Of Borders and Dreams

Of Borders and Dreams: A Mexican-American Experience of Urban Education is the story of Alejandro Juarez, Jr., a Mexican-American youth, his family, and their experiences in a bureaucratic and frustrating public school system. Located in Chicago’s west-side neighborhood, replete with crime, violence, and gangs, we first come to know Alejandro as a shy, good-natured fifth grader, the oldest child in a close-knit Mexican family. We follow Chris Carger, the author and Alejandro’s ESL teacher, as she sets forth with his mother on a journey to provide him with the education he needs and deserves.

Of Borders and Dreams is an intelligent, probing portrayal of the problems that face bilingual and bicultural children. Through Alejandro’s story, we are moved and enraged by the failure of the American school system to offer better opportunities for all children regardless of race, sex, or class. This book is of enormous importance to teachers and educators on all levels, and anyone interested in the future of education in America.

Chris Liska Carger is Assistant Professor in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Northern Illinois University.

“The dominant theme in this book is of crossing borders...the boundaries of ignorance, the borders of literacy, the frontiers of full participation. It is about walls erected between reasonable dreams and unreasonable worlds....Most important, it is about Chris Carger’s own effort to push the limit of what counts in teaching and in research.”
—From the Foreword by William Ayers