Stories of Arrival: Refugee and Immigrant Youth Voices, a Poetry Project
Facilitator: Merna Ann Hecht
Merna Ann Hecht has been a poetry partner since 2011.
Founded and facilitated by poet Merna Ann Hecht "Stories of Arrival: Refugee and Immigrant Youth Voices, a Poetry Project" serves young people at Foster High School in Tukwila, WA, who have experienced the trauma of forced migration and endured the losses that encompass leaving a homeland, a homeland often wracked by war and chaos.
Enriched by community partnerships with other organizations in support of refugees and immigrants, the project has grown in its mission to create compassionate understanding of the refugee and immigrant experience.
During 2019-20, Merna and project co-director and ELL teacher, Carrie Stradley, created a new venture which resulted in a stunning collection of broadsides—self-portraits and visual poems—that show the deep humanity of each young person in that school year’s project. Through a partnership with the Tukwila Food Innovation Network Spice Bridge Global Food Hall, the broadsides, titled by the contributors We Are the Future: Poems with a Voice for Peace, were on exhibit into 2021. What Stories of Arrival has offered over these years is a primer on what could happen in the lives of not only refugee and immigrant youth, in the lives of DACA dreamers, but all young people in the world.
Learn more and/or purchase We Are the Future: Poems with a Voice for Peace:
