Our Little Read Lakeshore pick for this year is Yuyi Morales’ Dreamers. If you haven’t had the chance to read it yet, I’d encourage you to pick up a copy. The nonfiction children’s book follows Yuyi Morales’ journey to the United States from Mexico with her young son, Kelly. In America they experience the struggles many immigrants face but find a place of sanctuary in stories and a local library. Even for older readers, there are a lot of things you can get out of this story.
Creating Dreamers:
One of the first things I noticed while reading Dreamers is the illustrations throughout. Yuyi Morales not only wrote the words, but also created all the illustrations herself. This allowed her to have a unique control on how the story was told, changing the words throughout when she felt the illustrations could tell that part of the story in a fuller way.
The creation of these images was also unique. Morales started her process with the words already mostly picked out, then created paper sketches that she transferred over to her computer to complete. While she paints some of these images, she also used real life inspiration, taking pictures of fabrics or materials that she then can photoshop into the illustrations to give them more depth.
She also took a lot of time creating images that hold a lot of meaning to her personally and culturally. Things like the animals that show up and follow the duo throughout the book were very purposeful. A free-tailed bat, a swallow, and a monarch butterfly all show up throughout the book and for a good reason: they are all migrants themselves. The free-tailed bats come from South-America and Mexico and make their way up to the United States and the swallows make a similar trip up from Argentina. The monarch butterflies are the most symbolic as they spend generations making the migrations from Mexico to Canada and back, each generation sacrificing things for the lives of their descendants.
Other images like the objects that she brings with her in her green backpack each also carry their own meaning. She wanted to fight against the belief that immigrants bring nothing but needs with them, showing the way immigrants can contribute in their own ways. The heart is a symbol of her intuition and the way she views the world, the volcano symbolizes her emotions and passions, and the pencil shows her talent and creativity, with many more messages hidden among those items.
What is a “Dreamer”
Starting this book knowing it had something to do with immigration and seeing the title, I assumed this book would be touching on the Dreamer’s Act.
A “Dreamer” refers to a young immigrant who was brought to the U.S. as a child, typically without legal documentation. While most Dreamers are Latino, it is a very diverse group with people from all-over the world. Three-fourths of Dreamers have lived in the US for the most of their lives and have grown up living typical American lives with some not knowing that they weren’t legal until later in life when they didn’t have documentation to get a driver’s license, apply for a job, or get aid to go to college.
The term “Dreamers” stems from the DREAM Act (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act), first introduced in Congress in 2001. Though it has been proposed multiple times, the DREAM Act has not passed. The act would offer a path to legal residency for Dreamers who meet certain criteria, such as graduating from high school, attending college, or serving in the military. In response to the stalled DREAM Act, the Obama administration established DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) in 2012. DACA allows Dreamers to receive renewable two-year deferrals from deportation and apply for work permits, though it does not provide a path to citizenship. To qualify for DACA, applicants must meet specific age, residency, and education or military service requirements. However, DACA has faced legal challenges and uncertainty, leaving the status of Dreamers in limbo.
Morales and Her Definition of Dreamers
Morales also touched on this topic in her interview with Deanna Day and Barbara A. Ward in the article, “Yuyi Morales: Dreamweaver and Teller of Tales.”
Morales wasn’t originally going to title the book “Dreamers,” and that suggestion actually came from her editor. She said she “was very cautious because I didn’t want to dilute the power of the word dreamers because it is political… I didn’t want to say that we are all dreamers because that weakens the fight for the Dreamers’ movement. At the same time, I wanted to signal that making the journey of leaving your country, all of the risk, all of the changes that you have to encounter in a new country, is the result of how we dream for a better future. We are dreamers because we come here hoping to do something better for ourselves and our children.”
This highlights one of the key takeaways from this text. We frequently discuss the “American Dream,” especially in connection with works like The Great Gatsby, this year’s Big Read selection. However, we often overlook how that dream has evolved over the past century for different people. Individuals from diverse countries and backgrounds come to America in search of a better life, and their dreams and stories are crucial to understanding the broader narrative of our country. Many of this year’s Big Read Lakeshore books explore the idea of coming together to celebrate the diverse experiences and aspirations of Americans, all united by the shared hope of building a better life.
Another quote from Yuyi also touches on exactly what we at the Big Read strive to do through our program:
“We need diverse children’s literature that is just, allows for voices that are invisible that we don’t normally hear from. We need to hear from others with the same care and love that we have been hearing all of the other stories. The publishing industry needs to produce literature in which we are all heroes and participate, where we learn to listen to the voices of others we are not accustomed to. We don’t need to tell others’ stories because we know nothing about their cultures. We need to give space for those voices to tell their stories by passing the mic, allowing their voices to be richer because it comes from diverse authors.”
Rather than just reading one perspective on this text, I encourage you to go get the full story by reading Dreamers!