New Books Network Gabrielle Oliveira, "Now We Are Here: Family Migration, Children’s Education, and Dreams for a Better Life" (Stanford UP, 2025)
Mar 20, 2026
Gabrielle Oliveira, a Harvard sociologist who researches family migration and schooling, shares intimate stories from 16 migrant families. She explores how migration is an act of care, schooling as a form of love, and the tensions of pedagogies of silence in classrooms. The conversation highlights long-term ethnographic methods, ethical research practices, and policy calls to center children’s well-being.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
Present As A Platform For Future Building
- Now We Are Here frames migrants' present as a deliberate pivot: adults reassure children they're safe and focus on building a future in the U.S.
- Gabrielle Oliveira heard the phrase repeatedly as a communal, hopeful present that enables future-making after trauma.
Migration Framed As Parental Care
- Oliveira interprets migration decisions as rooted in caregiving: parents leave dangerous places to protect and provide for children.
- She contrasts media blame with families' lived logic and uses 'education as the currency of love' to show how schooling expresses care.
Design Classwork To Let Kids Tell Migration Stories
- Do create classroom activities that let migrant children safely share migration experiences, e.g., drawings, narratives, culturally resonant children's literature.
- Oliveira recommends training teachers so they can integrate stories without exposing kids or feeling unprepared.
