BARBARA A. HAWLEY

A hidden immigrant might blend in with the group—but underneath, they are very different. There’s a new kid in your classroom today. She looks local. She doesn’t dress differently, doesn’t have an accent. Your first clue is her confused look when someone mentions a regional sports team. (Think Tarheels  in NC.) Next, she doesn’t laugh along with the class at a pop culture reference. At lunchtime, you observe her breaking several unspoken social rules. You wonder, Is she on t

Child labor can take many forms, especially in the Global South. When I lived in the Philippines, fifty percent of the population was 18 or younger (a fact I remember from my missionary dad’s slide presentation). No matter what age, I was eye-level with a lot of children. At 6, I was shoulder-to-shoulder with a village girl—my size, but probably 10 years old—hauling buckets of water for her family. At 8, I was eye-to-eye with the gardenia* girls swarming our taxi window, swee

When I was a child in crisis, I received a gift I've never forgotten. It was late evening on my sixth birthday when two surprise visitors...

Thresholds—the in-between spaces—can be the most difficult for a child in transition. Do you know a child standing on the threshold? (Not...

What are you serving your voracious reader? As the child of missionary parents, I spent months at a time without public libraries, bookstores, or secondhand book shops. And it about killed me. We lived in remote regions of the Philippine Islands. Places without TV, telephones, or shopping, and often no other American kids nearby. Reading was my one source of entertainment and joy. Within a few months of arrival to our island home, I had read every book my mom packed in the mi