The article discusses an after-school writing club in Florida where ESOL students, mainly immigrants, shared personal narratives about their journeys to the United States. It highlights the importance of these counterstories in challenging negative stereotypes about immigrants, offering insights into their emotional experiences and the complexities of migration. The project empowered students to reclaim their identities through storytelling, ultimately fostering confidence and a sense of community among the participants.

1. 35
A teacher in Florida
developed an after-
school writing club for
ESOL students and
mentored them as they
edited and published
a collection of essays
about their journeys to
the United States.
MANUEL HERNANDEZ, FRANCISCO L. TORRES, AND WENDY J. GLENN
Centering Immigrant
Youth Voices: Writing
as Counterstorytelling
T
ENGLISHJOURNAL 109.5 (2020): 35–42
I believe the true gift I share with the book’s co-authors
is the conviction we mustered to channel our most
precious memories, our most vulnerable moments, and
transform them into words. From words into sentences,
into paragraphs, and finally into a story.
—PAOLA QUIÑONES, COMING
TO AMERICA (3RD ED.)
he excerpt that serves as an epigraph to this
article, written by a high school student,
attests to the powerful expression that can
result when young people are invited to
share personal stories of their choosing with real
audiences. Paola and twenty-three of her peers par-
ticipated in an after-school experience centered on
publishing the stories of young people who move to
the United States from other countries or territories,
in her case, Puerto Rico. Their collective narratives
reflect deeply felt familial connections; courage in
the face of struggle; a keen awareness of place; and
a commitment to truth-telling. But these narratives
were also written in the midst of a particular politi-
cal rhetoric surrounding immigration/migration in
the United States, one that works to position peo-
ple entering the country as potential threats to an
“American” vision of home and the homeland. This
article describes a multiyear after-school experience
that created space and opportunity for young peo-
ple to write and share their stories as they resisted
problematic constructions of who they are, given
their identities as immigrants/migrants; it centers
on three students whose narratives help us as educa-
tors better understand the realities of immigration/
migration to the United States today.
GROUNDING THE WORK AND
OUR IDENTITIES AS WRITERS
Young people who immigrate/migrate to the United
States, especially because of natural disasters, war,
and famine, carry with them histories that are often
silenced. In the classroom, personal stories are rarely
leveraged as tools for reclamation of the immigrant/
migrant narrative. Gloria Ladson-Billings argues
that the stories of marginalized people “provide the
necessary context for understanding, feeling, and
interpreting” (13). To ignore these stories as central
parts of young people’s identities denies both the tell-
ers and listeners the opportunity to learn and grow.
To reclaim their stories, young people need
opportunities to reconstruct the narratives they
hear about themselves—narratives that are devoid
of their voices—in their own contextual, linguistic,
and complex forms. This complexity, not necessarily
named by youth but powerfully seen in the stories
they tell and the ways they tell them, produces robust
counterstories that add to the societal discourse on
immigration/migration. Counterstories act as tools
“for exposing, analyzing, and challenging the majori-
tarian stories of racial privilege” (Solorzano and Yosso
32). This project reflects an attempt to recognize
and celebrate the dignity and power inherent in the
stories of young people and the possibilities present
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2. 36 MAY 2020
Centering Immigrant Youth Voices: Writing as Counterstorytelling
ESOL high school students in becoming published
authors. The class took them through the writing
process and empowered them to express their jour-
neys in writing and, later, publish their memoirs in
an edited collection.
IMPLEMENTING THE PROJECT
To build interest and create space for this work in
the school community, Manuel began by encour-
aging students to see publishing as something they
could achieve. He shared examples of journey stories,
including his own, to assure students that the task was
attainable. Manuel highlighted how, together, they
could make history, not just read about the history
contained in the textbook or discussed in the political
arena devoid of their voices. He encouraged the stu-
dents to consider how their stories have value, power,
and importance. Each hour-long afternoon session was
structured to allow the students to read mentor texts,
discuss techniques, brainstorm and draft, share their
writing, and plan for future sessions (see Figure 1).
In designing the workshop sessions, Manuel
incorporated videos of Latinx writers, such as Esmer-
alda Santiago and Judith Ortiz-Cofer, who have pub-
lished autobiographies. Students watched, listened,
and responded to the authors’ stories and to elements
of craft. To help students move from the workshop to
the hands-on writing activity, Manuel created oppor-
tunities for students to draft shorter pieces of writing
designed to invite personal connection and confi-
dence-building. To scaffold the crafting of a personal
story, he provided students with suggested structures
highlighted in the videos they watched, inviting them,
for example, to consider how one organizing frame
might be to tell the journey story in three parts—
before, during, and after. And as students began to
consider the types of stories they wanted to share about
their journeys, Manuel encouraged them to inter-
view relatives and peers with similar experiences and
use other journey-related mentor texts as exemplars.
He wanted students to become investigators of their
own stories, corroborating their feelings, tensions,
love, and then centering their own voices in their sto-
ries. The students were invited to draw on their full
linguistic repertoires, writing in whatever languages
they preferred as they drafted. Ultimately, they wrote
when students are given the opportunity to express
their voices.
We come to this project as teachers and scholars
engaged in collaborative work centered on story and
immigration/migration. Manuel is a Puerto Rican
classroom teacher whose efforts led to the creation
and maintenance of the program described in this
article. Francisco is a Puerto Rican doctoral candi-
date whose work centers on encouraging children
and youth to talk back to systems of injustice in their
local and global contexts. Wendy is a White teacher
educator whose research examines the affordances
and limitations of literature published for young
people and how it is and might be incorporated into
curricula and classrooms. Francisco and Manny met
at a bilingual education conference in Denver, Col-
orado, and invited Wendy to join a conversation
about possible collaborative opportunities.
SETTING THE SCENE
The students who participated in this experience
were recently arrived English for Speakers of Other
Languages (ESOL) students who relocated to central
Florida from Puerto Rico and various Latin Amer-
ican countries, including Mexico and Venezuela,
due to the proximity of
local industry and jobs,
affordable housing, and
a quality education for
their children. In spring
2017, Manuel was a
classroom teacher at a
high school in Kissim-
mee. When an assistant
principal shared a book
that featured a collec-
tion of memoirs about
coming to the United States, Manuel identified a
potential connection between these authors and his
students and challenged a few of the seniors in his
class to write stories about their own journeys.
As he read the narratives, Manuel knew the stu-
dents’ stories were unique and decided to expand the
initiative to include students outside of his classes.
He sponsored a club called Coming to America that
became a writing workshop designed to support
Manuel began by
encouraging students
to see publishing as
something they could
achieve. He shared
examples of journey
stories, including
his own, to assure
students that the task
was attainable.
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3. 37ENGLISHJOURNAL
Manuel Hernandez, Francisco L. Torres, and Wendy J. Glenn
Time Activity
3:30 p.m. Agenda:
Review the aims and objectives of the session.
3:35 p.m. Workshop of the Day:
For example, Narrative Writing:
1. Students write a personal response to a narrative text, like
“Of Plymouth Plantation” by William Bradford, considering
how their journey experiences are similar to and different
from those described in the text.
2. Students learn about and reflect on the process of writing,
exploring the recursive nature of prewriting, drafting,
revising, editing, and publishing.
4:00 p.m. Question and Answer:
Students ask questions for clarification around the workshop content.
4:05 p.m. Hands-On Writing Activity:
During the first two meetings of the after-school group, students
1. Brainstorm ideas they want to expand on as they think about
their pre-, during, and post-trip experiences using differing
prewriting strategies (including free writing, generating
bullet points, mapping, etc.).
2. Work with Manuel and one another to explore how to most
effectively expand their ideas given their narrative aims.
4:20 p.m. Share and Tell:
Students gather to share and discuss the writing they generated
and to talk about how the workshop went and how the time might
be structured in the next meeting to best fit their writing needs.
4:30 p.m. Dismissal
FIGURE 1.
Each after-school writing session lasted one hour and followed a
structured format.
FIGURE 2
Coming to America
and revised the pieces for pub-
lication in English to support
their development as writers
in English and to allow them
to increase their readership to
an English-speaking audience.
When each edition of the book
was published, the students,
with the advocacy and support
of Manuel, presented their
narratives to multiple groups,
including teachers attending
both local and national profes-
sional meetings.
Students played an essen-
tial role in helping to organize
the workshop and outreach
activities. At the beginning of
each year, the students worked
with Manuel to determine the
aims of the group and generate
a timeline for meeting them.
When they were invited to
present their work in the com-
munity, the students worked
together to determine what to
include in the presentation and
how to organize this informa-
tion. Drawing on the artistic tal-
ents of students in the project,
the front cover of each edition
of Coming to America features
student work (see Figure 2).
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4. 38 MAY 2020
Centering Immigrant Youth Voices: Writing as Counterstorytelling
EXPLORING COUNTERSTORY-
TELLING ACROSS THREE
STUDENT NARRATIVES
In this article we highlight the narratives of three
students, each of which appears in the 2019 edition
of Coming to America. The stories provide insight
growing from deeply felt and expressed personal
experiences that might help us better understand the
current context of immigration/migration through
the eyes of adolescents and offer evidence that sup-
ports the value of such writing in school spaces.
Paola Quiñones, whose writing appears at
the outset of this article, titled her journey story,
“Blessed!” She self-identifies as female and Latina
and moved, with her siblings and younger cousin,
from Puerto Rico to Florida to live with her aunts
in 2017, following the devastating effects of Hurri-
cane Maria. Valeria Rojas describes herself as female
and Latina and narrates her move from Venezuela to
Florida in her story, “Between Tastes and Colors: Life
Is Not What We Imagine.” She describes the social
upheaval resulting from political change and corrup-
tion in her home nation and her family’s subsequent
decision to relocate. Seeking educational and eco-
nomic opportunities, Joseline Barrios leaves her par-
ents and travels with her elderly grandmother from
Guatemala through Mexico and into the United
States to live with her aunt. She self-identifies as
female and Latina and shares her story in a narrative
titled, “A Long Trip.”
LEAVING HOME TO PURSUE A “NEW LIFE”
This writing experience gave students space to
explore what leaving home and pursuing “a new life”
might and did mean. When envisioning a move to
a new place, Paola describes a tension expressed by
several authors in the collection—hope mingled
with sadness. She reflects on what she will gain
and lose in this process, writing, “I smiled at the
thought of seeing a part of my family I had not seen
in years. I cried at the thought of leaving my fam-
ily, my friends, and my home behind” (86). Puerto
Rico remains her home, and her desire to remain
there is palpable when she describes the moment the
plane bound for the United States leaves the ground:
“I began wishing that the hurricane never happened,
that all those nightmares weren’t made, that all those
people suffering, yet to be located, could be carried
to safety, that the leaders of my country strived to
make Puerto Rico stronger and better than before
Maria came” (86).
Valeria’s description of her home country reflects
a similar longing when she explains how the situa-
tion in Venezuela left the nation different from what
she remembers as a child. She remembers “the gaitas
at Christmas, the February carnivals on the beach,
the vacations in Merida and the Tovar colony” as
fading parts of the culture of her “beloved coun-
try” (184). Valeria expresses optimism about what
her journey to the United States will bring, noting,
“When I arrived here, I thought that this was going
to be one of the best things that happened in my life”
(185). The reality, however, proves to be less ideal. “I
imagined a paradise that was only in my mind,” she
recalls, adding, “This is a difficult country” (185).
Although she imagined that “all the problems as a
teenager were going to disappear,” that she would
“buy a new cell phone, buy clothes every day, [and]
develop a social circle” (185), the United States she
experienced did not match the images she had seen
through television, films, and online.
Joseline’s story reflects the same longing for home
as evidenced in the narratives of Paola and Valeria;
despite the physical distance, her heart remains with
her family in Guatemala. She opens her narrative
with these emotional lines: “I used to know how it
felt when you lost someone, but I felt something else
when I saw my parents outside of the bus. As I took a
seat at the end of the bus, I looked out of the window.
My mom was right there, and I couldn’t help but
look at her for the last time. I took a deep breath and
tried not to cry” (47). But Joseline’s journey is lay-
ered with the complex reality of her undocumented
status and difficult travel conditions that challenged
her emotional state and physical survival. She remem-
bers arriving by bus at the border of Guatemala and
Mexico and feeling lost. About this moment, she says,
“They took my grandma and left me there. I stood by
myself, crying and praying God for mercy” (47).
The lack of control over her situation is evi-
denced repeatedly through her narrative. After three
months at the border, coyotes (people paid to bring
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5. 39ENGLISHJOURNAL
Manuel Hernandez, Francisco L. Torres, and Wendy J. Glenn
immigrants without documentation into the United
States) tell Joseline and the group of thirty-seven oth-
ers with whom she is traveling that they will leave that
night. They set out on foot in the pitch-black night
and run for four hours until they arrive in McAllen,
Texas. There, they are picked up by a stranger and
guided into the desert where, after five days of walk-
ing, running, and hiding from the border patrol, they
run out of food and water. Their guide leaves and
never returns, her grandmother falls, and the group
disperses, leaving Joseline, her grandmother, and a
woman from the Dominican Republic to fend for
themselves. Joseline sets out on her own to locate a
ranch she believes is nearby, finds it, and reunites with
her travel companions, spends “two days waiting for
someone to come and save [them] or arrest [them]”
(51), and is eventually picked up by border patrol and
sent to a home for children in New York City where
she awaits the processing of her paperwork.
These stories complicate the dominant narra-
tive of the immigrant/migrant coming to the United
States from places they wish to escape, seeking to cash
in on opportunity. Pushing against the depiction of
the immigrant/migrant as opportunistic, these nar-
ratives reveal young people who are hesitant to leave
their home countries, families, histories, and cultures.
Paola frames her move as an opportunity for personal
rather than economic gain. On days when she felt
like her parents’ decision to relocate was not ideal, she
remembers, “I repeated to myself saying that if God
gave me a new beginning, a reset button, I should take
this new chapter of my life with hope, patience, and
the strength to make myself a better person, friend,
student, sibling, cousin, and a better daughter” (86).
Valeria’s motivation was grounded in a desire to expe-
rience the world and gain new knowledge and per-
spectives. She writes, “I came to this country with
the desire to learn English and live a multicultural
experience. In my original plans, I never planned to
stay” (183). And Joseline expresses remorse and regret
regarding the decision to leave home. She recalls,
I was scared. I was just a fourteen-year-old girl in the
desert, with her grandma and a strange woman. A
girl without water, without food, without her mom
and with the only hope that everything was just a bad
dream. A girl hoping that she could just wake up at
home and turn around and see her mom on the bed
next to her for a last time. (51)
The stories of these authors offer an alternative way of
understanding the journey and those who choose to
embark on it, highlighting the reality that families and
children, including young people who take on adult
responsibilities, are often the actors in this narrative.
IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL STRENGTHS
This writing experience also gave students space to
realize and reflect on their strengths in the midst of
a challenging transition. Across the narratives, as
students celebrate their successes, they name con-
fidence gained as a result of their English language
development. Paola describes, for example, how the
move “boosted [her] confidence,” noting that she
quickly “transitioned out of an ESOL Language
Arts class into a mainstream Language Arts class”
and that her success is evidenced by the fact that she
is “publishing this story in a book” (85). Similarly,
Joseline explains, “After about four months [of high
school in the United States], I could understand the
language. It was incredible how much I improved.
I started taking honor’s classes and giving tutoring
after school to students who didn’t know the lan-
guage. As the time passed, my English became more
and more native-like” (53).
Students also measure success through the lens
of future plans, with college or university study
held up as the ideal. Paola expresses enthusiastically,
“I strive to work harder, learn more and look for-
ward to a future filled with great goals and dreams.
I am blessed!” (87). As she envisions this future, she
claims, “My goal still is to enter a good university
after I graduate, take care of myself as the responsi-
ble student my parents raised and find a career that
circles around the values that I stand and will always
fight for” (92–93). Valeria’s story echoes this desired
vision of the future, despite the challenges it brings,
as heard in her claim, “Sometimes it is difficult for
me to accept what is happening, but I can already
see myself being successful, graduating from high
school, college and university” (185).
These counterstories help to reposition the narra-
tive of the immigrant/migrant as seen through a defi-
cit lens, challenging assumptions that immigrants/
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6. 40 MAY 2020
Centering Immigrant Youth Voices: Writing as Counterstorytelling
an argument in a particular way. For example, one
might claim that immigrants/migrants need simply
to work hard to succeed. But when they do, they can
be positioned as being economically opportunistic or
taking work away from others. In future iterations
of this work and for those seeking to replicate this
project, we suggest that there is a need to critically
complicate the writing that students generate. This
can be achieved by helping students name and think
carefully about the discourses that affect them, par-
ticularly those that stand squarely in opposition to
one another and are used to harm and hurt. By look-
ing carefully at whether and how and why these dis-
courses appear in the narratives they create, young
people are better positioned to talk back to those
discourses. As these writers explored their definitions
of success in a new place, for example, their stories
sometimes demonstrated an internalized acceptance
of dominant discourses that fail to value them as
bilinguals. The students’ understanding that learn-
ing the dominant language, rather than enhancing
their bilingualism or centering their first language
as they learn a second language (English), will best
allow them to better themselves in the US context
highlights the language ideologies imposed on them,
where English is seen as the avenue to success and
bilingualism, or their second language, is seen as a
problem (Cummins). More explicit attention to
these discourses might further empower and support
students in their ability to talk back to the ways in
which they are positioned.
For teachers wanting to engage in this work,
then, inviting students to explore questions related
to both the narratives of immigration/migration
they encounter in the world and those that might
appear unquestioned in their own writing can result
in opportunities for criticality. As we considered how
we might continue this work in future iterations of
the after-school experience, we generated questions
that we believe can invite students to consider criti-
cally the narratives about immigrations/immigrants
that exist in the world and in the writing they gener-
ate (see Figure 3).
Ultimately, this project drives us to question
the kind of work that we, as teachers, want to take
migrants are “lazy” and “dangerous,” for example.
These young people exhibit persistence and courage
and are driven by values that reflect a commitment to
community and self. Valeria explains,
Now that I know that I will stay in this country, I
have created goals, dreams, purposes that I know I
can be academically successful with the hand of God
and with my family that are my greatest support.
And maybe at some point in my life, return to the
country that gave me life. (185).
And Joseline ends her narrative with the lines, “It
has been a long journey, but I finally arrived. And I
am here to stay and improve myself” (55).
CRITICALLY COMPLICATING
THE WRITING EXPERIENCE
As we read across these narratives, we witnessed stu-
dents engaging in a dual process of making sense of
their experiences through writing and generating
pieces that challenge assumptions about immigration/
migration and immigrants/migrants. The narratives,
then, serve as counterstories that offer something
more than the existing—often problematic and defi-
cit-oriented—construc-
tions of immigration/
migration that so often
shape our collective
understandings of what
this journey experience
might look like or feel
like or be for. Although
the stories that the
youth were asked to
explore through this
project did not have the explicit intention of talking
back to the problematic discourses about immigrants/
migrants in the United States, the students’ stories
stand in opposition to deficit views of the immigrant/
migrant by focusing instead on strength, resilience,
and courage in the face of trying times.
The stories also highlight how public narratives
of immigration/migration—those that are some-
times internalized my immigrants/migrants them-
selves—can be contradictory and shift with the
needs of the individual or group attempting to frame
The students’ stories
stand in opposition
to deficit views
of the immigrant/
migrant by focusing
instead on strength,
resilience, and
courage in the face of
trying times.
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7. 41ENGLISHJOURNAL
Manuel Hernandez, Francisco L. Torres, and Wendy J. Glenn
also supports them in imagining and knowing how
to fight for a more hopeful reality.
WORKS CITED
Cummins, Jim. “Teaching for Transfer: Challenging the Two
Solitudes Assumption in Bilingual Education.” Encyclopedia
of Language and Education. 2nd ed. Edited by Jim Cummins
and Nancy H. Hornberger. Springer, 2008, pp. 65–75.
Hernandez, Manuel, editor. Coming to America. 1st ed. Divine
Purpose Publishing, 2017.
———. Coming to America. 2nd ed. Divine Purpose Publishing,
2018.
———. Coming to America. 3rd ed. Divine Purpose Publishing,
2019.
Ladson-Billings, Gloria. “Just What Is Critical Race Theory
and What’s It Doing in a Nice Field Like Education?”
International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education,
vol. 11, no. 1, 1998, pp. 7–24.
Leonardo, Zeus. Race Frameworks: A Multidimensional Theory of
Racism and Education. Teachers College P, 2013.
Solorzano, Daniel G., and Tara J. Yosso. “Critical Race Methodology:
Counter-Storytelling as an Analytical Framework for
Education Research.” Qualitative Inquiry, vol. 8, no. 1, 2002,
pp. 23–44.
on during our tenure as educators. How can we
fully center the lived, and often challenging, reali-
ties (linguistic, cultural, and racial) of the students
with whom we work? How can writing be used not
only to center these realities but also to challenge and
reclaim the narratives of oppression that can inform
them? Zeus Leonardo, in his book Race Frameworks:
A Multidimensional Theory of Racism and Educa-
tion, notes that “if people of color have represented
anything in the history of race relations, it is hope”
(165). As educators, we have the ability to encourage
hope, along with healing and self-advocacy, through
the opportunities we provide to students. This writ-
ing project created space for young authors to cen-
ter their experiences, to tell their stories, to affirm
their identities as immigrants. With the addition of
explicit critical attention to these narratives and how
they can be internalized and reflected in the stories
we tell, we envision an increasingly powerful writing
experience that not only centers students’ lives but
The Immigration/Migration Narrative
in the World around Us
The Immigration/Migration
Narrative in My Writing
How is the contemporary immigrant/
migrant depicted in stories told on
the nightly news?
How is my story similar to and/or
different from the stories I hear on
the nightly news? How is my story
similar to and/or different from
the stories written and shared by
my peers?
What reasons for leaving home are
offered?
How do I define my “home” today?
What is forwarded as evidence of a
“successful” immigrant/migrant?
How do I define my “success” as an
immigrant/migrant to the United
States? What have I gained and/or
lost as a result of my move to the
United States?
Do the stories of immigrants/
migrants center on individuals or the
collective? How might this framing
influence the beliefs and
assumptions of viewers?
What does my story suggest about
the value of writing and sharing
stories about our own experiences?
FIGURE 3.
Questions like these could be used to unearth and respond to problematic
discourses.
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8. 42 MAY 2020
Centering Immigrant Youth Voices: Writing as Counterstorytelling
READWRITETHINKCONNECTION Lisa Storm Fink, RWT
In this lesson, students tell their own stories and explore the
stories of other Americans. Hearing and telling these stories helps
students realize that social studies is not simply the study of
history but also an exploration of real people and their lives.
Students begin by telling stories about their personal experiences.
They then explore the character traits that promote democratic
ideals and tell stories about family members who exemplify these
traits. Finally, they conduct research and share stories about
Americans. While this is aimed at younger learners, it can easily
be scaled up to work with older students. http://bit.ly/2V8X9Jt
FRANCISCO TORRES is a PhD candidate in literacy studies at the University of Colorado Boulder.
His work focuses on the intersection of popular culture, language, and race to encourage youth
and children to critically examine their worlds and work to change them. He has been a member
of NCTE since 2017 and can be contacted at Francisco.Torres@colorado.edu.
WENDY J. GLENN is a professor of Literacy Studies, chair of Secondary Humanities, and
codirector of Teacher Education in the School of Education at the University of Colorado
Boulder. Her research centers on literature and literacies for young adults, particularly in
the areas of sociocultural analyses and critical pedagogies. She has been a member of
NCTE since 2001 and can be contacted at wendy.glenn@colorado.edu.
MANUEL HERNANDEZ has been an English language arts teacher for more than three
decades. He is the founder of a school club, Coming to America, that has transformed
story writing into three books in a series. He can be contacted at josejosue24@gmail.com.
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