Refugee High: Coming of Age in America (Hardcover)

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Refugee High: Coming of Age in America By Elly Fishman Cover Image
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Staff Reviews


Chronicling a year in the life of Sullivan High, which has aimed to become the go-to public high school for refugees in the Chicago area, journalist Elly Fishman looks at the highs and lows of teaching kids from 35 different countries who speak 38 different languages. As she follows students from Myanmar, Iraq, Syria, Guatemala, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, as well as their school principal and several teachers and administrative staff, Fishman does a great job bringing the players to life and documenting the pressures from families to marry early, gangs to affiliate, and jobs that provide financial security but eat up study time. Some students will succeed while others will struggle, mirroring the program itself, which is under pressure from a reduction of refugees allowed into the country as part of a former president’s policies. Refugee High is an enlightening and valuable reading experience.  

— Daniel Goldin

Description


A year in the life of a Chicago high school with one of the nation's highest proportions of refugees, told with "strong novel-like pacing" (Milwaukee Magazine)


"A stunning and heart-wrenching work of nonfiction."
--Chicago Reader

Winner of the Studs and Ida Terkel Award
For a century, Chicago's Roger C. Sullivan High School has been a home to immigrant and refugee students. In 2017, during the worst global refugee crisis in history, its immigrant population numbered close to three hundred--or nearly half the school--and many were refugees new to the country. These young people came from thirty-five different countries, speaking more than thirty-eight different languages.


In Refugee High, award-winning author Elly Fishman offers a riveting chronicle of the 2017-18 school year at Sullivan High, a time when anti-immigrant rhetoric was at its height in the White House. Even as we follow teachers and administrators grappling with the everyday challenges facing many urban schools, we witness the complicated circumstances and unique needs of refugee and immigrant children.


Heartbreaking and inspiring in equal measure, Refugee High raises vital questions about the priorities and values of a public school and offers an eye-opening and captivating window into the present-day American immigration and education systems.

About the Author


Elly Fishman's work as a journalist and author chronicles stories of struggle and resilience inside American cities. Her reporting has earned her numerous awards, including several Peter Lisagor awards, city and regional magazine association awards, and the Pattis Family Foundation award. Her first book, Refugee High: Coming of Age in America (The New Press), follows the students and faculty at Chicago's Roger C. Sullivan High School. The book won the prestigious Studs and Ida Terkel Prize for a first book in the public interest. Fishman lives in Milwaukee with her husband and their daughter. She is a Chicago native and graduate of the University of Chicago.


Product Details
ISBN: 9781620975084
ISBN-10: 1620975084
Publisher: New Press
Publication Date: August 10th, 2021
Pages: 288
Language: English