Straw Bag, Tin Box, Cloth Suitcase: Three Immigrant Voices. This item is unavailable.Straw Bag, Tin Box, Cloth Suitcase: Three Immigrant Voices

Three women, from three different continents and separated by generations, share stories of coming to the United States.

Sarah's great-great grandmother Manya fled the Cossacks in the Ukraine at the turn of the twentieth century. Grace's mom escaped with her family during the Iranian revolution in 1979. Raquel and her family fled gang violence in El Salvador in the 2010s.

These three stories, all accounts of the authors' real family stories – Manya is legendary author Jane Yolen's grandmother – highlight the essential commonality of the immigrant experience.

All three of these stories are fictionalized based on the facts of how these families came to America. All three families were fleeing oppression, revolutions, gang violence, possible death. These stories sound very much the same, though they are generations apart.

Jane’s Story:

Jane Yolen’s family on both sides came over to America in the early 1900s from the Ukraine,
(the Yolens) and Latvia (the Morowitz-Berlins). But this telling is much more directly from the experience of the Yolens. The way in which they left, red-headed Manya driving children in the cart, the straw bag, are stories the Yolens tell. That family consisted of mother, father and eight children who arrived in America in three different stages. It consisted of four girls and four boys, from the oldest boy (27 years old), then three girls in their late teens, then a boy (10 years old), a girl (9 years old), Jane's father (7 years old), and the youngest boy (6 years old). They were running from the devastation of the pogroms, those constant raids by Cossacks who were in the pay of the last Russian Tsar. That tsar was overthrown and executed with his entire family in 1917, the year the Russian Revolution began. By then the Yolens and Berlins were settled in America. But Manya's straw bag always waited, fully packed, by her bedroom door – just in case they had to make another quick flight from terror.

Marjorie’s Story:

Marjorie Lotfi was born in New Orleans but moved to Iran with her American mother and
Persian father as an infant. She had a very happy and ordinary childhood in Tehran
until the Iranian Revolution forced her family to flee to the United States in 1978/1979, during the time the Shah of Iran was overthrown, and 52 Americans were held hostage in the United States Embassy in Tehran. As in the story, Marjorie, her mother Kathryn and brother Kamran waited as long as possible before leaving, then lived with family in Ohio until her father Bahman got out the following year. Once reunited, the whole family moved first to California and later to Maryland, the place – even though she lives now in Scotland with her children – she still thinks of as home. She works with immigrant groups. She and Jane met because of their mutual interest in writing poetry, and decided to write a book together about how their families came to America, once they realized how many of the same sorts of things had happened to each of them.

Raquel’s Story:

The story told here by Raquel is from modern times. Raquel's family was separated for eleven years, living in poverty, as their Papa tried desperately to raise enough money as a farm worker in America to keep them safe and to bring them legally across the border. Even threatened by gang violence, the girls, their mother, and young brother managed to stay alive. Finally, because of the brutality Papa de Paz had suffered at a farm, he was given a coveted visa so he could bring over his wife and four of their five children. (By then, the fifth and oldest child, Rosa, was by American visa rules too old to be considered a child, and would need to get her own visa and make her own way, asking for asylum by herself. But up until now, Rosa had been too afraid to make the trip.) Raquel is learning English, working as a caretaker with people in their own homes, and singing in a chorus. She and Jane met at the Center for New Americans and with the help of translator Laurie Millman (head of the Center), they worked on her part of this book together.

Jane Yolen is the author of over 400 books for children. She has won numerous awards, including a lifetime achievement award from the Association of Jewish Libraries and the Caldecott Medal. Six colleges and universities have given her honorary doctorates for her body of work, so – she jokingly says – you could call her Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Dr. Yolen, though she can't set a leg.

Marjorie Lotfi is an Iranian American who has lived in the United Kingdom for over 20 years. Her first collection of poetry, The Wrong Person to Ask, was published in 2023. Marjorie is a Founder and Director of Open Book, a charity that supports over 1200 reading and creative writing sessions each year across Scotland, including in prisons, shelters, and with refugee and migrant groups. In her spare time, Marjorie is the Chair of the Board of Trustees for StAnza, Scotland's International Poetry Festival, and an editor of New Writing Scotland.

Raquel Elizabeth Artiga de Paz emigrated from El Salvador to Massachusetts. Raquel is learning English, working as a caretaker with people in their own homes, and singing in a chorus. She and Jane Yolen met at the Center for New Americans and with the help of translator Laurie Millman (head of the Center), they worked on her part of this book together.

Fotini Tikkou is an illustrator and ceramic artist based in Athens, Greece. She studied painting at the Athens School of Fine Arts. Her work includes children's books, editorial illustrations, book covers, art licensing, pattern design, and ceramics.