How youth deal with trauma

Last year there was an increase in unaccompanied minors (also called undocumented youth), and some even came to Pittsburgh.

In this blog post there are two different audio stories. One about the lives of girls who stay in Central America, and another about the lives of youth who make it to the United States

Hot Tamale Activities

Select one of the stories and answer the questions related to it in a new blog post on your Spanish Blog Portfolio.

Listen or read about how unaccompanied minors are doing in the United States public school systems.

• What are some issues that the youth who have come to the United States face?
• What is a difficult issues that the school system faces in order to service the youth?
• What makes learning English easier for Victor?

Listen or read about what life is like for 15 year olds girls in El Salvador. Trigger warning - this report deals with difficult issues of violence. The prior article might be a better choice for some students.

• Summarize this story in your own words.
• If you were living in El Salvador, how would you have to change what you normally do now?
• What are some reasons girls face danger?

More about refugees and immigration

In some of our classes we have compared and contrasted the three following issues:

• The Syrian Refugee Crisis
• What people in the United States thought of Jewish refugees on the eve of World War II
• Central American youth trying to cross the border into the United States to escape violence in their home country

Here are a few additional resources to explore these issues a bit more.

• Article Refugees: That Time Everyone Said 'No' And Bolivia Said 'Yes' 
• This article is about how Bolivia, a country in Latin America, was one of the only countries to consistently accept Jewish refugees in the Americas before and during WW2
• Twitter How a refugee gets to America, explained by an actual refugee
• This article is a collection of tweets that show the process of becoming a legal refugee in the United States.
• Video Immigrant or Refugee
• When we discuss immigration reform it's important to recognize there is a difference between these two terms.
• Related article 4,600 Central American Kids Have Applied for Refugee Status. 11 Have Gotten It. Here's Why.
• Audio Report Terrorized by Violence: Mexico's Refugees
• This audio piece provides details about what happens to people who try not to leave the country but survive by becoming refugees in their own country.

Hot Tamale Activities

Create a new blog post in your Spanish Blog Portfolio and complete one of the following tasks.

• Summarize what you read in your own words. What new information have you learned?
• What do you think the process should be to allow become to come to the United States? 
• Explain in your own words what is the difference between being a immigrant/migrant and a refugee. Do you think the explanation of refugees applies to the undocumented youth fleeing Central America? Explain your answer
• Explain in your own words what the chart above shows. What new information have you learned from this chart?