I’m Your Neighbor Books was honored by the Maine Educator’s Association (MEA) for the Welcoming Library and Pine Project: Professional Development’s contribution to Maine schools. Executive Director Kirsten Cappy delivered this speech:
On behalf of my entire team at I’m Your Neighbor Books, I would like to thank the MEA leadership and member educators for this honor.
You are teaching at a time when immigrant, BIPOC and Queer justice, safety, and dignity are under attack.
I’m Your Neighbor Books in a nonprofit that utilizes Immigrant and New Generation K-12 literature to build belonging – for immigrant students and all students.
Can books build justice, safety, and dignity? Yes. We only need to look to book bans to know that story…has…power—power that some conservatives no longer want our students or educators to have.
Fiction defeats the false political narrative that some of us belong and some of us do not.
I am here with my colleague and friend, the astonishing educator Michelle Amato. In the fall of 2023 the Maine Department of Education asked the two of us to take on a nearly impossible task. Create a Social Emotional Learning professional development focused on race and culture—with a live 6-month pilot project and then 5 hours of produced video—in less than a year—on top of our full-time jobs. Bizarrely, we said yes.
We embarked on an experiment to bring together a whole collage of voices including Maine educators and administrators, immigrant leaders, and the creators of Immigrant and New Generation children’s literature.
Those 17 voices explored the premise that the immigrant story is not just for immigrant students—but an incredible model for all of us on positive identity development. How?
Each immigrant’s story is the story of exploration—exploration of identity in the context of an entirely new culture. Aspects of themselves that they never had to previously think about—their race, language, religion, family structure, and more—are illuminated by their contrast to dominant aspects of American culture.
For example, a Congolese refugee boy, is suddenly identified as “Black” here in the US. He must suddenly carry the burden of America’s anti-blackness and have that burden lifted (we hope) by the welcome of neighbors of all backgrounds.
The aspects of identity called out by contrast, force immigrants to discover what they value about themselves, their family, and their culture. They discover what aspects of self they will nurture and defend and what new ideas they will integrate into their world view.
You will see these themes play out in the picture books and novels we curate and share in our award-winning Welcoming Libraries. The SEL discovery in these books is a SEL model for all of us to see ourselves and see beyond our selves. In that discovery are lessons on race, racism, and the barriers and pathways to belonging.
The Pine Project: Professional Development, for which we are being honored, is a free, self-led, 5-hour video course. The PD is available to you on the IYNB and Maine DOE websites and can be taken anonymously. The Welcoming Library: Pine Collection—the books need to compete the PD—are available for you to borrow from your district or from us at I’m Your Neighbor Books.
I urge you to explore the Pine Project: Professional Development this summer, not only for yourself and your students, but for your immigrant neighbors who are being torn apart by this administration. Knowing your neighbors is knowing yourself. Defending your neighbors is ultimately defending yourself.
The Maine County and State Teachers of the Year Association has created another opportunity to do this work this summer. They have selected 15 Immigrant and New Generation books for a self-guided summer read culminating in an August 11th conference at Colby College. Visit our website for more information about MCSTOYA Connects: Migration Reads.
Together we can invite our students —and ourselves— to read to welcome. read to belong. Thank you again for this honor.
