Things I'll Never Say: Stories of Growing Up Undocumented in the United States

2011 ◽  
Vol 81 (3) ◽  
pp. 500-508 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ingrid Hernandez ◽  
Fermín Mendoza ◽  
Mario Lio ◽  
Jirayut Latthi ◽  
Catherine Eusebio

Debate goes on about the proposed Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act. In presidential speeches, one-minute congressional floor statements, and intermittent media coverage, we hear passionate arguments for and against this federal legislation that would provide a path toward citizenship for hundreds of thousands of undocumented students. Absent from this debate are the reallife stories of DREAMers who have been educated and raised in this country and are now desperate to contribute. This collection of autobiographical stories was written by students in Educators for Fair Consideration (E4FC), a San Francisco-based nonprofit that provides direct support and advocacy for low-income immigrant students who have grown up in the United States but face challenges due to financial need and immigration status. These students shed light on what it is like to grow up as undocumented youths. They talk about not being able to return to their homelands,about wanting to be accepted as Americans, and about the fear of living in the shadows. Their narratives are presented in an order that creates a sense of a young immigrant's journey: departure, crossing, arrival, alienation, and attempts at claiming a new home. It has been a decade since the DREAM Act was first introduced. How much longer will we ask them to wait?

Author(s):  
Ivón Padilla-Rodríguez

Child migration has garnered widespread media coverage in the 21st century, becoming a central topic of national political discourse and immigration policymaking. Contemporary surges of child migrants are part of a much longer history of migration to the United States. In the first half of the 20th century, millions of European and Asian child migrants passed through immigration inspection stations in the New York harbor and San Francisco Bay. Even though some accompanied and unaccompanied European child migrants experienced detention at Ellis Island, most were processed and admitted into the United States fairly quickly in the early 20th century. Few of the European child migrants were deported from Ellis Island. Predominantly accompanied Chinese and Japanese child migrants, however, like Latin American and Caribbean migrants in recent years, were more frequently subjected to family separation, abuse, detention, and deportation at Angel Island. Once inside the United States, both European and Asian children struggled to overcome poverty, labor exploitation, educational inequity, the attitudes of hostile officials, and public health problems. After World War II, Korean refugee “orphans” came to the United States under the Refugee Relief Act of 1953 and the Immigration and Nationality Act. European, Cuban, and Indochinese refugee children were admitted into the United States through a series of ad hoc programs and temporary legislation until the 1980 Refugee Act created a permanent mechanism for the admission of refugee and unaccompanied children. Exclusionary immigration laws, the hardening of US international boundaries, and the United States preference for refugees who fled Communist regimes made unlawful entry the only option for thousands of accompanied and unaccompanied Mexican, Central American, and Haitian children in the second half of the 20th century. Black and brown migrant and asylum-seeking children were forced to endure educational deprivation, labor trafficking, mandatory detention, deportation, and deadly abuse by US authorities and employers at US borders and inside the country.


Author(s):  
Melissa Quan

This introductory chapter begins with a discussion of the importance of education for the Society of Jesus. Saint Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus, intended Jesuit education to be free and open to all social classes and saw it as an important contribution to the “common good” of society. Before long, the Jesuits created a worldwide network of colleges and universities anchored in a humanistic education and a common concern for the moral development of students. The chapter then describes the Immigrant Students National Position Paper, a study of the situation of undocumented students at the twenty-eight Jesuit colleges and universities in the United States and the institutional practices that affect those students. This book on undocumented students at Jesuit institutions of higher education in the United States expands upon the work of the Immigration Student National Position Paper.


2009 ◽  
Vol 111 (10) ◽  
pp. 2385-2418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gloria M. Rodriguez ◽  
Lisceth Cruz

Background/Context The analysis contained in this article was commissioned by the Social Science Research Council's Transitions to College project. Although the historical context and contemporary issues associated with English learners (ELs) and undocumented immigrant students are in many ways distinct, the project team strongly believed that the college transition issues affecting these populations were increasingly salient in light of their rapid and continued growth throughout the United States. Purpose/Objective/Research Questions/Focus of Study The research questions guiding this analysis are: (1) What do we know and what do we need to know about the transition to college of EL and undocumented immigrant students? and (2) What are the resource and policy implications associated with the transition to college of these students? The chief purpose of this analysis is to synthesize the current research and thinking about the transitions to college of EL and undocumented immigrant students and to use the findings to develop a research agenda focused on emergent critical issues. The intent is to educate a research audience that is largely unfamiliar with the experiences of these unique populations and to inform future research directions. Research Design The analysis is situated within the broader context of immigrant educational attainment and integration in the United States. The two student populations are distinguished to delineate the particular college transition experiences of ELs versus undocumented students, while recognizing the overlaps that do exist. Thus, for each student population, the analysis synthesizes current literature and provides discussions of (a) student demographics for states and the United States, (b) student-level issues and factors, (c) K–12 issues and factors, (d) student agency, (e) postsecondary issues and factors, and (f) summary of critical challenges, barriers, and accomplishments relative to the college transition. The final element is a recommended research agenda developed from the issues revealed in this analysis. Findings/Results There is continued growth in the presence of EL and undocumented students, and this growth affects states with longstanding histories of immigrant presence, as well as states that have only recently had notable increases in these populations. Important to understanding the needs and potential of these two groups is that not all EL and undocumented students are new immigrants. Rather, many have only experienced education in the United States, having been born here or having arrived at a very young age with their families. From this analysis, it appears that English proficiency is as much a gatekeeping factor as it is a facilitative factor for EL and undocumented students in their successful college transitions. Unfortunately, because of the impact of poverty on these populations, the financial constraints of transitioning to college further compound the challenges already faced with regard to acquiring English and advanced subject matter proficiency. Two additional findings help to frame the college transition challenges of both EL and undocumented student populations: (1) There is a chasm between research-based best practices and the available human and material resources allocated in schools and colleges to support this objective, and (2) the role of the community college system is salient as a potential facilitative context, but one that is currently overburdened with multiple demands and shrinking resources. Conclusions/Recommendations The article presents an eight-point research agenda that addresses the challenges surfaced in the analysis. The points cover K–12 education, evaluations of the impact of legislation and programs, and postsecondary education, with the aim of improving the overall responsiveness of our educational institutions to the needs and strengths of our EL and undocumented student populations.


2017 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 215-233
Author(s):  
Bob Barber ◽  
Delores E. McNair

Purpose: This article addresses the broad context of community college accreditation which surrounds a controversy involving one of the largest community colleges in the United States, City College of San Francisco (CCSF), and its regional accrediting agency, the Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges (ACCJC). Its purposes are to illuminate the issue of how accrediting agencies are held accountable and to highlight the importance of addressing student equity issues as part of accreditation. Argument/Proposed Model: Rather than focusing on the details of the specific case, we reflect on the situation as a microcosm of the issues facing community college students and accreditors. Themes that emerge include the rise of compliance-oriented accreditation practices, the degree to which accreditation is increasingly subject to political and economic forces, and the dilemmas involved in assuring that educational quality is available to all students. Conclusions/Contributions: Accrediting agencies must address the barriers that interfere with the success of first generation students, low-income students, and students of color, who are rapidly coming to represent the predominant student demographic in the United States and who constitute the majority of students at CCSF. We conclude that the basis exists in higher education research and practice for the development of accreditation standards that address the student equity agenda.


2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald Kerwin ◽  
Robert Warren

This paper presents the results of a study by the Center for Migration Studies (CMS) on potential beneficiaries of the DREAM Act of 2017 (the “DREAM Act” or “Act”). The study reveals a long-term, highly productive population, with deep ties to the United States. In particular, it finds that: • More than 2.2 million US residents would qualify for conditional residence under the DREAM Act. • An additional 929,000 — who are now age 18 and over — arrived when they were under 18, but have not graduated from high school and are not enrolled in school and, thus, would not currently qualify for status under the Act. • The DREAM Act-eligible can be found in large numbers (5,000 or more) in 41 states and more than 30 counties, metropolitan areas, and cities. • Potential DREAM Act recipients have lived in the United States for an average of 14 years. • Sixty-five percent (age 16 and above) participate in the labor force, with far higher rates in Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Utah, Arkansas, Illinois, Tennessee, and Oregon. • This population works heavily in sales and related occupations; food preparation and serving; construction and extracting; office and administrative support; production; transportation and material moving; and building/grounds cleaning and maintenance. • Many of the DREAM Act-eligible are highly skilled and credentialed. • 70,500 are self-employed. • Eighty-eight percent speaks English exclusively, very well, or well. • 392,500 have US-citizen children, and more than 100,000 are married to a US citizen or lawful permanent resident. • Twenty-nine percent has attended college or received a college degree. • The DREAM Act-eligible include 50,700 Temporary Protected Status (TPS) recipients from El Salvador, Haiti, and Honduras, 45 percent of whom live in the Miami metro area, Los Angeles County, the Washington, DC area, Houston, New York City, the San Francisco metro area, and the City of Dallas. The study also underscores the immense investment — $150 billion — that states and localities have already made in educating these young Americans. It argues that over time and with a path to citizenship the return on this investment will increase by virtually every indicia of integration — education levels, employment rates, self-employment numbers, US family members, and English language proficiency.


Author(s):  
Mara Keire

In the United States, the history of sexual assault in the first half of the 20th century involves multiple contradictions between the ordinary, almost invisible accounts of women of all colors who were raped by fathers, husbands, neighbors, boarders, bosses, hired hands, and other known individuals versus the sensational myths that involved rapacious black men, sly white slavers, libertine elites, and virginal white female victims. Much of the debate about sexual assault revolved around the “unwritten law” that justified “honorable” white men avenging the “defilement” of their women. Both North and South, white people defended lynching and the murder of presumed rapists as “honor killings.” In courtrooms, defense attorneys linked the unwritten law to insanity pleas, arguing that after hearing women tell about their assault, husbands and fathers experienced an irresistible compulsion to avenge the rape of their women. Over time, however, notorious court cases from New York to San Francisco, Indianapolis and Honolulu, to Scottsboro, Alabama, shifted the discourse away from the unwritten law and extralegal “justice” to a more complicated script that demonized unreliable women and absolved imperfect men. National coverage of these cases, made possible by wire services and the Hearst newspaper empire, spurred heated debates concerning the proper roles of men and women. Blockbuster movies like The Birth of a Nation and Gone with the Wind and Book of the Month Club selections such as John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men and Richard Wright’s Native Son joined the sensationalized media coverage of high-profile court cases to create new national stereotypes about sexual violence and its causes and culprits. During the 1930s, journalists, novelists, playwrights, and moviemakers increasingly emphasized the culpability of women who, according to this narrative, made themselves vulnerable to assault by stepping outside of their appropriate sphere and tempting men into harming them.


2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 45-54
Author(s):  
Samuel H. Yamashita

In the 1970s, Japanese cooks began to appear in the kitchens of nouvelle cuisine chefs in France for further training, with scores more arriving in the next decades. Paul Bocuse, Alain Chapel, Joël Robuchon, and other leading French chefs started visiting Japan to teach, cook, and sample Japanese cuisine, and ten of them eventually opened restaurants there. In the 1980s and 1990s, these chefs' frequent visits to Japan and the steady flow of Japanese stagiaires to French restaurants in Europe and the United States encouraged a series of changes that I am calling the “Japanese turn,” which found chefs at fine-dining establishments in Los Angeles, New York City, and later the San Francisco Bay Area using an ever-widening array of Japanese ingredients, employing Japanese culinary techniques, and adding Japanese dishes to their menus. By the second decade of the twenty-first century, the wide acceptance of not only Japanese ingredients and techniques but also concepts like umami (savory tastiness) and shun (seasonality) suggest that Japanese cuisine is now well known to many American chefs.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-29
Author(s):  
Smita Ghosh ◽  
Mary Hoopes

Drawing upon an analysis of congressional records and media coverage from 1981 to 1996, this article examines the growth of mass immigration detention. It traces an important shift during this period: while detention began as an ad hoc executive initiative that was received with skepticism by the legislature, Congress was ultimately responsible for entrenching the system over objections from the agency. As we reveal, a critical component of this evolution was a transformation in Congress’s perception of asylum seekers. While lawmakers initially decried their detention, they later branded them as dangerous. Lawmakers began describing asylum seekers as criminals or agents of infectious diseases in order to justify their detention, which then cleared the way for the mass detention of arriving migrants more broadly. Our analysis suggests that they may have emphasized the dangerousness of asylum seekers to resolve the dissonance between their theoretical commitments to asylum and their hesitance to welcome newcomers. In addition to this distinctive form of cognitive dissonance, we discuss a number of other implications of our research, including the ways in which the new penology framework figured into the changing discourse about detaining asylum seekers.


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