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.