I’ve been organizing Immigrant Heritage Month events for many years, but this one feels especially meaningful as part of my ongoing collaboration with Skyline College Library. My gratitude to Saul Milan and the library for their installation portraying the movements, struggles, and freedoms woven into migration stories. It includes miniature handmade passports pinned over an old world map, paper cranes representing immigrant hopes and transformations, a symbolic figure with an outstretched arm reaching toward a new future while inviting convergences into shared spaces, a curated selection of book titles in different languages exploring migrations and border constructs, and the digital collage series, “Americans Are Immigrants, too” featuring Jorge Argueta, Dina Klarisse Juan, Barbara Jane Reyes, Eileen R. Tabios, and me, with our portraits and words overlaid on U.S. passports. The display will be on view through the end of the month.
Photo credit: Saul Milan
Credits to the publications in which the poem excerpts and quotes first appeared: Lee & Low Books (Argueta); West Trestle Review & Vibal Publishing House (Cassinetto); Marías at Sampaguitas (Juan); BOA Editions & Marías at Sampaguitas (Reyes); Moria Books/Locofo Chaps & Black Radish Books (Tabios)
Aileen Cassinetto 