Our Stories Our Voices Our Identities

The New Zealand Resettlement Storybook is an introductory narrative to encourage relationship building between resettled people and New Zealand society. The stories in this book recall the lived experiences of individuals from a forced migrant background, i.e., those who were forced, because of civil war and persecution, to leave their country of origin without having the choice to immigrate. These narratives are human stories of hope and resilience that give different voices and space to tell their life stories beyond settlement. This is a sequel to the book “Beyond Refuge: Stories of Resettlement in Auckland”, published in 2016 and second print in 2021. This book has been compiled by the author for the Aotearoa Resettled Community Coalition (ARCC) as a part of his strategic leadership role to engage and connect with wider stakeholders, including service providers, policymakers, the media, and educational institutions, politicians, and the public. The book serves as a guide, resource, and tool to equip the audiences with resettlement knowledge. These narratives bring a greater understanding of the journeys toward smooth settlement and positive integration at local, regional, and national levels. The book captures ethnic diverse background voices that foster sustainability and help maintain the storyteller's own cultural identities. The storybook shares these human struggle and success stories with love and compassion to all Aotearoa, New Zealand (resettled people and host society) and the world. It recognizes the Aotearoa New Zealand hospitality and the opportunity that allows time to become a healer for some of the individual storytellers as they recover from the past and discover their new home dreams. The spirit of willingness to tell a story and share personal confidences opens a larger audience to hear directly from people who have lived through traumatic experiences. The book aims to change people's mindsets and worldviews through storytelling. And it will take you along the journey of 20 individuals’ new residents and citizens of New Zealand. They openly share their resettlement journeys, from leaving a country of origin, a country of asylum, and finally starting a new life in Aotearoa, New Zealand. The personal accounts will improve readers' general knowledge and understanding of the resettlement journey. It creates an awareness that can lead to more positive settlement and integration outcomes for resettled people. New residents/Resettled people are not asking for a special privilege; they want to be treated like any other New Zealander and to be respected as human beings. The storybook publishing is an aim to create self-reconciliation via active participation for new residents/resettled migrants of Aotearoa, New Zealand, opening cultural and economic contribution to their new home. It is also to fill the public and service providers knowledge gap to support the healing process by building confidence to adapt to new home culture and enlightenment of recovery and resilience from historical trauma. The storybook offers to listen to participants collective voices and respect their priorities with recognition of individual opinions that laminate the mission of guilt and ongoing trauma.

“Truthful and empowering.” —Booklist From Amy Reed, Ellen Hopkins, Amber Smith, Nina LaCour, Sandhya Menon, and more of your favorite YA authors comes an “outstanding anthology” (School Library Connection) of essays that explore the diverse experiences of injustice, empowerment, and growing up female in America. This collection of twenty-one essays from major YA authors—including award-winning and bestselling writers—touches on a powerful range of topics related to growing up female in today’s America, and the intersection with race, religion, and ethnicity. Sure to inspire hope and solidarity to anyone who reads it, Our Stories, Our Voices belongs on every young woman’s shelf. This anthology features essays from Martha Brockenbrough, Jaye Robin Brown, Sona Charaipotra, Brandy Colbert, Somaiya Daud, Christine Day, Alexandra Duncan, Ilene Wong (I.W.) Gregorio, Maurene Goo. Ellen Hopkins, Stephanie Kuehnert, Nina LaCour, Anna-Marie LcLemore, Sandhya Menon, Hannah Moskowitz, Julie Murphy, Aisha Saeed, Jenny Torres Sanchez, Amber Smith, and Tracy Walker.

“. . . to suddenly discover yourself existing . . . .” Our Stories: An Introduction to South Asian America is an anthology rooted in community. Bringing together the voices of sixty-four authors—including a wide range of scholars, artists, journalists, and community members—Our Stories weaves together the myriad histories, experiences, perspectives, and identities that make up the South Asian American community. This volume consists of ten chapters that explore both the history of South Asian America, spanning from the 1780s through the present day, and various aspects of the South Asian American experience, from civic engagement to family. Each chapter offers stories of struggle, resistance, inspiration, and joy that disrupt dominant narratives that have erased South Asian Americans’ role in U.S. history and made restrictions on our belonging. By combining these narratives, Our Stories illustrates the diversity, vibrancy, and power of the South Asian American community.

“A call-to-action to everyone out there who wants to fight back.” —Bustle “Scandal, justice, romance, sex positivity, subversive anti-sexism—just try to put it down.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “Cuts straight to the core of rape culture—masterfully fierce, stirring, and deeply empowering.” —Amber Smith, New York Times bestselling author of The Way I Used to Be Three misfits come together to avenge the rape of a fellow classmate and trigger a change in the misogynist culture at their high school transforming the lives of everyone around them in this searing and timely story. Who are the Nowhere Girls? They’re everygirl. But they start with just three: Grace Salter is the new girl in town, whose family was run out of their former community after her southern Baptist preacher mom turned into a radical liberal after falling off a horse and bumping her head. Rosina Suarez is the queer punk girl in a conservative Mexican immigrant family, who dreams of a life playing music instead of babysitting her gaggle of cousins and waitressing at her uncle’s restaurant. Erin Delillo is obsessed with two things: marine biology and Star Trek: The Next Generation, but they aren’t enough to distract her from her suspicion that she may in fact be an android. When Grace learns that Lucy Moynihan, the former occupant of her new home, was run out of town for having accused the popular guys at school of gang rape, she’s incensed that Lucy never had justice. For their own personal reasons, Rosina and Erin feel equally deeply about Lucy’s tragedy, so they form an anonymous group of girls at Prescott High to resist the sexist culture at their school, which includes boycotting sex of any kind with the male students. Told in alternating perspectives, this groundbreaking novel is an indictment of rape culture and explores with bold honesty the deepest questions about teen girls and sexuality.

Asian American Christians have diverse stories beyond the cultural expectations of the model minority or perpetual foreigner. In this compelling resource, a team from East Asian, Southeast Asian, and South Asian backgrounds encourage us to know our history, telling diverse stories of the Asian diaspora in America and the impacts of migration, culture, and faith.

This book is about the self-study of teacher education practices at a time when inclusion and diversity are being questioned. Authors of various backgrounds and identities draw on their own experiences to examine the challenges of preparing teachers.

A fresh, engaging account of a young woman's journey, first to find a cure for a lifelong struggle with stuttering, and ultimately to embrace the voice that has defined her character. It offers a fresh perspective on the obsession with physical perfection.

An innovative anthology showcasing Asian American and Pacific Islander women’s histories Our Voices, Our Histories brings together thirty-five Asian American and Pacific Islander authors in a single volume to explore the historical experiences, perspectives, and actions of Asian American and Pacific Islander women in the United States and beyond. This volume is unique in exploring Asian American and Pacific Islander women’s lives along local, transnational, and global dimensions. The contributions present new research on diverse aspects of Asian American and Pacific Islander women’s history, from the politics of language, to the role of food, to experiences as adoptees, mixed race, and second generation, while acknowledging shared experiences as women of color in the United States. Our Voices, Our Histories showcases how new approaches in US history, Asian American and Pacific Islander studies, and Women’s and Gender studies inform research on Asian American and Pacific Islander women. Attending to the collective voices of the women themselves, the volume seeks to transform current understandings of Asian American and Pacific Islander women’s histories.

Speculative fiction is the literature of questions, of challenges and imagination, and what better to question than the ways in which gender and sexuality have been rigidly defined, partitioned off, put in little boxes? These seventeen stories explore the ways in which identity can go beyond binary from space colonies to small college towns, from angels to androids, and from a magical past to other worlds entirely, the authors in this collection have brought to life wonderful tales starring people who proudly define (and redefine) their own genders, sexualities, identities, and so much else in between.