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This text set considers the question of what it means to think about migration as a human right, as defined by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It explores this idea through the five guiding questions below.

The resources in this text set are intended for use in an upper elementary classroom.  There are resources in English and some in Spanish.

They are organized by type of resource and labeled based on the guiding question they relate to.

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Julia Moves to the United States by Sean McCollum

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Julia Moves to the United States by Sean McCollum

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A short text, also available as audio, that asks students to imagine being an immigrant and tells the story of author Julia Alvarez.
Age: 5-11
Guiding Question: Return/Imagine/Leave

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Close your eyes for just a minute. Take a deep breath and turn on your imaginations.

Imagine that you are going on a trip with your family - a big trip. Maybe you're getting into a car, or onto a boat, bus or plane.

Don't forget to buckle your seatbelt!

Now you start moving over the water, on the highway or through the air. You travel a long, long way. It takes hours, maybe days, but finally you arrive. You are in a completely new place. The food smells and tastes different from anything you've eaten before. People dress in clothes you've never seen.

The kids you meet on the playground speak a different language than you. Their words mean nothing to you. More than anything, you want to talk to them, to make new friends, but they don't understand what you're saying, either.

Imagine how you might feel being that new kid in that new place. Now open your eyes. Julia Alvarez was a little girl the second time her family moved to the United States. People, like Julia's parents, who move to another country to start a new life are called immigrants. They often experience the same feelings you just imagined.

Julia was born in New York City. Her parents, however, were from a country called the Dominican Republic. When Julia was still a baby, her family moved back to that warm, sunny country. Each summer, Julia's family shared a big beach house in the Dominican Republic with her aunts, uncles and cousins. There, Julia played with her three sisters and many cousins, laughing loudly and shouting to each other in Spanish. Julia enjoyed having fun, making mischief and making up stories.

The Dominican Republic, though, was an unsafe place at the time. Julia's father was in danger, and he decided the family should escape. When Julia was 10 years old, they flew back to New York to start a new life.

At first, Julia was very excited to return to where she had been born. But being an immigrant in a new land was harder than she ever imagined. Her family was only able to bring a few suitcases of clothes. Everything else had to stay behind. At first, they had to squeeze six people into a small apartment instead of living in a large house. Julia missed her cousins, and her big, happy family. The cold winter made her skin dry and cracked.

School was hard, too. Julia knew some English, but her new classmates spoke so fast. She struggled to understand them. Bullies yelled at her. "Go back where you came from!" They threw rocks at her and teased her about her accent - the way she spoke. At one school, the teachers punished Julia when they heard her speak Spanish. Kids made fun of her frilly dresses and dark curly hair. They turned up their noses at the spicy, garlicky food in her lunch box.

The teasing hurt Julia's feelings, and she grew quiet and shy. When she wanted to get away from her unhappiness, she escaped between the covers of books. Those stories took Julia's imagination to wonderful and exciting places. Figuring out new words helped her English get better and better.

Julia changed to fit in and make friends. She tried to hide that she was an immigrant so other kids wouldn't make fun of her. She only spoke English outside of her home. She fixed her hair to make it straight, not curly. She and her sisters did everything they could to behave like they thought American girls were supposed to behave.

There was one place, however, where Julia felt she could be her true self - in her writing. As she grew older, instead of just reading stories, she began to write them. At first, she tried to write like famous American writers, most of them white men writers. But her life experience gave her a different way of seeing the world. As a young woman, she also made new friends with other Latinas - women from Latin American countries like the Dominican Republic, Chile, Argentina and Colombia. She felt excited about bringing her past to life using words. She started writing more about the Dominican Republic and her childhood.She wrote stories mostly in English and sprinkled with Spanish words.

Today, Julia Alvarez is a famous author. She calls herself a "Dominican-American writer" and writes poems, books and stories, some of them for children. In her writing, she tells what it is like to be an immigrant in the United States, how it is both amazing and very hard. She wants to help readers see that no matter where we come from, what languages we speak or what we look like, we all belong. We have the wonderful chance to learn together, understand each other, and be kind and helpful to each other.

1. Why does the author ask you to close your eyes and imagine things like traveling a far distance and that no one eats, speaks or dresses the same way as you once you get there?

He does this because he wants you to think about how Julia Alvarez must have felt.

2. Reread paragraph eight.
How was Julia different from her classmates?

She didn't know a lot of English and had a hard time understanding it. She had an accent. She spoke Spanish. She
wore frilly dresses. She had dark, curly hair. She ate spicy, garlicky food.

3. Reread the second-to-last paragraph.
What does the author mean by the phrase, "true self"?

Julia didn't have to pretend to be anyone else. She could be herself, who she truly or really was inside.

4. What does Julia Alvarez want people who read her stories to understand?

That we all belong, no matter our differences. And we have a great opportunity to learn from one another,
understand one another, be kind to one another and help one another.

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Sean McCollum gives an account of writer Julia Alvarez's move to the United States from the Dominican Republic as a young girl. Although Alvarez struggled to fit in in this unfamiliar place, she finally found a comfortable niche in her writing.

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Read Carta del norte by Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen on Issuu and browse thousands of other publications on our platform. Start here!

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Carta de un padre a su hijo en la que explica su decisión de emigrar y describe su viaje. También se incluyen recursos adicionales para el profesor y planes de clase.
Age: 10-14
Guiding Question: Stay/Leave

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Document details

More from

Carta Del Norte

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Con esta publicación, el Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen inicia el Programa Memoria de la Migración, estableciendo un espacio didáctico de información y reflexión que facilite a escolares y comunidades la comprensión integral del fenómeno migratorio.

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Con esta publicación, el Museo de la Palabra y la Imagen inicia el Programa Memoria de la Migración, estableciendo un espacio didáctico de información y reflexión que facilite a escolares y comunidades la comprensión integral del fenómeno migratorio.

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All the Stars Denied by Guadalupe García McCall

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All the Stars Denied by Guadalupe García McCall

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A historical fiction about a girl and her family who are deported, despite being US citizens, during the Repatriation in the 1930s.
Age: 12-17
Guiding Question: Return

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Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration by Bryan Caplan and Zach Weinersmith

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Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration by Bryan Caplan and Zach Weinersmith

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A graphic nonfiction that makes the case, based on an economic argument and extensive research, for opening all borders.
Age: 13-17
Guiding Question: Imagine

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A collection of 12 short stories about a boy and his family's journey to establish a new life in the US in 1947 after migrating from Mexico.
Age: 10-13
Guiding Question: Leave

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Spanish is the Language of my Family by Michael Genhart and John Parra 

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Spanish is the Language of my Family by Michael Genhart and John Parra 

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A picture book about the history of the National Spanish Spelling Bee, the history of English only in school and the value of Spanish as a heritage language. Uses Spanglish throughout and highlights many empowering words.
Age: 4-8
Guiding Question: Stay

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Sophie Cruz, age 6, spoke at the Women's March in 2017 with her undocumented parents. A bilingual call for action and resistance: "We are here together making a chain of love to protect our families. Let us fight with love, faith and courage so our families will not be destroyed!"
Guiding Question: Leave

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Sophie Cruz at the Women's March on Washington | Define American

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Vwayaj 2019! | By Jean Appolon Expressions (JAE) | Facebook

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Clips from a performance of Vwayaj

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JAE, Jean and the dancers have poured their talent, passion and resources into putting on these performances! Vwayaj 2019! | By Jean Appolon Expressions (JAE) | Facebook

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JAE, Jean and the dancers have poured their talent, passion and resources into putting on these performances! Vwayaj 2019!

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Highlights from the performance with voice over about the process

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Jean Appolon Expressions: Vwayaj Highlights 2018

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Vwayaj - Jean Appolon Expressions - Information & Image Gallery

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Vwayaj is an interdisciplinary production that considers immigration from a specifically Haitian perspective and speaks to universal themes. The Jean Appolon Expressions dance company partnered with Edwidge Danticat, Val Jeanty and the community to collect and incorporate oral histories into the performance.
Guiding Question: Leave

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The Story

In Haitian Kreyòl the word "Lakou" carries multiple meanings: It is the backyard, the land passed down through generations, the gathering place for shared meals, for dancing, singing, worship or passionate debate. "Lakou" can also mean home, or the idea of home, the place that calls us back not just to sacred ground, but to a sense of belonging without which we are not whole.

The forces that drive Haiti's reality - of neighboring countries in conflict, of sprouting tent cities and uprooted diasporas, of enforced borders and unforgiving natural disaster - echo and ricochet around the world. Across the European and African continents, along Turkish waters and stretches of Mexican desert, we are bearing witness to the experience to the loss of "lakou," and treacherous journeys in which many are swallowed, and those who slip through face not only economic survival but a psychic void that is both collective and deeply personal.

VWAYAJ is an interdisciplinary production that meditates on the "lakou" and its loss in the Haitian imagination in a way that also speaks to a universal condition. Where can we find belonging? Where is home? Does it exist in the rhythms of Rara music and the undulating arms of Yanvalou?

The lead artists in VWAYAJ worked with MacArthur Genius Fellow and award-winning Haitian-American author Edwidge Danticat as a collaborator and advisor to create the narrative that underpins and drives the production. Danticat worked with the artists to knit together stories of migration, immigration and home as recordings that are a part of the production's soundscape created by electronic music artist Val Jeanty. An important touchstone in the production's narrative is Jean Appolon's own immigration story, as well as those of Haitian immigrants living in Boston. VWAYAJ's development included a community outreach component with Boston social service organizations serving Haitian immigrants. These community members participated in master classes and conversations with Jean Appolon, and were invited to production rehearsals and performances.

"To me, Vwayaj felt like poetry in motion, bringing back and soothing the memories of adversities and victories in my biography as a Haitian immigrant to the U.S. Vwayaj also felt like a spiritual journey on wings of love, courage and beauty. I think it's a must-see for each of us who has experienced migration - and who, as such, is often seen as "other." In the midst of today's virulent anti-immigrant campaigns, Vwayaj welcomes us in our new country - our new homes - and invites us to dissolve boundaries, so we can build and share community together."

- Michel DeGraff, Professor, MIT Linguistics; Founder & Director, MIT-Haiti Initiative; Founding Member, Akademi Kreyòl Ayisyen

"Vwayaj speaks compellingly of our many journeys, both internal and external, many difficult-while simultaneously addressing the ways we are grounded, connected, and ultimately transnational. The type of tensions and questions explored in Vwayaj are ones that exist in real-time, making this piece of choreography an art of witness, as well as a catalyst for the important conversations we all need to have. Through its brilliant braiding of new music, new media, and contemporary and traditional dance in performance, JAE is doing the vital work of propelling Haitian dance into the future-and into the world."

- Danielle Legros Georges, Poet Laureate of the city of Boston and Professor and Director of the MFA Program in Creative Writing, Lesley University

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In Haitian Kreyòl the word "Lakou" carries multiple meanings: It is the backyard, the land passed down through generations, the gathering place for shared meals, for dancing, singing, worship or passionate debate. "Lakou" can also mean home, or the idea of home, the place that calls us back not just to sacred ground, but to a sense of belonging without which we are not whole.

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A picture book about learning English. The powerful images show how the words start to make sense.
Age: 4-8
Guiding Question: Leave

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The Day Saida Arrived by Gómez Redondo & Sonja Wimmer

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The Day Saida Arrived by Gómez Redondo & Sonja Wimmer

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A picture book about learning English. Whimsical illustrations with lots of words incorporated into the images.
Age: 3-7
Guiding Question: Leave

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A book in verse about the importance and beauty of saying names correctly. There is a series of poems about specific children and their names.
Age: 4-8
Guiding Question: Stay
Available 9/2023

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René has Two Last Names by René Colato Laínez

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René has Two Last Names by René Colato Laínez

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A bilingual book about a boy with two last names whose school only uses one name. He is from El Salvador and a family tree project lets him explain the importance of both names to his classmates.
Age: 6-9
Guiding Question: Stay

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Los Coquíes aún Cantan cuento por Karina Nicole González e ilustrado por Krystal Quiles

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Los Coquíes aún Cantan cuento por Karina Nicole González e ilustrado por Krystal Quiles

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Un libro sobre el Huracan Maria y una familia que queda. Ellos reconstruyen su casa y la comunidad.
Age: 4-8
Guiding Question: Stay
Also available in English

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A wordless picture book about leaving your home, traveling to a new place, and the challenge of building a new life there.
Age: 8-10
Guiding Question: Leave

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A picture book about a mom and daughter who walk across the border and find refuge and hope in the library and books.
Age: 5-9
Guiding Question: Leave/Imagine

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A Sky Without Lines by Krystia Basil & Laura Borràs

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A Sky Without Lines by Krystia Basil & Laura Borràs

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A picture book about the arbitrariness of lines on a map made to separate people. A family is divided between countries and the boy dreams of connecting with his family.
Age: 5-8
Guiding Question: Imagine

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A middle grade series about a boy who immigrated to Vermont from the Dominican Republic. The books explore the different stages of building a life in a new country and changing family dynamics.
Age: 7-12
Guiding Question: Leave
Some books available in Spanish

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Plátanos are Love by Alyssa Reynoso-Morris & Mariyah Rahman

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Plátanos are Love by Alyssa Reynoso-Morris & Mariyah Rahman

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A family story picture book written in Spanglish about the meaning and cultural history of plantains.
Age: 4-8
Guiding Question: Stay

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If Dominican were a Color by Sili Recio & Brianna McCarthy

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If Dominican were a Color by Sili Recio & Brianna McCarthy

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A picture book written in verse about the beauty of the people and things in the Dominican Republic. Focuses on the beauty of blackness.
Age: 4-8
Guiding Question: Stay
Also available in Spanish

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Mama’s Nightingale: A Story of Immigration and Separation by Edwidge Danticat & Leslie Staub

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Mama’s Nightingale: A Story of Immigration and Separation by Edwidge Danticat & Leslie Staub

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A story about a young girl, Saya, whose mother is in an immigration detention center. The mother sends Saya oral stories and she writes a letter to try and help her mom. A story about the power of children, story and the human cost of immigration policy.
Age: 5-8
Guiding Question: Return

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This is a middle grade historical fiction novel that explores the journey of Esperanza, a young girl born into a comfortable life of privilege in Mexico in the 1930s, who is forced to flee to California and must rise above her difficult circumstances.
Age: 10-13
Guiding Question: Leave

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Guadalupe Maravilla is a transdisciplinary artist. He came to the US by himself from El Salvador at the age of 8 to escape the Civil War. His work traces his migration and the displacement of other people.
Retablos
Mariposa Relampago
Guiding Question: Leave/Return

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What are human rights?

What is our right to stay?

What is our right to leave?

What is our right to return?

What is our right to imagine or create?

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A picture book about a class of students from different countries who have to draw about where they are from. The main character is from the Dominican Republic, but doesn’t remember the island so she learns about it from her community and family.
Age: 5-8
Guiding Question: Imagine

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Junot Díaz was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in New Jersey. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Drown; The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award; and This Is How You Lose Her, a New York Times bestseller and National Book Award finalist. A graduate of Rutgers University, Díaz is currently the fiction editor at Boston Review and the Rudge and Nancy Allen Professor of Writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Leo Espinosa is an award-winning illustrator and designer from Bogotá, Colombia, whose work has been featured in The New Yorker, Wired, Esquire, The New York Times, The Atlantic, and more. Leo's illustrations have been recognized by American Illustration, Communication Arts, Pictoplasma, 3x3, and the Society of Illustrators. Leo lives with his family in Salt Lake City, Utah.

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From New York Times bestseller and Pulitzer Prize winner Junot Díaz comes a debut picture book about the magic of memory and the infinite power of the imagination.A 2019 Pura Belpré Honor Book for Illustration Every kid in Lola's school was from somewhere else. Hers was a school of faraway places.

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This duology of middle grade chapter books is the story of a girl from Chicago who has to face adversity and adventure in the Dominican Republic and Zafa, a magical island. These books bring myths and legends to life in their action packed stories. Written in Spanglish.
Age: 8-14
Guiding Question: Return/Imagine

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In this 5 minute TedTalk with Benedetta Berti, she explains the history of the UDHR, the UN, and challenges in enforcing the UDHR. Parts could be shown to children ages 8+ and it provides helpful background for teachers.
Resource Type: Video

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What are the universal human rights? - Benedetta Berti

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Declaración Universal de Derechos Humanos

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Declaración Universal de Derechos Humanos

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Resumen de la DUDH para celebrar el Día de los Derechos Humanos. Realizado por la Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos de México.
Resource Type: Video

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Comisión Nacional de los Derechos Humanos (CNDH)

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Declaración Universal de Derechos Humanos

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The #UDHRquilt Project is a collaborative crafting project to document the articles of the UDHR. It uses craft as a "tool and strategy" to celebrate and raise awareness around the UDHR. There are currently 4 quilts.
Resource Type: Website, images, Instagram, craft

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Article 14

Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution. This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

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I was drawn to this project due to my commitment to social justice and passion for creative pursuits. The human right to seek and be provided asylum is a tricky issue in Australia right now, with our horrendous policies for offshore processing on Nauru and Manus Island.

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Article 13

Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state. Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

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My block and Article 13 speak to several major human rights violations enacted by the current US administration, in breach of one of the nation's founding tenets. I have stitched a pattern from an Iranian carpet onto a piece of linen from Poland with netting intended for a hat or veil.

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Article 6

Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

About me

Emma Dolan is a textile artist based in England, originally trained in surface-pattern design and print. Having stepped away from the contemporary craft world over the last year, Emma is presently focusing on collaborative textile projects addressing women's rights in the United Kingdom, such as protecting sex-segregated provisions, safeguarding children in schools, and the protection of women from the sex industry. She is one of a group of women, the Leeds Spinners, who hold regular embroidery and craftivist meetings in her hometown of Leeds in Yorkshire. The area has a long tradition in the textile industry with women at the heart of the mills and political life, at the beginning of the UK trade union movement. The Leeds Spinners are part of this tradition of creative, proactive women.

Other blocks about Article 6

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The block I made uses digitally printed cotton and hand-embroidery, using imagery of visual identity recognition technology. Craftivism is a valuable tool in publicising issues overlooked or deliberately ignored by mainstream media. This project was brought to my attention at a time when, having been recently re-politicised by world and national events, I wanted to move into work with a more overt social message.

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Dahlia strongly believes in arts and culture as vectors of social change. The promotion of the UDHR was a very special opportunity because the project involved embroidery and quilting: creative languages without borders used for centuries worldwide, especially by women, to express their deepest thou…

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Declaración Universal de Derechos Humanos Ilustrada

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Declaración Universal de Derechos Humanos Ilustrada

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Esta versión ilustrada de la DUDH incluye el lenguaje exacto de la Declaración e ilustraciones de Yacine Ait Kaci.
Edad: 10+
Resource Type: Online Book

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Illustrated Universal Declaration of Human Rights 

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Illustrated Universal Declaration of Human Rights 

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This illustrated version of the UDHR includes the exact language from the Declaration and illustrations by Yacine Ait Kaci.
Age: 10+
Resource type: Online Book

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We are All Born Free: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Pictures

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We are All Born Free: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Pictures

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This book includes kid friendly language and illustrations for each Article. Each Article is illustrated by a different artist or illustrator.
Age: 5+
Resource Type: Book

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Universal Declaration of Human Rights Abridged for Youth

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Universal Declaration of Human Rights Abridged for Youth

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This version of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights uses kid friendly language for the rights and descriptions.
Resource type: Document

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Declaración Universal de Derechos Humanos

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Declaración Universal de Derechos Humanos

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Esta es la Declaración Universal de Derechos Humanos oficial publicada por la ONU. Incluye el preámbulo y los 30 artículos.
Se centrare en los artículos 3, 6, 13 y 14.
Resource type: Document

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This is the official Universal Declaration of Human Rights published by the UN. This includes the preamble and all 30 articles.

This text set focuses on Articles 3, 6, 13 and 14.
Resource type: Document