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Line dance leader Kit Cheung teaches her class of Chinese-American women in an unlikely place: the parking lot of a local library. No other public location offers both the outdoor space and sun cover the group requires for their twist on the traditional Chinese exercise of tai chi. The relationship that forms between the initially reluctant library and Kit’s dance group has created some unexpected opportunities.

The text is the 2006 reauthorization and amendment act of the Voting Rights Act.

“Zindy is a Mexican immigrant and domestic abuse survivor who lives with her five children at an isolated Atlanta-area trailer park. She notices that other park residents — immigrants from Mexico and Central America — struggle with the same issues she does, such as English fluency, reluctance to trust others, and limited access to education and other services. Zindy views their shared isolation as an opportunity and unites mothers in the community with similar cultural norms and practices — not to address shared problems, like domestic abuse, but to realize their common dreams for their children. This is the story of how they forged cultural ties and mutual trust, and the confidence to seek outside help in creating an escuelita (“little school”).”