as their teacher and to one another in a dual-credit speech course in an international high school. Now graduated, they still share their stories, their goals, their needs. And I still teach them–some how to drive, some how to survive college on ZERO family savings. Think of this nonfiction book of 91,500 words as a condensed telling of the many immigrant stories available, like Lauren Markham’s The Brothers Far Away and Abdi Nor Iftin’s Call Me American.

Hear Our Voices! They shout; I shout; you will shout once you know more.

Oh, and yes, there are some pictures.


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