We Are the Future: Poems with a Voice for Peace Format: Paperback

Immigrant and refugee students attending Foster High School in Tukwila, WA, one of the most ethnically and language-diverse high schools in the US, share visual poems and self-portraits in this moving anthology. Through extensive workshops with teaching artists, students find their voice and use art and poetry to express longing, loss, and hope connected to their experiences of forced migration and immigration. At times harrowing and heartbreaking, these poems and self-portraits are stark reminders of the horror of war, violence, poverty, environmental degradation, and injustice, but they are also a call for peace, hope, and a brighter future for all who leave home and arrive in a new country.

Merna Ann Hecht, project founder and co-director is a teaching artist, poet, essayist, and nationally known storyteller known for her work in social justice education and for community arts projects with refugee and immigrant youth.

Carrie Stradley is a teacher at Foster High School in Tukwila, WA, an experienced multilingual educator and a National Board Certified teacher with over twenty years of teaching. She co-directs the poetry project.

Claudia Castro Luna was the WA State Poet Laureate (2018-2021) and Seattle's inaugural Civic Poet (2015-2018). She authored One River, A Thousand Voices (Chin Music Press) and the Pushcart nominated Killing Marías (Two Sylvias Press).