Hello, Thanks for your support and interest. 30 Poems in November! is a literary fundraiser for Center for New Americans. Center for New Americans welcomes and serves immigrants in Western Massachusetts with free English classes and a range of support services. For more information, please visit: http://www.cnam.org. This year, they aim to raise $65,000. Writers do their part by writing one poem each day in November. Friends and family do their part by donating to support this effort. Powerful new poems and financial contributions translate to community support for immigrants. Among other things, CNA is currently welcoming Honduran and Guatemalan refugees, as well as Afghan evacuees, teaching English and assisting with employment.
Goal $400.00
100% towards our goal
$600.00 raised
HONOR ROLL
Katherine
$ 50.00
Go Meiju! Can't wait to read your beautiful new work. xo
Shinji
$ 50.00
Thanks, Meiju, for doing this again. Can't for your November gifts!
Susan & Stephen
$ 50.00
Lois
$ 100.00
Gifted and giving
Jeffrey
$ 50.00
The world needs to hear what you are offering!!
Jack Maguire
$ 100.00
Great project! Looking forward to seeing some of the poems. Go, Valerie!
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As a third-generation American with Eastern European Jewish ancestry, my immigrant heritage feels far from daily experience. Near the turn of the century, my family assimilated to American culture as quickly as they could and tried to leave behind whatever traumas they had experienced in "the Old Country.” I have few family stories about life before my great-grandparents left their homelands and people, or the specific experiences that ultimately prompted them to become Americans. As a result of their decisions, I inherit both the privileges of being a white American, as well as the violence. I bear the cultural losses, responsibility, and the rewards of that migration and assimilation. These poems and the funds they raise are intended as a small token of acknowledgement for the unique lives and dreams of new immigrants, as well as the hardships they face. I also write them to honor a debt of gratitude to my own ancestors, whose sacrifices, in part, have provided me a bountifully good life. Tapping into my own people's collective history brings me into contact with a larger human experience of displacement, migration, hope and resiliency. While each of our stories and struggles is certainly different, we share this—a desire to be safe, free, healthy, and happy.