How We Got Here: We Came to America by Faith Ringgold

We came to America. Every color, race and religion.

America was the last place in the world people ever wanted to be.

It's true. The Americas were the last part of earth to be populated by homo sapiens. Trekking across the melting icy land bridge at the end of the last Ice Age, we came. We don't know why we left Asia, but as time passed, the ice retreated and North and South America were revealed as a rich and diverse landscape.

But that was the just the first wave of immigrants. Since then, the First Peoples spread from the Arctic to the edge of the Antarctic seas.

And we have been coming from somewhere else ever since, from every part of the world and from every country in the world.

Some of us came in chains.

Some of us came, running from fear and pain.

Some of us came with hope, and no matter how we came, this blessed land spread before us with open arms, and this hope is the theme of Faith Ringgold's We Came To America (Alfred A. Knopf, 2016). Caldecott Award-winning artist Faith Ringgold's simple narrative and striking illustrations document the contributions of the people who came to make these lands home, because it takes people to make countries, people to work and build a home here. “Using a broad brush and folk style familiar from her story quilts, Ringgold's powerful voice emphasizes unity and mutual appreciation,” says Publishers Weekly