On Friday, October 13, United States Education Secretary Betsy DeVos will speak at the far-right Washington Policy Center’s conference in Bellevue (spooky, I know), and I will be there to protest against her and the obstruction of the education of immigrant children. As a recipient of the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, public schools were the first place in which I felt safe enough to confess my immigration status to counselors and educator. It is now up to all of us to ensure that our next generation of students, like my baby sister Gisselle, can count with this support system.
Gisselle, 5, just began kindergarten. She loves reading. Whenever I’m home for the weekend, she makes me read her favorite Peppa Pig, Clifford, or My Little Pony book. I act out voices for every character before she decides she’s bored and drags me around the house to choose the game we’ll play next. It’s cute, funny, and a little annoying.
But November 2016 was a bad time to learn to read as the child of a mixed immigration status family. While reading together one night, Gisselle paused, and asked if I was moving to Mexico with her. Instead of learning to read, my baby sister learned what deportation means.
Unlike other 5-year-olds, my sister is taking crash courses in American racism. She’s learned why Donald Trump wants to deport her parents and deprive her, an American citizen, of the love and family stability she deserves. She’s even learned what to do if Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show up at our house and take our parents. She’s too young to understand why this is happening.
Gisselle isn’t the only 5-year-old having this conversation. Early childhood trauma inundates the immigrant experience. Pediatricians and counselors throughout the country report increased anxiety and panic attacks among children in immigrant families. Trump’s emboldening of extreme immigration enforcement and rescinding DACA is taking a profound psychological toll on immigrant communities, families, and children.
DeVos is also failing to protect the rights of all students in American schools. Unaccompanied minors are picked up by ICE while waiting for their bus. Immigrant parents are detained while driving their kids to school, leaving their kids alone and shocked in empty cars. While these attacks continue to happen, DeVos remains silent and complicit as a generation of American children are traumatized.
DeVos and the Trump administration are creating stressors that even most adults couldn’t handle. How can my sister focus on reading and writing while the threat of being separated from our parents or moving to a country she’s never been to is constantly looming over her?
There are at least 35,000 undocumented students in K-12 education in Washington State. In each elementary school classroom, there is an average of two students with at least one undocumented parent. Every one of these kids are scared of being picked up by ICE agents while walking to school, of getting spotted while waiting for the bus, or of coming home to find their parents gone. These are regular kids with homework to do, teachers to impress, and a future dependent on their educational success.
Our public schools should be places where immigrant students not only feel safe, but are able to thrive. But now our schools are co-opted by a racist administration that is systematically undermining the education of children of immigrants by way of xenophobia and discrimination. And on top of all of this, DeVos wants to privatize public schools so her rich friends get richer and slash funding for the basic programs that serve kids across the country.
I have not been able to rest since November 2016. I have and will continue to fight for Gisselle, her future, and our family in anyway I can. This time the fight will be to defend Gisselle’s right to a stable learning environment by speaking out against DeVos’ visit to Bellevue. I call on all educators and administrators in Washington to join me and many other advocates to fight for the rights of all kids. Together, we can ensure that every child, regardless of race and ethnicity, can thrive.