English & Spanish
6+
Unlawful Detainment/ Concentration Camps
Mexico & U.S. Border
Family Separation
Racism
Nonfiction
Compiled by Warren Binford for Project Amplify
summary
I’ve been trying to write this review for ages. Hear My Voice/Escucha Mi Voz is a collaboration of Latinx illustrators working with the words from children that are unfairly imprisoned when seeking refuge in what is now called the United States. The power of these words is heartwrenching and so, so needed.
It’s really easy to forget that our country regularly and cruelly detains and separates children from their families. We elected Biden and wanted these things changed, but what have we done to hold the government accountable? Personally, I know I haven’t done enough. You probably haven’t either. But we can change things.
Reading the words from children and how they’re treated from their first step onto our colonized lands is disgusting. These children are separated from their family members, denied basic cleanliness and human rights, and abused.
Like many other issues whose root cause is white supremacy culture and inequity, we need to talk about it. In the book, there are discussion questions and additional information to help guide conversations with younger readers. We can’t change societal inequality without talking about it, and how it’s unacceptable. My words aren’t needed here, the ones who have been most affected need to be amplified.
This book was kindly sent by Workman, and is a contender for the #Bookstagang_BestOf2021 list. All opinions are my own.
You can access a free educator guide for this book by clicking here. Watch a YouTube video about the book by clicking here.
Warren Binford
Warren Binford is an internationally recognized children’s rights scholar and advocate who holds a tenured position as Professor of Law and serves as the Director of the Clinical Law Program at Willamette University. She founded Willamette’s Child and Family Advocacy Clinic, which has provided pro bono legal support to children and families in crisis, as well as guidance on legislation and public policy. She has published nearly 60 law review articles, book chapters, essays, NGO publications, and editorials and has given approximately 150 presentations, primarily on topics related to children’s issues, throughout the country and around the world. Binford holds a J.D. from Harvard Law School and a B.A., summa cum laude with distinction, and an Ed.M. from Boston University. In her free time, Binford is an avid snowboarder, hiker, backpacker, and mountain climber. She lives in Oregon.
Project Amplify is a national campaign launched to establish legal protections for children in government care so that the brutality discovered on the border never happens again.
Michael Garcia Bochenek (foreword) is senior counsel to the Children’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, focusing on juvenile justice and refugee and migrant children. He has researched and reported on criminal and juvenile justice systems and prison conditions, the protection of refugees and internally displaced persons, the exploitation of migrant workers and other labor rights issues, the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons, and rights violations in armed conflict, including the use of children as soldiers. From 2006 to 2015, he was director of policy and then director of law and policy for Amnesty International’s secretariat in London, where he oversaw strategic litigation, among other responsibilities. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University and a law degree from Columbia University. In addition to English, he speaks Spanish and Portuguese. Michael lives in New York.
