Jessica Lander
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Jessica Lander
Teacher, Author, and Advocate

Making americans

Setting out from her classroom, Jessica Lander takes the reader on a powerful and urgent journey—told through captivating stories of the past, the present, and the personal—to understand what it takes for immigrant students to become Americans.

She brings to life historic struggles to improve immigrant education—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; and the Texas families who risked deportation to establish the right for undocumented children to attend public schools. 

She visits innovative classrooms across the country—a school for refugee girls in Georgia; five schools in Aurora, Colorado that created a community-wide network of organizations and people to support newcomer children; and a North Carolina district of more than 100 schools who rethought how they teach their immigrant-origin students.

She shares inspiring stories of her own students' immigrant journeys and how they created their own American identities—a 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, and an orphan boy who escaped violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and created a new community here. 

Together, the stories and insights chart a course for educators and policy makers—and for everyone who cares about America’s future. Making Americans is a landmark book, providing a clear vision for how schools can help nurture a sense of belonging in newcomers, with benefits for all students.  It is a catalyst for communities across America to reimagine immigrant education.

Beacon Press, Fall 2022

 
“Weaving together inspiring personal stories, powerful case studies, and a fascinating history of immigrant education in America, Jessica Lander shines a new, hopeful light on a perennial question: How does a young immigrant become an American?”
— PAUL TOUGH | AUTHOR OF HOW CHILDREN SUCCEED AND THE INEQUALITY MACHINE
 
 
“Making Americans is an eye-opening, crucial, and riveting account of how schools and educators have shaped the immigrant experience in the United States. It is an essential history of our nation, interwoven with narratives of students and teachers who are today reimagining what it means to become American. Lander has written a deep and moving book for anyone who cares about the fate of our country, but especially for those of us who are descendants of people who traveled here from afar. Readers of Making Americans might even find themselves with a renewed sense of patriotism, reinvigorated by the stories of people relentlessly working to redefine and make real the American Dream.”
— BINA VENKATARAMAN | AUTHOR OF THE OPTIMIST'S TELESCOPE AND FORMER EDITORIAL PAGE EDITOR OF THE BOSTON GLOBE
 
 
“Making Americans is a beautifully written account of the history and practice of immigrant education in America. With masterful interweaving of legal history, classroom case examples, and powerful student stories, what emerges is a compelling and timely work that informs as much as it inspires.”
— SARAH LADIPO MANYIKA | AUTHOR OF LIKE A MULE BRINGING ICE CREAM TO THE SUN
 
 
“Our nation’s magic is its ability to turn immigrants into Americans. Jessica Lander has written a brilliant and poignant book about how schools can help do this. With her background as a classroom teacher working with young people from around the world, she weaves together history, analysis, and deeply personal stories. This is an important book, and also a beautiful one. Everyone who cares about the future of America should read it.”
— WALTER ISAACSON | AUTHOR OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN: AN AMERICAN LIFE
 
 
“Lander deftly portrays varying journeys of newcomer students as they enter U.S. schools and society. Providing well-researched historical perspective along with hopeful current models of promising practice, Making Americans will no doubt become a mainstay for all who care to best serve our newest Americans!"
— CAROLA SUÁREZ-OROZCO | DIRECTOR, IMMIGRATION INITIATIVE AT HARVARD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
 
 
“Making Americans provides just the sort of context too often missing from discussions of immigrant education. But what with its many terrific stories about students and teachers, it is more than informative: fascinating and inspiring, it is also a great read.”
— GISH JEN | AUTHOR OF THANK YOU, MR. NIXON
 
 
“At a time when more than one in four students in American schools are immigrants or children of immigrants, how schools help "make Americans" should be a front-and-center topic for the nation. Jessica Lander's compelling book interweaves vivid stories of the past, the present, and the personal — narratives of historic legal decisions, profiles of innovative schools around the country today, and inspiring portraits of her own students in Lowell, Massachusetts. At times moving, instructive, sobering, and encouraging, Making Americans will captivate and enlighten all readers. And it will also equip teachers, voters, and policymakers to work together to overcome prejudice and help newcomers build on their talents to strengthen America while pursuing their own dreams.”
— MARTHA MINOW | FORMER DEAN OF HARVARD LAW SCHOOL AND AUTHOR OF WHEN SHOULD LAW FORGIVE?
 
 
“Jessica Lander's immigrant origin students - from a kaleidoscope of countries and cultures -- come alive in these pages, until we feel we know them. She weaves their stories together with those of previous waves of immigrants who fled war, persecution, and poverty, including her own family. Her message is simple and powerful: new Americans make themselves with help from those of us who are already here. That making starts in school, as should our help. A compelling read."
— ANNE-MARIE SLAUGHTER | CEO, NEW AMERICA