Justin Murphy – Rochester Democrat and Chronicle USA TODAY NETWORK – in the D&C on 12/15/2020 on page A7
A new book and multimedia project was released Wednesday with an unlikely cast of authors and producers: 30 young people who moved recently to Rochester and Buffalo from points around the world.
Gunasekera Subasinghe misses playing cricket in Sri Lanka but does not miss the cobras and crocodiles.
Muna Ismael came to Buffalo from Somalia by way of Ethiopia. She remembered missing school because her father could not find work to pay the fees.
Stivia Jorgji moved to Rochester with her family from Albania in search of better health care and education.
Their stories and those of their peers from around the world were gathered by Green Card Youth Voices, a Minneapolis- based organization whose purpose is to share first-person accounts from young immigrants and refugees. This is the organization’s sixth book, each drawn from a different part of the country.
The book containing all the students’ stories is titled “Green Card Youth Voices: Immigration Stories from Upstate New York High Schools.” It is available now as an e-book and will be released next month in paperback. More information and students’ first-person videos are available at www.greencardvoices.org.