Yuliana arrived at Jack London Middle School, in Wheeling, in the Chicago suburbs, from Ukraine two months after Russian troops invaded her homeland. She and other family members escaped the death, destruction, and cruelty of warfare. But she misses something left behind in that shell-shocked land—her home.
“It’s hard to come to America,” she said in an interview. “USA is a new home. It’s so different—different people, different country, different house.”
Yuliana was not alone in her feelings. Her family and others from Latin America, Asia, and Eastern Europe shared their accounts of immigrating at an evening organized by the school for newcomers to America. They spoke of leaving their familiar worlds for a new and foreign land that may be secure but doesn’t feel like their own. (We use the students’ real first names, but school policy prohibits the use of last names. They spoke mostly in English, but some quotes were translated by school staff.)
Educators welcomed the families into the library as part of an extensive outreach program helping immigrants adjust to their new lives, and they used the HomeStories interactive map to stimulate the conversation.
The HomeStories project is an outgrowth of the Out of Eden Walk, Paul Salopek’s 24,000-mile walk around the world sponsored in part by the National Geographic Society. Now in its fifth year, HomeStories, which started in Chicago, helps people around the world get to know one another by asking them to talk about where they feel most at home. They also answer the same three questions Salopek asks people he encounters every hundred miles along his historic walk: Who are you, where are you from and where are you going?
Regardless of where one feels most at home, the very idea stirs deep emotions in most of us. Our nests offer familiarity, protection, and love. When we lose them, we face the unknown and often loneliness and fear. It’s wrenching for migrants to leave behind their towns, their culture, their language, their friends, and often many family members for a faraway destination. And what lies ahead? Hope, for sure. Beyond that, it may be hard to say.
“I was scared to come to America,” said Nikol, who is also from wartime Ukraine. She said she used to have many friends, but fellow eighth grader Yuliana is her only close pal here. Nikol too had been exposed to fear in Ukraine, having arrived at London in late June. Coming to America may have been scary, but she’s no shrinking violet—she’s studied karate for nine years and dreams of competing internationally.
“It’s hard to come to America,” she said in an interview. “USA is a new home. It’s so different—different people, different country, different house.”
Yuliana was not alone in her feelings. Her family and others from Latin America, Asia, and Eastern Europe shared their accounts of immigrating at an evening organized by the school for newcomers to America. They spoke of leaving their familiar worlds for a new and foreign land that may be secure but doesn’t feel like their own. (We use the students’ real first names, but school policy prohibits the use of last names. They spoke mostly in English, but some quotes were translated by school staff.)
Educators welcomed the families into the library as part of an extensive outreach program helping immigrants adjust to their new lives, and they used the HomeStories interactive map to stimulate the conversation.
The HomeStories project is an outgrowth of the Out of Eden Walk, Paul Salopek’s 24,000-mile walk around the world sponsored in part by the National Geographic Society. Now in its fifth year, HomeStories, which started in Chicago, helps people around the world get to know one another by asking them to talk about where they feel most at home. They also answer the same three questions Salopek asks people he encounters every hundred miles along his historic walk: Who are you, where are you from and where are you going?
Regardless of where one feels most at home, the very idea stirs deep emotions in most of us. Our nests offer familiarity, protection, and love. When we lose them, we face the unknown and often loneliness and fear. It’s wrenching for migrants to leave behind their towns, their culture, their language, their friends, and often many family members for a faraway destination. And what lies ahead? Hope, for sure. Beyond that, it may be hard to say.
“I was scared to come to America,” said Nikol, who is also from wartime Ukraine. She said she used to have many friends, but fellow eighth grader Yuliana is her only close pal here. Nikol too had been exposed to fear in Ukraine, having arrived at London in late June. Coming to America may have been scary, but she’s no shrinking violet—she’s studied karate for nine years and dreams of competing internationally.
Home is especially important for children. It’s a safe place to grow, to develop an identity, to know there will be comfort, control, and the company of loved ones. Even if the outside world is challenging, you can always come home where you feel you belong.
The kids at London Middle School worked on those feelings by writing their HomeStories when they first entered school. They wrote with the help of teachers, translators, and each other, finding comfort and insight by sharing with others. Then at newcomers’ evening, they discussed their HomeStories with their families. Afterwards, the families mingled, building understanding between strangers and discovering support through their common experiences. At one table, a family from Mexico talked and laughed with a family from Mongolia. At another, a Russian-speaking family with roots in Lithuania met with two families from Ukraine.
It was a heart-warming scene to see, especially for us. We’re two of the organizers of the HomeStories project. Tracy is an instructional coach at Jack London; Bill is a semi-retired journalist.
We watched connections being forged between people who sorely needed them, in languages we didn’t understand. Of course, often neither did they. Participants coming from different points of the globe generally spoke with each other through a squadron of interpreters.
The title of Yuliana’s HomeStory summed up the challenge she and her classmates face: “A wonderful life in Ukraine, a new one in Illinois, USA.” We were inspired by their journeys, and we’d like to tell you how they’re managing them with a lot of help from their school and a little from HomeStories.
‘They are so brave’
America is, well, normal to the two of us, but to kids just arriving it’s a profoundly strange place: They often land here with a thud, students and school staff members told us. “A lot of these kids are in shock mode,” said Anastasia Netzel, the school’s principal since 2020.
“You have to figure out everything,” said Marcella Rodriguez, a district bilingual/ESL instructional specialist. “You have to figure out how to buy groceries. You have to start from scratch.”
Rodriguez, a government official in Colombia before coming to the U.S. in the 1980s, immigrated as an adult but said it’s even harder for students. “I think they are so brave. Kids don’t always have a say or even all the information. They just come along. There’s not that cultural preparedness. The kids in many cases come by surprise.”
Most families come for financial reasons, seeking new opportunities and a better life, she said. “Of course, now we have a good amount of kids who are fleeing difficult, tumultuous situations, just running to safety.” Rodriguez herself escaped unrest in Colombia.
Many Ukrainians came to Wheeling after Russia invaded their country in February 2022. Immigrants often are attracted to areas where family members or compatriots already live, so refugees flocked to the large and growing communities of Russian and Ukrainian immigrants in Chicago’s northwestern suburbs. There are bilingual schools nearby, and places where Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Muslim families can worship.
The familiar atmosphere can help, said Iryna Yampolska, a teaching assistant and translator who worked for 30 years as a language teacher in Ukraine. But sometimes immigrants bring old animosities.
Many refugees from Ukraine come from villages that have been badly damaged or destroyed in the war, Yampolska said. “That’s why some of them are just very angry. They had to leave their homes because of this war with the Russians. That’s why some of them are angry and feel bad to be together with them now.”
Home is especially important for children. It’s a safe place to grow, to develop an identity, to know there will be comfort, control, and the company of loved ones. Even if the outside world is challenging, you can always come home where you feel you belong.
The kids at London Middle School worked on those feelings by writing their HomeStories when they first entered school. They wrote with the help of teachers, translators, and each other, finding comfort and insight by sharing with others. Then at newcomers’ evening, they discussed their HomeStories with their families. Afterwards, the families mingled, building understanding between strangers and discovering support through their common experiences. At one table, a family from Mexico talked and laughed with a family from Mongolia. At another, a Russian-speaking family with roots in Lithuania met with two families from Ukraine.
It was a heart-warming scene to see, especially for us. We’re two of the organizers of the HomeStories project. Tracy is an instructional coach at Jack London; Bill is a semi-retired journalist.
We watched connections being forged between people who sorely needed them, in languages we didn’t understand. Of course, often neither did they. Participants coming from different points of the globe generally spoke with each other through a squadron of interpreters.
The title of Yuliana’s HomeStory summed up the challenge she and her classmates face: “A wonderful life in Ukraine, a new one in Illinois, USA.” We were inspired by their journeys, and we’d like to tell you how they’re managing them with a lot of help from their school and a little from HomeStories.
‘They are so brave’
America is, well, normal to the two of us, but to kids just arriving it’s a profoundly strange place: They often land here with a thud, students and school staff members told us. “A lot of these kids are in shock mode,” said Anastasia Netzel, the school’s principal since 2020.
“You have to figure out everything,” said Marcella Rodriguez, a district bilingual/ESL instructional specialist. “You have to figure out how to buy groceries. You have to start from scratch.”
Rodriguez, a government official in Colombia before coming to the U.S. in the 1980s, immigrated as an adult but said it’s even harder for students. “I think they are so brave. Kids don’t always have a say or even all the information. They just come along. There’s not that cultural preparedness. The kids in many cases come by surprise.”
Most families come for financial reasons, seeking new opportunities and a better life, she said. “Of course, now we have a good amount of kids who are fleeing difficult, tumultuous situations, just running to safety.” Rodriguez herself escaped unrest in Colombia.
Many Ukrainians came to Wheeling after Russia invaded their country in February 2022. Immigrants often are attracted to areas where family members or compatriots already live, so refugees flocked to the large and growing communities of Russian and Ukrainian immigrants in Chicago’s northwestern suburbs. There are bilingual schools nearby, and places where Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Muslim families can worship.
The familiar atmosphere can help, said Iryna Yampolska, a teaching assistant and translator who worked for 30 years as a language teacher in Ukraine. But sometimes immigrants bring old animosities.
Many refugees from Ukraine come from villages that have been badly damaged or destroyed in the war, Yampolska said. “That’s why some of them are just very angry. They had to leave their homes because of this war with the Russians. That’s why some of them are angry and feel bad to be together with them now.”
She tries to calm the storm by explaining that Ukrainian and Russian newcomers have much in common. “The kids, they don’t understand that. I tell them, guys, they also left because they didn’t agree with the war.”
Most young immigrants face a steep and common barrier: the English language. It’s not just that it’s a foreign language, it’s a completely foreign system. And it’s a system with grammatical rules that are frequently broken and spellings and pronunciations that confound even native speakers.
“It’s hard to understand this country,” said Anthony, a sixth-grader from Ukraine. “Everything is hard. The language is very hard.”
Yampolska, who speaks five languages, sympathizes with Anthony. “It’s so hard at the beginning. It really takes time. I know I felt it too, even me, an English teacher.”
Rodriguez said immigrant children typically go through stages of adjustment. “There is that honeymoon period where everything is amazing. And then there is, Oh, I don’t fit in—a moment of deflation where things seem to be really hard. There is an up-and-down with coping until the kids get adjusted. Definitely language is a huge part of that.”
Most will find comfort soon. “They call it immersion in the culture, or a sense of belonging,” Rodriguez said. “We don’t like to call it assimilation, where you leave your old culture and assimilate. I don’t like that because I think you still need to be yourself.”
Some youngsters enjoy considerable success. “The students with this kind of overall experience, if they have academic support, they flourish,” Rodriguez said. “They can surpass their peers. They can do better because they speak two languages, and they have ingrained experiences that really become an advantage.”
She tries to calm the storm by explaining that Ukrainian and Russian newcomers have much in common. “The kids, they don’t understand that. I tell them, guys, they also left because they didn’t agree with the war.”
Most young immigrants face a steep and common barrier: the English language. It’s not just that it’s a foreign language, it’s a completely foreign system. And it’s a system with grammatical rules that are frequently broken and spellings and pronunciations that confound even native speakers.
“It’s hard to understand this country,” said Anthony, a sixth-grader from Ukraine. “Everything is hard. The language is very hard.”
Yampolska, who speaks five languages, sympathizes with Anthony. “It’s so hard at the beginning. It really takes time. I know I felt it too, even me, an English teacher.”
Rodriguez said immigrant children typically go through stages of adjustment. “There is that honeymoon period where everything is amazing. And then there is, Oh, I don’t fit in—a moment of deflation where things seem to be really hard. There is an up-and-down with coping until the kids get adjusted. Definitely language is a huge part of that.”
Most will find comfort soon. “They call it immersion in the culture, or a sense of belonging,” Rodriguez said. “We don’t like to call it assimilation, where you leave your old culture and assimilate. I don’t like that because I think you still need to be yourself.”
Some youngsters enjoy considerable success. “The students with this kind of overall experience, if they have academic support, they flourish,” Rodriguez said. “They can surpass their peers. They can do better because they speak two languages, and they have ingrained experiences that really become an advantage.”
On the other hand, she said, about 20 percent of immigrant children don’t graduate from high school. She said schools are ill-equipped to serve students who have missed significant classroom time or whose schooling fell far short of American standards. “We don’t have what it takes to teach them at the second grade when they come in at the eighth grade. So those students struggle the most, and some of them may find it too overwhelming.”
Many young people must overcome war, poverty, crime, illness, or exhausting travel in their journey to America. “Sometimes there is so much trauma in the immigration experience that we cannot overcome it in the first generation,” Rodriguez said.
But never underestimate the power of a child’s resilience and hopes. Rodriguez loves the students’ dreams. “They have such amazing goals,” she said. “Some of them want to be a lawyer because they will be the first lawyer of their town, and they want to go and make justice. Another is to be a doctor because they would be the first in the family. They have some really hefty and admirable goals.”
Gereltuya, known as Grace, is an eighth grader from Mongolia who harbors those kinds of goals. “I am studying hard, and I dream of being a judge someday,” she wrote in her HomeStory. “I believe a woman who knows law is beautiful.”
‘School is where the door opens’
Jack London Middle School is one of 12 public schools in District 21, which serves six populous suburbs about 30 miles northwest of Chicago. The district’s motto: “Empowering every student, every day.” District 21 schools are named for poets and novelists, such as Jack London, the early 20th-century author known for The Call of the Wild and White Fang.
The school hosts 577 students in grades 6 to 8. According to the 2022 Illinois School Report Card, an official education data site, the student body is 61 percent Hispanic, 28 percent white and 6 percent Asian. About 54 percent of the students are low income, 39 percent are English learners, and 4.5 percent are homeless. Illinois ranks Jack London as a “commendable” school, its most common designation, neither exceptional nor underperforming.
Principal Netzel is a big believer in collaboration, training, and support for the faculty and staff, and she’s made immigration a focus for professional development, especially during the past year. “You see a need, and you address a need,” she said.
She said the school develops individual plans for students because they come from such different places and circumstances. “We try to get to know them before we start,” she said.
That includes academic assessments: What level has a child attained? Are there educational gaps? What is the language proficiency? But that’s just the beginning. “School is not just about supporting students academically but about working with the whole child,” Netzel said.
“We try to understand the student’s emotional needs, their prior schooling, and the circumstances of how they got here.”
Educators emphasized that no two students are alike. Maturity is a big factor. And older isn’t always better; it’s more nuanced than that. “My sixth-grade class is awesome,” said Ricardo Perez, a language teacher who is originally from Spain. “They’re not afraid, they’re not embarrassed. They’re so innocent. The eighth graders are a little more intimidated.”
Netzel said it’s essential to work with families too. The school serves as a hub connecting immigrants with community resources of all kinds. “We’re talking to families about their global opportunities here,” she said. Newcomers’ night was a part of that outreach.
On the other hand, she said, about 20 percent of immigrant children don’t graduate from high school. She said schools are ill-equipped to serve students who have missed significant classroom time or whose schooling fell far short of American standards. “We don’t have what it takes to teach them at the second grade when they come in at the eighth grade. So those students struggle the most, and some of them may find it too overwhelming.”
Many young people must overcome war, poverty, crime, illness, or exhausting travel in their journey to America. “Sometimes there is so much trauma in the immigration experience that we cannot overcome it in the first generation,” Rodriguez said.
But never underestimate the power of a child’s resilience and hopes. Rodriguez loves the students’ dreams. “They have such amazing goals,” she said. “Some of them want to be a lawyer because they will be the first lawyer of their town, and they want to go and make justice. Another is to be a doctor because they would be the first in the family. They have some really hefty and admirable goals.”
Gereltuya, known as Grace, is an eighth grader from Mongolia who harbors those kinds of goals. “I am studying hard, and I dream of being a judge someday,” she wrote in her HomeStory. “I believe a woman who knows law is beautiful.”
‘School is where the door opens’
Jack London Middle School is one of 12 public schools in District 21, which serves six populous suburbs about 30 miles northwest of Chicago. The district’s motto: “Empowering every student, every day.” District 21 schools are named for poets and novelists, such as Jack London, the early 20th-century author known for The Call of the Wild and White Fang.
The school hosts 577 students in grades 6 to 8. According to the 2022 Illinois School Report Card, an official education data site, the student body is 61 percent Hispanic, 28 percent white and 6 percent Asian. About 54 percent of the students are low income, 39 percent are English learners, and 4.5 percent are homeless. Illinois ranks Jack London as a “commendable” school, its most common designation, neither exceptional nor underperforming.
Principal Netzel is a big believer in collaboration, training, and support for the faculty and staff, and she’s made immigration a focus for professional development, especially during the past year. “You see a need, and you address a need,” she said.
She said the school develops individual plans for students because they come from such different places and circumstances. “We try to get to know them before we start,” she said.
That includes academic assessments: What level has a child attained? Are there educational gaps? What is the language proficiency? But that’s just the beginning. “School is not just about supporting students academically but about working with the whole child,” Netzel said.
“We try to understand the student’s emotional needs, their prior schooling, and the circumstances of how they got here.”
Educators emphasized that no two students are alike. Maturity is a big factor. And older isn’t always better; it’s more nuanced than that. “My sixth-grade class is awesome,” said Ricardo Perez, a language teacher who is originally from Spain. “They’re not afraid, they’re not embarrassed. They’re so innocent. The eighth graders are a little more intimidated.”
Netzel said it’s essential to work with families too. The school serves as a hub connecting immigrants with community resources of all kinds. “We’re talking to families about their global opportunities here,” she said. Newcomers’ night was a part of that outreach.
Nikol, left, and Yuliana, friends from Ukraine, share their HomeStories with Yuliana’s mom.
Tracy Crowley
Ania Figueroa, District 21 director of language services, said the role of schools has changed since she and her family of Chilean refugees moved to the area. “The school system was not as open and friendly as it is now,” she said. For example, she didn’t speak English at the time, and the only teacher in her middle school who spoke Spanish was the Spanish teacher, whose primary job was teaching English-speakers.
“The great thing is that 30 years later, guidance and state laws have changed to where schools are required to have translators, to have these services available for students and families. There are so many more resources available now.”
It took 10 rocky years for Figueroa to complete the immigration process. Federal offices lost her paperwork—twice. At one point, the government recorded her family as Mexican citizens, not Chileans. They needed expensive legal help to finish the job. Now that work is often provided pro bono. Families get a hand finding jobs. Some find help at food pantries.
Part of her role is to contact immigrant families and explain what they’re entitled to, both in school and in the community. “School is where the door opens,” she said.
Immigrants won’t necessarily kick that door open themselves. “Some families are nervous,” Figueroa said. “They’ve never been engaged with a school. They say, ‘I don’t know if we can do this.’ “
Figueroa remembered one family who walked up to a school and hesitated at the door. It was unlocked, but the father and his family were about to walk away before a school staffer ran up, opened the door, and welcomed them inside. Figueroa said in many European and Latin American cultures, schools are regarded only as academic institutions, with little parental engagement, whereas Americans try to extend the educational experience into the home.
The dad who almost walked away is now part of a school volunteer group helping other immigrants get in the door and get settled in their new land.
HomeStories: ‘We are so different, but we are the same’
Over refreshments in the library that cold November evening, Netzel introduced a small group of families to the school and the local resources available to them. “It was a really great event. One grandmother was so happy because she could be a real part of the community,” said Iryna Yampolska, the teaching assistant and translator.
Yampolska said one woman hit the jackpot through the connections she made that evening: She found a job. She’d been a baker in Ukraine, and now she makes Ukrainian-style cookies for a bakery in Wheeling.
Later the families, staff members, and translators turned to HomeStories, posting on the interactive map their responses to the question, What place in your community feels most like home and why? Some reflections are matter-of-fact; some are informative; some moving and evocative; some happy; some sad. Taken together, they form a fascinating overview about people’s feelings of home.
Netzel was eager to post her own HomeStory as a model for teachers, students, and families to get the conversation started. Her family was originally from Greece, and that still feels like home, she said. “Long before I wanted to be a principal, my great-grandfather was a principal in a small village in Greece outside Tripoli,” she wrote. “Now my family is located in Athens, many of whom are involved in education. When I am in Athens I feel connected and balanced.”
She said later, “you don’t always realize how important your past is.”
Grace and her dad, both new immigrants from Mongolia, discuss her HomeStory about the peace she felt in the mountains of their homeland and her hopes for the future in America.
Tracy Crowley
The kids came to newcomers’ night with their HomeStories already posted on the map, often in their native languages as well as in English. That evening, they discussed the stories with their families, all in the context of the long trip from their old homes to this new and very different place outside Chicago. “The act of sharing is important,” Netzel said. “Student can feel less guarded about their feelings. Sometimes they hold it in, and it all wells up. And that can’t feel good.”
It’s important for educators to support that self-expression. “Whether it’s through HomeStories or something else, you want to get across to students that they matter,” she said. “In a system where you can feel like you’re just a number, we’ve got to build that trust. You’ve got to be willing to really interact with students.”
Interpreters and teachers circulated around the room, listening, encouraging, facilitating. For parents, “it was a great opportunity to see where they’re coming from, to answer any questions they might have,” said Ricardo Perez, the language teacher. “We can give them some advice, some ideas on how they can support their children.”
For students, “it’s a good, social, emotional self-analysis,” he said. “I like the three questions—who are you, where are you from, where are you going—because students can see how the three things fit together.”
He said the questions are simple, easy to understand, and easy to translate. “But they’re open-ended. Anyone can answer those questions on multiple, different levels. It opens it up more for them to express their own complicated ideas.”
The students shared deeply felt memories. “My favorite place in Mongolia is the Otgontenger Mountain because I feel very peaceful and calm,” Grace wrote. She later said, “I was excited and a little bit scared” to share her story. She misses the mountains. “My country is so beautiful.”
But she’s also looking ahead. “Mongolian schools were beautiful but not as interesting as school is here in Illinois,” she wrote. “We are here looking for a better future.”
Eventually, families mixed together, which sometimes required an effort. Anthony’s family, originally Lithuanian but now with roots in both the U.S. and Ukraine, spoke primarily Russian, the common language in all the republics of the former Soviet Union. Two other families, both from Ukraine, occupied a nearby table.
Before the war, there wasn’t a big language barrier between Russians and Ukrainians, explained Yampolska, the interpreter, but now that can be a delicate matter. The Russian-speaking father was undeterred, however, and moved his family to the Ukrainians’ table.
Marcella Rodriguez, the language instructional specialist, said he told her, “‘I have taught my kids to be OK with others. We need more of this, where we need and understand each other as humans and not judge each other because of where we come from. Can you do more of this, especially between Russians and Ukrainians?’”
Tracy Crowley, standing at left, listens with Marcela Rodriguez as families from Mexico and Mongolia share insights about their distant cultures and discover common threads in their experiences of immigration.
Bill Parker
Rodriguez also spent time at another table where a family from Mexico mixed with Grace’s family from Mongolia. They found they had more shared experiences than they’d expected, even though they came from opposite sides of the world and vastly different cultures. They all missed their homelands terribly. Their journeys had many common elements, such as the fathers coming to America first.
“The Mexican mother said at one point, ‘we are so different, but we are the same,’” remembered Rodriguez. “That’s such an important realization.”
So different: Immigrants or not, we’re all individuals representing the world's kaleidoscope of cultures. And yet the same: We're fundamentally united by our common human experience.
It’s a conundrum Paul Salopek often explores from the trail on his epic walk. It’s a theme that a reader finds in the candid reflections on the HomeStories map. And it’s a constant part of the lives of the courageous young newcomers at Jack London Middle School.
Tracy Crowley, the manager of the HomeStories project, is a literacy information coach at Jack London Middle School and a National Geographic Grosvenor Teacher Fellow.
Bill Parker, the director of the HomeStories project, is a former associate managing editor of the Chicago Tribune.