-: Hi, my name is Jenny Torres Sanchez
and I am the author of "We Are Not from Here".
This is a book about three teens from Guatemala
who find themselves in a very dangerous situation
in their home country and feel that their only hope
to survive is to flee.
They do this by traveling on La Bestia
which is a series of trains that runs through Mexico
up to the U.S. southern border.
It's an incredibly dangerous journey
but it is the only option that these three teens have.
I feel like "We Are Not from Here" is a book
that would really connect with students today.
It makes literature something that is current.
It is talking about the world they live in,
it is talking about the world
as seen through the eyes of a teenager,
it's talking about what is happening now.
So I really feel like this is a book that takes
the humanitarian crisis that students are hearing
about in the news and it puts it in their hands,
and it makes it a very personal story that
I feel like has the potential to really touch their hearts.
My experience in the classroom definitely impacts
how I approach writing.
When I taught in my classroom, I saw my students really get
excited about literature when they could connect to it.
I saw them really get excited about literature
when it dared to speak to truth, right?
When we could talk about topics like racism, and classism,
and privilege, and sexual assault, and all those struggles,
when we could get into those heavy topics,
they really participated in that.
I think they appreciated that there was a place
where we could discuss those things.
So in my books I always feel a need to be honest
with my reader, I always feel a need to tackle
those hard truths that may be not a lot of people
wanna talk about, or maybe a lot of people
that young adults encounter,
don't wanna delve deeply into.
So in my books I do.
I talk about all those things
and "We Are Not from Here" was definitely no different.
There's a lot of heaviness in that book.
And teaching really showed me that teenagers
could handle that and that they really appreciated that.
If I were back in the classroom and I were teaching
"We Are Not from Here", there are so many ways
that I'd love to use it.
I'd love to have students do character studies
and really delve into how all of these characters are going
through something so similar and very same journey even,
but they are experiencing it in such different ways
and how does that come across in the book.
And what characters they relate to the most and why,
and have them write essays about that.
I'd love to discuss symbolism and imagery in the book.
I'd love to bring music and art into it.
What would this soundtrack to this book sound like?
What would be the soundtrack of characters' life
and what, what songs would speak to their heart?
How does color play into the book?
And Pulga always looking for color and beauty in the world.
I love to do, love, love, love to do a unit with poetry.
Poems about, you know, resistance.
I'd love to have poetry by poets like Langston Hughes
and Juan Felipe Herrera,
his poem is at the very beginning of the book,
Javier Zamora, and Emmy Pérez, and Maya Angelou.
And I just think it would be a really, really great way
for students to discuss this book hand in hand
with poetry and try writing their own poems as well.
So those are some ways I would use it in the classroom.
I think that there's a lot of opportunity
to, a lot there to discuss.
And of course, I love the the teaching guide
that Julia Torres did for this book, it's amazing.
It delves into so many things that students can look into.
So definitely check that out.