Exploring The Refugee Experience

In this excerpt from his memoir, Rodriguez provides a stirring recollection from his adolescence: the first time he experienced racism as a result of being an immigrant in America. As he says, the experience "stays with [him] like a foul odor."

You can see, hear, feel, and taste the injustice, frustration, and naiveté experienced at this ladies' get together.

In this poem, the speaker addresses his father, recalling for him the lush Puerto Rican landscape that he grew up in. Now, this green can be seen only in his father's dreams.

In this poem, the speaker explores how our culture would be lacking—in people, in music, in movements, in contributions—without contributions of African Americans.

In this poem, the speaker--who is Native American--responds to a series of unspoken discriminatory questions. The reader can deduce the missing questions based on the speaker's responses.

In this poem, a black woman carefully analyzes her interaction with a white waitress, whose actions, although civil, are smoldering with superiority.

It may seem like an empty stomach is the worst thing about being poor, but for Junior it’s not being able to save his best friend.

After her father's death, Esperanza and her mother are left with few options and forced to flee to America. The immigration officers are only the first obstacle they must face. Beyond them, the Great Depression and an uncertain future awaits.

Although her husband died in the September 11 attack, Arissa is targeted for being Muslim. In this excerpt, she is held up by a group of men who berate her and threaten to kill her until they realize she is pregnant.

This poem, told by a third-person omniscient narrator, paints a picture of José, an immigrant student who carries the burden of being from the “borderlands.”

Rosie Molinary describes how she felt as a Latina teenager in the United States, caught between disparate and unrealistic beauty standards.

In this essay, the author details how tension built and violence erupted—specifically against Muslim Americans—in the days following the September 11th attacks.

In 1830, the government began systematically removing all Native Americans from the Eastern United States. The removal of Cherokees from Georgia in 1838 has become known as the Trail of Tears. But there were, in fact, many such trails, as the Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Seminoles and other tribes were forced to abandon their homelands.

In this interview, Luis Rodriguez describes how the systemic demoralization he faced in school and society at a young age drove him to join a street gang and how writing his book, Always Running, was an attempt to call his son and other young people in similar situations to change their lives.