OK...these thoughts have been on my mind all week and I've been avoiding writing them down because I had a feeling they would be long-winded. And of course they are. But I feel like I have some second-hand experience with the immigration issue that is important to share. Not to mention that I am somewhat relieved that the bill didn't pass and wanted to write about why I don't support amnesty, which I am sort of surprised to find that out about myself. But I did a lot of thinking about my experience and how and why it led me to where I am now, and as usual, reflection always makes everything more clear.
I moved to Los Angeles in June 2000 literally days after graduating from college up in Eugene, Oregon. Talk about culture shock - it took months if not years for me to adjust and I still feel like a part of me has never completely learned to feel at home here. Eugene at the time had a population of about half a million, and L.A. at the time had about 9 million (I think it's hovering close to 11 million now). Eugene had a significant Hispanic population; I don't know exact figures but the point for the sake of this topic is that it wasn't as though I hadn't had any experience with that demographic. I always loved languages, mostly because to me they are like a puzzle or a code to what someone else is saying and I'm all about communication. I studied Spanish as my minor and with that came a lot of education about Hispanic culture. I read a lot of Hispanic literature, both fiction and poetry, and I loved learning about it. I couldn't wait to get to Los Angeles to apply my new found knowledge.
What I found when I got here still has me reeling. I had the unique experience of teaching grade school for LA Unified School District (2nd largest district in the U.S. with 690 schools). The school was in northeast LA and that experience was my window into the world of both legal and illegal immigration and how it affected my students and even me. I never figured it would affect me but I realize now how much it did.
The school I taught at was 99% Hispanic, so obviously the kids were pretty much all either legal or illegal immigrants, or descendants of such. There was a decent-sized group of families who were very supportive, very aware of the obstacles their child faced (whether or not they spoke English did not affect their awareness), and very dedicated to making sure their child did they best they could with what they got. I usually got about 4-5 kids in my classes with parents like that. These were the kids who would come running up to me to tell about about their dad's promotion to manager of a Taco Bell and it brought tears to your eyes because you knew the family had just worked their tails off to get there and this meant better money for them. These kids showed up to school on time, ready to learn, whether they spoke English or not. The parents came to conferences, whether they spoke English or not, and even if both parents worked and you could tell they were just busier than hell, they still stepped up to the plate for their kids. God, if there is one, bless them. Some of them were probably illegal, and some were probably legal. The point is that they TRIED.
Then there was another, unfortunately much larger group of families who were, in two words, frustratingly uncooperative. I'm sure some were legal and some weren't. But the point is, these people did NOT try and it showed in themselves and in their children. Their kids missed a lot of school. Planning a birthday party would be given as a legitimate excuse for missing days of school. I had a teen-aged sister show up for conferences, etc. not once but repeatedly posing as one of my 3rd grader's mother. These students would almost never do their homework (which was ridiculously easy to ensure they would not need help - I gave homework for the responsibility of it) and they would lie about why they couldn't do it. Parents would either support the lie or supply it themselves. One time I was told the family couldn't afford pencils and the child had left hers at school (yet the child had $65 sneakers on and I knew for a fact that they had a Sony PlayStation at home - can't afford pencils? Come on...). In short I was lied to on a regular basis by both students and parents. Yet when the children didn't learn, guess who got blamed by both parents and administration. The governor was considering merit-based pay and with the onset of No Child Left Behind it seemed like the new sport was to blame teachers for not teaching properly. Meddling in the classroom became a regular practice by the administration and our union did not protect us they way they were supposed to.
Not speaking English was one of the biggest excuses for just about any problem the parents had. It was sort of difficult for me to understand that problem when I looked around and saw nothing and no one but Spanish speaking. Due to my continuing education towards my teaching credential, I as a teacher was made aware of community classes and the like for parents to take to learn English and job skills so I could pass this information onto the parents. These classes were FREE and offered at all hours of every single day including the weekends to accommodate odd schedules. Daycare was either provided or parents could bring their kids. I know that there were a lot of people who legitimately could not make it to those classes due to work schedules. But I also know of a lot that could and just didn't and the only explanation I can think of is that their surroundings made it far too easy to stay, figuratively and literally, where they were. Spanish legal help is available all over the place. Spanish forms, Spanish TV, Spanish radio, newspapers, billboards - how much easier it seemed to be for them to stay in their comfort zone than learn the new language.
I can relate to this comfort zone availability a little bit due to the month I spent in Costa Rica during my last year of college. There were American restaurants all over the place and a lot of people, especially in San Jose, the capital, spoke English. If I went to McDonald's, I knew I could order in English if I absolutely had to. But I didn't. I probably screwed up the phrasing of the order half the time and yeah, I probably slowed the line down a little a few times. But the cashiers would smile and always be encouraging because they could tell I was trying. Some would laugh at me, but who cares? Learning anything new hurts a little; it's your body and your brain making extra room for new knowledge :).
So what I was noticing during my years at this school was that too many families didn't seem to care if they assimilated to our country or not. They definitely didn't care if their child learned to read or made normal progress in school. They basically wanted to live in the U.S. as though it were Mexico. So many times I was told that these were cultural differences in the emphasis placed on education and I should be understanding. Yet that understanding did not extend both ways when it came to standardized testing results and other progress markers as we teachers got told again and again to "try harder, put more emphasis on the individual child, do more, more, more". Week after week we would sit in meetings sharing new approaches and collaborating on how to help these kids more. But these children simply were not progressing as much as they could have been, no matter how much their teachers turned themselves inside out. And by no means were all the teachers white; it was probably close to half and half if not more Hispanic teachers. All the teachers were fantastic role models, but how much more so the Hispanic teachers due to the population we were teaching. These teachers were proving that assimilating in the U.S. could be done without losing their culture, which they certainly did not - they took responsibility for maintaining their Hispanic culture while assimilating enough to ours to be an effective citizen.
There were definitely a lot of factors within the school and district system that could hinder children's progress and I could probably lose myself in describing all of them but I'll avoid that pitfall for now. Suffice to say that without proper materials, a job won't be well done. But the teachers really did the best they could, at least the majority of them. There was, to be fair, always a small percentage of those were showing up for a paycheck, loving the job security of teaching. OK, so LA Unified sort of needs to get their s**t together, and that definitely put some obstacles in the students' way.
But the reason I'm convinced that the problem was more parental than anything was because there were the ones that DID learn, and they learned because their parents showed them that they EXPECTED them to learn. The parents did not have to speak English or even be able to read or write themselves. They just needed to know how important education was - that was enough of a message to their children. As I said earlier, bless them. The other parents made it clear that they thought it was our job, not theirs, to teach their children. And they made that so very difficult, both because of the lack of a simple message to their children that their education was important and because of their inaction. Why should a child care what their teacher says if their parents will later nullify it, whether through lack of action or whatever? If I as a teacher say that a student has to do homework and the student doesn't do it, I can extend consequences and hope that gets through to the child. But imagine how much more powerful a triangular effect is when parents and teachers are on the same page about the issue? If the child receives similar consequences about not doing their job as a student both from home and from school, it drives the message that education is important and we, united as teachers and parents, care about the student too much to let them not do the work.
If Mexico and the U.S. put different emphases on education, that's fine. But obviously people are unhappy with the conditions in Mexico. So they come here to the U.S. because they want things to be better and they want to be a U.S. citizen. That's great - if that's really the case. But I was left with the impression far too many times that it wasn't the U.S. citizenship that was important to them, it was only the freebies and the ways that being here could benefit them that mattered. Far too many people seemed to have NO desire whatsoever to assimilate.
Here's a perfect anecdote for this lack of desire to assimilate. Every year in mid September we would have a little festival for Dia de los Muertos, which is a mourning holiday. One year it happened to fall on the day of the 1st anniversary of 9/11. My 3rd graders, along with another class, had worked hard painting segments of a huge American flag that was big enough to hang on the outside classroom wall. I wanted to leave it up for the festival. The parents outvoted me and a MEXICAN flag was flown at the festival that day. Yes, we were in Los Angeles, California, United States of America - and I was outvoted on flying our country's flag. I didn't want to replace the Mexican flag, I simply wanted to have both up and I was not allowed to do so.
I'm no outspoken patriot, OK? I love my country but you won't catch me humming "My Country Tis of Thee". But this was it for me. I didn't know it at the time but I think a part of me really threw in the mental towel that day as far as my teaching career was concerned. I found myself tiring of the daily homework and learning battle that I was engaged in. I noticed my patience in the classroom was slithering away a little more with each battle-filled day. Not only that but being a single person in Los Angeles on a teacher's salary just was not cutting the financial mustard. When I was offered a position as a sales rep for an educational sales company, I admittedly sold out.
So now there's this huge debate about what to do with the illegal immigrants. They're here, Time magazine says, so we should just accept that. Anything else would be bad for our economy. Is this seriously the same group of people that 10 or 15 years ago was warning about our borders being too lax and how it would negatively affect our economy? The immigration issue is obviously a financial issue but those in support of the bill seemed to be using the guise of humanity and caring about people as a cover. The Time magazine article referred to stories of deportation and families separating if the bill does not pass. I'm not saying I don't see the human side - in fact I very much do and it breaks my heart because I know all too well how very real it is. Sometimes my students would come to school and say that Daddy had to go back to Mexico or an uncle was trying to make it over and he either got caught or was trying to come legitimately and didn't make it. Nobody has to show me the human side of this issue; I saw it every day for three years.
But what I'm furious about is the way the people who support the illegal immigration bill are manipulating the situation not only to their advantage but to make them look like good guys when all they want to do is save money on jobs they say no American wants to do. The only reason no American wants to do those jobs anymore is because they USED to be decent paying jobs, but thanks to the ingress of illegal immigrants who were willing to do the job for far less money, they drove the value of the work down. People got used to paying those slave wages and now they're comfortable with it and don't want things to change. So of course it is so easy to say, "oh, they're already here, just let them stay; it's easier and cheaper than deporting them, they're taking over our society anyway". Would they say the same thing about cancer? "Oh, it's already here, it would be too expensive and troublesome to try to get rid of it and it probably won't work anyway". I don't think so. I don't mean to imply anything negative about any individual immigrant, but when a group of people come into a country, take advantage of benefits without giving back to society, and complain when they're not allowed to act like they're in their homeland, that seems sort of cancerous to me, especially when the numbers of people who do that are increasingly rapidly.
Other people will play the race card - "oh, you just don't like Hispanic people". Sigh. OK, I'll address that issue, simply because it just couldn't be further from the truth. One of my best friends is Mexican. She couldn't be a more wonderful person. The immigration issue isn't necessarily about Hispanic people; if any cultural group were coming to this country illegally in droves and not giving back I'd be saying the same thing. The truth is that we don't hear about problems with other groups of cultures who immigrate here because they come here legally and they give back to society - so there's nothing to complain about. Keep in mind that my entire argument in this little rant is about those who come here illegally.
When people say that the illegal immigrants are already here and that they are so deeply entrenched in our system that there's nothing we can do about it, it is a serious societal cop-out. Obviously we have a large weakness in our immigration system that is being taken advantage of to a laughable extent. Rather than find the leak at the bottom of the boat, we're just stuffing the leak full of illegal immigrants (pardon my crude imagery), and hoping nobody notices that the boat is about to burst.
I wonder what legal immigrants think about all of this. If I had come here legally, I'd be pretty upset that something I had worked incredibly hard for was obtained illegally by another. If I wanted to move to Canada to take advantage of their national health plan, or to move to any other country for that matter, I would have to pay and go through all the legal proceedings. To deliver amnesty to those who got here illegally is simply rewarding criminals and insulting those who toed the line (and paid for it too). It's also accepting a fatal flaw in our system. It is NOT okay to say that they're already here and we should just accept that. We have a responsibility to ourselves and to our country to re-establish the integrity of our immigration system and to figure out a solution that benefits those who are law-abiding and not the other way around.
Please post any comments or opinions, and thanks for reading!
