Green Card Voices is telling immigrant and refugee stories the right way – with authenticity and allowing people to be in control of their stories. The organization visited Pulaski High School last week to document the stories of 15 immigrant students. The interviews were done on-camera and will be published online and in book format, where students will then become published authors.
Listen to the audio piece below to learn more about Green Card Voices’ trip to Pulaski High School.
Green Card Voices is a non-profit organization that was founded in Minnesota in 2013. The goal of the organization is to use digital storytelling as platform for immigrant and refugee students to tell their stories.
So far, Green Card Voices has visited four high schools, publishing a collection of stories from each school. They traveled all over Minnesota, visited North Dakota, Georgia and now, Milwaukee.
Tea Rozman-Clark, the co-founder of Green Card Voices, traveled to Pulaski High School on Milwaukee’s Southside with a production crew of three. There they interviewed 15 students from all over the world.
And later this month, they are visiting James Madison Memorial High School to talk to another 15 students.
Rozman-Clark emphasized the importance of letting the students be in charge of their narrative. They answered questions about their journey to the United States, what their life is like now and what their hopes are for the future. They take portraits in the location of their choice and were allowed to pick their photo and how their stories would be presented.
The last step is the editing. Rozman-Clark plans to come back to the schools in March to edit the transcribed stories with each student to assure they feel properly represented in the book.
Once the editing process is complete, the book will be published and available for purchase. You can access the video interviews and order copies of the published books on the Green Card Voices website.