Immigrant Archive Project

Immigrant children understand things early.
We learn to translate.
To adapt.
To carry responsibilities.

Today, I worry about them.
I worry about what they are seeing.
What they are hearing.

What they are beginning to understand about the country they call home.

What Immigrant Children Understand That’s me on the left.

In my latest essay on Substack, I revisit three of the most meaningful interviews I’ve ever conducted—conversations with my daughters, recorded years ago for the Immigrant Archive Project.

Listening to their words again, I realized they were describing something larger than our family. They were giving voice to a new generation of Americans—children who do not see their multicultural identity as divided, but as whole.
Fully American. Fully rooted in their heritage. Entirely at ease in both.

In many ways, they helped me understand what is now becoming the defining reality of Generation Alpha.

They are the New American Child.

The New American Child Through my work on the Immigrant Archive Project, I have interviewed thousands of immigrants about the lives they left behind—and the ones they built here.