Since the 17th century immigrants and migrants have created and shaped communities across the United States. The first Europeans came to the U.S. in search of religious or political freedom or they arrived under labor contracts, while Africans were forcibly caught in the Atlantic slave trade. Later, immigrants and migrants arrived here, fleeing famine, poverty, civil unrest, and war, or they were attracted by the opportunity to improve their work or living conditions.

There has never been a time when immigration or migration stopped. And each succeeding group of newcomers changed the communities they settled in. Your city is home to thousands of immigrants, all of whom, like people in the past, have stories to share. Maybe your neighbors or family members arrived in the United States. Think about what the experience as an immigrant must have been like now or in any period in history. Was it hard to find your way around the city streets? What was it like attending school or making friends? This theme invites you to create a game about the immigrant experiences in your city.

Choose one of the below prompts for your game, or develop your own game concept:

• Code-switching: When people move to the United States to live, they assume a new identity as an immigrant but bring a lifetime of cultural and familial references and experiences; ultimately they develop cross-cultural fluency. This act of changing one’s language and self-presentation depending on the situation is called “code-switching.” Create a game that imagines a world in which code-switching is a positive and empowering tool (maybe it’s even a superpower).

• Community story: Interview someone in your community or family who immigrated to the United States. What resources in the community did they use? Who helped them out? What has gotten in their way? What have they learned? Make a game that tells this unique story from their point of view, and incorporates primary sources from your research, such as voice recordings, old photographs, and maps.

• Borderless lands: Today, 97% of people live in the country they were born in. Would a world without political borders inspire more immigration? Create an adventure game about a borderless world. How do people communicate and navigate? How do the cultures mix and mingle? How would schools prepare truly “global” citizens?

• Compare: Create a game that compares the lives of two immigrants from different cultures living in your city during the same or, oppositely, distant historical periods. Through your game’s narrative, explore how these experiences were similar or different, allowing for the possibility that one day, their lives intersect.