Dreams and Shadows

An Immigrant’s Journey

Dreams and Shadows: An Immigrant’s Journey is the memoir of Dr. Emma Violand-Sánchez, an immigrant from Bolivia who arrived without her parents in 1961 as a senior in high school, knowing little English.  During a long and often difficult personal journey, she became a transformative figure in American public education and in service to immigrants and refugees.

  • Emma's personal story unfolds against the backdrops of the Vietnam era, segregation and desegregation, the beginnings of a tidal wave of immigration, convulsive shifts in federal and state education policy, and the emergence of public education as a battleground in America’s culture wars.