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I am a student in Edinger House in the fourth grade. Dalton, my school is in New York City. This Year (2006-2007) we as a class are studying forced immigration but mostly slavery.
Forced immigration is when people have to move out of the place where they live and go to a different place or a different country because they were being taken by other people. For instance slavery is one kind of forced immigration. Sometimes little kids are slaves. It is really sad. The Amistad was a slave ship and the slaves where on the boat took over the ship. We learned a lot about that important ship.
One of the projects that we did was we wrote poems about people that were on the Amistad with the help of a poet named Natasha Tretheway.
We also read my teacher, Monica Edinger’s, book. It is about a girl name Sara Margru Kinson and she was on the Amistad and got to go home. The book is called Africa is My Home. After we read each chapter we wrote about it in a little book, like literary examples, historical facts, comments and our responses. I thought that it was really cool because I had never read a book that was still in the process of being written. We also read books like Amistad Rising, Esperanza Rising, and The Village that Vanished and lots of other picture and chapter books.
One of my classmates brought in stuff from Mali, where his father is from. Mrs. Edinger also brought in thing from Sierra Leone where she lived for two years. They both brought in colorful robes, carved bowls, carved statues and lots of other cool objects.
I think that it is incredibly sad that people were being treated that way and that people had to go through all of those tough times. I think that we did this project because it is a very important historical event and it is exiting and sad to learn about. I learned about slavery, and about all these people that were slaves. I am very glad that we did this project.