Making Americans: Stories of Historic Struggles, New Ideas, and Inspiration in Immigrant Education

Winner of the 2024 George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language, given by the National Council of Teachers of English

"Making Americans shines a light on the barriers that immigrant students in the US face—and shares some inspiring stories about students who have overcome them" —Bill Gates

A landmark work that weaves captivating stories about the past, present, and personal into an inspiring vision for how America can educate immigrant students

Setting out from her classroom, Jessica Lander takes the reader on a powerful and urgent journey to understand what it takes for immigrant students to become Americans. A compelling read for everyone who cares about America’s future, Making Americans brims with innovative ideas for educators and policy makers across the country.

Lander brings to life the history of America’s efforts to educate immigrants through rich stories, including these:

• The Nebraska teacher arrested for teaching an eleven-year-old boy in German who took his case to the Supreme Court
• The California families who overturned school segregation for Mexican American children
• The Texas families who risked deportation to establish the right for undocumented children to attend public schools

She visits innovative classrooms across the country that work with immigrant-origin students, such as these:

• A school in Georgia for refugee girls who have been kept from school by violence, poverty, and natural disaster
• Five schools in Aurora, Colorado, that came together to collaborate with community groups, businesses, a hospital, and families to support newcomer children.
• A North Carolina school district of more than 100 schools who rethought how they teach their immigrant-origin students

She shares inspiring stories of how seven of her own immigrant students created new homes in America, including the following:

• The boy who escaped Baghdad and found a home in his school’s ROTC program
• The daughter of Cambodian genocide survivors who dreamed of becoming a computer scientist
• The orphaned boy who escaped violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and created a new community here

Making Americans is an exploration of immigrant education across the country told through key historical moments, current experiments to improve immigrant education, and profiles of immigrant students. Making Americans is a remarkable book that will reshape how we all think about nurturing one of America’s greatest assets: the newcomers who enrich this country with their energy, talents, and drive.

Jessica Lander is a nationally recognized teacher and the author of the 2024 George Orwell Award–winning book Making Americans. Conferred by the National Council of Teachers of English, the Orwell Award recognizes writers who have made “outstanding contributions to the critical analysis of public discourse.” Among other honors, Jessica was named the 2023 Massachusetts History Teacher of the Year and one of the 2023 Top 10 National History Teachers of the Year by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. She has spent much of the last decade in the classroom, teaching high school history and civics to recent immigrant students.