The story was about Eduardo Lujan-Olivas, a young, ‘undocumented’ student who lost a scholarship right before his classes at Arizona State University were about to start.

As a bilingual teacher, I can’t count how many Eduardos I have taught. These are the undocumented kids who came here as babies or toddlers, who grew up here attending our schools, and who now rest in a scary, legal limbo. Some of these students barely speak Spanish. They never “push 9 for Spanish” and they only go to Spanish-language TV to watch soccer.

Eduardo’s story deserves to be widely shared. ASU pulled his scholarship an hour before class. This a young man who has fought his way to the top during his years in school. He worked part-time to help support his family while waging that fight, too. ‘Dreamer’ crowdfunds tuition after school rescinds $20k scholarship on first day of classes | The Sacramento Bee (sacbee.com)

Our Eduardos live all over America. They include hard-working boys and girls who become medical assistants instead of nurses because they lack that critical social security number, as well as boys and girls who sometimes drop out of school because they do not believe they can succeed educationally or professionally without that number. While knowing no other country than the U.S., many kids are growing up without dreams because their parents, friends, family members, and even educators have shut those dreams down.

“You can’t be a nurse/teacher/police officer/etc. because you do not have a social,” they are told.

I am sympathetic to the many Americans who support enforcing our immigration laws. They are watching their country change around them and that change has happened at lightening speed. But we desperately need to create a rational path to citizenship for our Eduardos and their quasi-American counterparts. These kids and young adults only know America. If we sent them “home” in any spiritual sense, we would be sending them to places like Chicago, Philadelphia, Yakima, Laredo, San Jose, Oxnard, Albuquerque, Elgin, Phoenix, Providence, Allentown, Hartford, Newark, and Las Vegas, among countless other cities and burbs.

All politics aside, these children are America’s children. They are nobody else’s children. They value hard work. A number of their parents work two or more jobs to keep their households afloat. America’s undocumented children deserve a chance to contribute fully to the country they have always called home.

Eduhonesty: Eduardo managed to use crowd funding to raise the money for his education. Achievers achieve. But I thought I’d post this today because many changes have been coming at us quickly. We have left those borders porous for decades in order to get our melons picked and our burgers flipped. The children of the men and women who took advantage of our efforts to keep agricultural and factory costs down should not have to pay the price for policies that almost seem to have been designed to lure their parents across the border.*

We have created an underclass, a legion of second-class citizens in this country. For years now, we have been threatening to send them to places they don’t know, where sometimes they do not even speak the local language. They live under constant threat that their world will be swept out from under them, perhaps as the result of something as small as a traffic stop.

It’s easy to get lost in all the fixes this country needs: better wages, healthcare for all, and fairer funding for schools, among others. But those noncitizen children who are growing up here need help NOW.  Please, reader, consider putting the dreamers at the forefront of your political wish list. Remind the new administration of the old words: EQUAL OPPORTUNITY FOR ALL.

*In my most cynical moments, I fear that maybe U.S. policies were designed for just that purpose — creating a useful group of indentured servants who could never buy their way free.

The Dream Act has been floating around and through the media for years now. What exactly is the Dream Act?

The Dream Act is legislation designed to help young people who grew up in the United States , but who are trapped by their immigration status — or lack of an immigration status. Those lucky enough to be born here are U.S. citizens, but students born elsewhere end up condemned to live in a sort of legal limbo, limited by their parents immigration status. The children of the undocumented are also undocumented, even if they started kindergarten here and their high school has a cumulative folder inches thick that documents their academic progress. Currently, these children have no easy path to long-term legal residency, even if they have not seen their “home” country since they were less than a year old. Many of these children barely speak the language of their home country. Most cannot write that “home” language well enough to be considered literate.

Bilingual programs often group these children together. Together, they extinguish each other’s dreams.

“You can’t be a nurse,” one says to another. “You don’t have papers.”

Paperless children give up easily and early for the most part. Teachers can try to keep them on track, but the fact is that undocumented children can’t be nurses. They can’t pursue any employment that requires a background check. Yet 10 – 14 million undocumented persons are thought to be living in this country. Their children go to school. We have created a tremendous pool of children with limited hopes and dreams.

Eduhhonesty: The Dream Act should have been passed a long time ago. We need a law that provides a clear path to citizenship. Personally, I’d favor a combination of military service and college that allows immigrant children to earn citizenship.

We need to foster dreams in our students. Aside from the moral issues, the Dream Act would be extremely practical. These children aren’t going “home.” The vast majority of these children are going to grow old in this country. Currently, some of these undocumented adolescents are classroom management nightmares. They don’t care about school because they quite correctly see that doing their homework and working toward college may have little or no benefit for them. They come to school to socialize. They disrupt their classes and see no reason why they should do otherwise.

I can manage these students with pep talks, reminding them that the future may be brighter than the present. They may receive citizenship. They may be able to go to college. My life would be vastly easier, though, if I could honestly tell the aspiring doctors that they need to study science so they can be ready for medical school. By middle school, these kids know the barriers facing them as they attempt to climb into America’s cognitive elite and middle class. My pep talks are tough sells to an already-cynical audience.

A child who has grown up in the United States should have a shot at the American Dream. To quote the last few lines of the poem on the Statue of Liberty:

“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Let’s lift the lamp. Let’s create the law we need. By the time these kids have completed twelve years of schooling here, they have become America’s children.

Let’s open the door.

“This is too hard,” he said, “I don’t know these words.”

Many of the words were from elementary school and he knew at least some of the words on his study guide very well. But the study guide included a long assignment and David’s videogame time was sure to be compromised.

“You do too know a lot of those words,” I said, “and if you don’t, we need to find out what words you need to learn.”

“I can’t do it,” he said. “I’m too dumb.”

“You are not,” I said. “Don’t be silly.”

“I’m dumb,” he insisted. “That’s why I am in a bilingual program.”

I just reiterated that David could and should do his homework.

Eduhonesty: While I am on the topic of bilingual programs, I ought to observe that I’ve heard versions of this conversation before. I recall asking a girl at the start of a school year if she was in the bilingual program.

“I’m not stupid!” she immediately indignantly replied. I mollified her by telling her I had hoped to have her in some of my classes.

David was just trying to get out of his homework, I believe. But one overlooked yet potent aspect of the Illinois bilingual program structure is that the best students do test out, in full view of their classmates who remain in the program. The students who can’t manage to test out often come to see themselves as losers. The best teachers in the world can’t prevent this from happening. Administrators may not like it, but when a student fails an exit test year after year, that student is going to draw some conclusions about what that means.