Isabel Allende, David Ho, Eduardo Najera, and Orlando Patterson are immigrants whose stories are available free on DVD through the Merage Foundation for the American Dream in Newport Beach, Calif. Paul and Lilly Merage--immigrants from Iran--set up the foundation three years ago to inspire young immigrants to do well and to inform Americans about the contributions of immigrants, according to the foundation’s Web site. The DVD series is accompanied by teachers’ guides.
The foundation is also giving awards this month to honor four other immigrants for their contributions. They are: Shirley Tilghman, the president of Princeton University; Jerry Yang, the co-founder of Yahoo!; Jack Rosenthal, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist; and Francis Deng, who was once Sudan’s ambassador to the United States and from 1992-2004 was the Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General on Internally Displaced Persons.
If anyone gives the foundation’s materials a try with English-language learners, let me know if they strike a chord.