I’ve been actively working as an educator for well over fifty years. I’ve done everything from working with four year olds to teaching College Algebra. I’ve held positions in private schools with middle and upper middle class students and in public schools where some of my pupils were homeless. The vast majority of of the young men and women that I taught were first or second generation immigrants, some legally here and others only protected by DACA.
I’ve seen the world from their eyes. I have shared their dreams. I have watched their progress in a society that that all too often spurns them. I have been challenged by angry immigrants who thought that I was just a wealthy white woman who had no idea how difficult their lives were. I have even been called a racist by a frustrated Hispanic student who saw my attempts to teach him as a sign that I thought him to be ignorant.
I once defended myself from the doubts of some of my students pointing out my background which includes having an Hispanic father-in-law and a Chinese sister-in-law. I told them stories of my Slovakian grandparents facing the same kind of prejudices they endured when they came to America. I spoke of my mother being called a “dirty Pollack” by her best friend’s mother. I spoke of my family’s poverty after my father’s death and how my brothers and I used education as a pathway into the middle class. I wanted them to know that it had not been easy for my family to melt into American society but did agree that being white had no doubt helped. I wanted them to realize that I wanted to assist them in navigating a world that would sometimes be unkind to them. I tried to give them hope.
I allowed my students to really know me because I saw that they were all too often being misjudged simply because of their appearance or their speech or even the places where they lived. They often had to work harder than most to be respected and accepted. This was particularly true when their parents still struggled with speaking English. Sometimes, but thankfully not too often, other teachers considered them to be inferior. I witnessed their struggles in real time and admired them all the more for pushing forward, ignoring the naysayers and creating incredible lives for themselves much as my mother and her siblings had done.
I have to admit to being appalled by the theme of mass deportation that seemed to enliven the attendees at the Republican National Convention this summer. The specter of ten million people being deported was a kind of lightning rod for the crowd but it was an absurdity and travesty for me. To lump together millions of people without knowing them individually is to deny their very humanity. It amounts to judging them without evidence other than their race or language or religion or culture. It is akin to throwing rocks at innocents or hating them because they have somehow been deemed “dirty.”
I know accomplished young people who are among the so called illegal. Through no fault of their own they were brought here as babies, toddlers, young children. They know no other place than the United States. They have grown up with a command of the language and customs of our country. They have degrees and certifications. They work at difficult jobs and yet according to the promises made that the GOP convention they are in danger of being sent away to places that they do not know.
There are also many classified as illegal who are the backbone of the farming industry. Without their labor there would be nobody to do all of the handwork required to plant, cultivate and pick the crops. Food would become less plentiful and far more costly without them. There would be untold shortages. They are not taking other people’s jobs, they are doing jobs that other people do not want to do. The same can be said of so much labor intensive work. Construction crews would be decimated.
Most people do not realize how much illegals contribute to hotels and restaurants either. It is estimated that without them the entire industry would devolve into a state of disarray. When those who have worked their way up to professional jobs are put into the mix it should be apparent that these are not people who are ransacking our country with violence and crime but instead they are working souls simply wanting better lives for themselves and their families just as immigrants have always been. Statistics show clearly that there is a lower crime rate among immigrants in general and illegal ones in particular than the rest of the population and yet they are being presented as a clear and peril danger to us all.
Over the years I have learned to admire and love the immigrants who have come to our country. They do not take our opportunities and largess for granted. They are the first ones to rise to the occasion hen we need to work our way out of natural disasters. They arrive willing to do the dirty work that we appall or cannot do. They love their children and want the same things for them that we want for ours. They are not a danger but a national treasure and we do them wrong and our country wrong when we insist that they go away.
All It Takes Is A Little Love 