The US Educator's Role in the Lives of Undocumented Immigrants

There has been increasing federal resistance to supporting undocumented immigrants in the United States (e.g. last month it was the DACA rescission and this past week it was the call to expedite deportations), despite the actions many states have and are taking to challenge these views.

Undocumented immigrants have been vilified by the national rhetoric; however, according to the non-profit, Define American, undocumented immigrants "pay $11.64 billion annually in state and local taxes", contribute "$12 billion annually to the social security trust fund" and when compared to their native-born counterparts, they are less likely to commit crimes and more likely to start businesses. Many of these undocumented families are here because they are victims of circumstance; still, immigration has highly positive social and economic benefits for host countries. So what can/should be done now? Discussions among educators have been both about how this federal resistance might impact the education sector and, more importantly, what the education sector can do to alleviate the problem. Education is a tool and schools its fertile ground to create change for undocumented immigrants while working within existing federal restrictions.

Despite the quasi-legal status of undocumented families, all children have a right to a public education. Fighting to provide children of these families a safe and supportive learning environment means to first be able to keep them in school. It begins by challenging the negative narrative and ending discriminatory punitive discipline practices that pull already vulnerable children out of the classroom and into the criminal justice system. This means training teachers on positive behavior interventions, constantly re-visiting the code of conduct, and working closely with law enforcement (especially by limiting their involvement on campus). To protect all students is a core component of the educator's role, both while they are in school and in anticipation of their lives upon leaving. The ability of undocumented immigrants to enroll in a post-secondary education varies by state; therefore, only 5-10% of undocumented high school graduates enroll in college. For this reason, educators (especially K-12 educators in states that prohibit undocumented students to access college) should also equip their undocumented students with information on how to better navigate the US legal and educational systems.

Creating a supportive school climate requires working both within and beyond school boundaries. Educators should leverage their rapport with families of other students to develop community understanding. Incorporating this information into school curriculum, educators can use anecdotes on the difficulties of being undocumented and explore all sides of the legal discourse surrounding the issue. Districts should invest in the capacity building efforts necessary to train teachers in critical pedagogy and equip their staff with the necessary tools and resources to support their most vulnerable students. Schools should partner with non-profit agencies, immigration lawyers, and potential employers, that students can be referred to on a case-by-case basis. The short-term objective is a more informed student population but the long-term outcomes include a welcoming climate within which all students can thrive.

Photo Credit: stellaresque42.tumblr.com

At the tertiary level, in the same manner that higher education institutions approach racial diversity, value should also be placed on cultural diversity (and diversity of nationalities). Not only can diversity enrich the educational experience of all students but universities today are competing in a global market and should feel a need to be equipped to operate as such. Universities in most states classify undocumented students as international students; therefore, institutions should see the presence of immigrants (no matter their legal status) as a benefit to the social and academic experience of all their students. By framing this as an internationalization issue and not merely a legal one, institutions should fight for pathways to admit undocumented students and allow them to compete with their documented international counterparts for scholarships, grants, and employment/research opportunities.

Now is not a time to feel debilitated by federal decisions but a time to act in spite of them.

Intersec[shun]ality

My Jackson Scholar mentor once told me that the way to take my disparate set of experiences and craft a narrative as a researcher is to always "bring it back to myself." Whether we are explicit about it or not, our work always has pieces of who we are within it. When I take on research projects, I'm seldom thinking about whether or not it will speak to the narrative that I am trying to weave together for the CV I hope to someday  🎤drop on a potential employer's desk. Instead, I mostly just try to follow what feels interesting, what I'm passionate about and, I suppose, subconsciously remain hopeful that my heap of instinctive decisions will later amount to a coherent story that depicts some ~accurate version of me.

However, when it came time for me to pitch myself at conferences or in grant applications, I had to dig deep to find that story. In an effort to take my mentor's advice, I looked at each of the projects I've been involved in to make sense of what part of them spoke to my identity. It is in this way that I identified the two strands of research I now distinguish as my focal areas: educational leadership for development in Africa and immigrant/non-immigrant education in the US. Both of these areas speak to the junction of privileged and oppressed cultural boundaries. (To "bring it back to myself", I'm an Ethiopian and a non-immigrant getting an education in the US.)

Of course, most PhD candidates don't quite operate this way and, as I'm learning now, it's with good reason.

I'm four years into my program and I'm finding myself grappling with things I thought I had figured out a long time ago. My dissertation is on transnational educational leadership within iNGOs working in Ethiopia. As I (literally) pedal through my interview data, slugging along the transcription of colorful conversations with my generous informants in iNGO offices in Ethiopia,  I am reminded of my internal conflict during my fieldwork: a conflict between my membership to the world of Ethiopians and my membership to the world of African diaspora/[non]immigrants in the US.

My study sites were extremely welcoming climates for me and quickly felt like home; however, there were many moments that were sure reminders of the distance that my [physical] return to my home country had not been able to diminish. I remember that one time they introduced me in a classroom as "the American-educated PhD candidate." I can tell from the pride in their voice that they mean to heighten the excitement around my presence but it also almost always served to break the sense of belonging that had been building in me, by othering me. My entire data collection process was riddled by the divergence of my perceptions of my place in Ethiopia from how Ethiopia felt about me.

Photo Credit: ww2.kqed.org

Lately, I've been caught between yet another pair of distinct worlds--one which tokenizes my participation in the race and immigration discourse as an African woman and the other which deems my diasporic sensibilities as not being African enough. A man once told me that African immigrants [should be] concerned with the plight of Africans and not the plight of Black people. His inability to reconcile the two worlds was truly staggering. There are so many moments like this that have forced me to take a stand on issues I hadn't previously thought deeply about. I'm suspended between worlds that see me as either Black, [non]immigrant, African, or Ethiopian, separately--unable to accept that an allegiance to one is not an abandonment of the other. While the world(s) stay(s) busy trying to tell me who I am, I'm grasping for pieces of myself that are familiar to me. I can't fit into any of the categories my conversations box me into.

A few days ago, my advisor reminded me that my lack of full access to any world has in some sense provided me with unique access to many worlds. Anthropologists refer to this as insider/outsider status. The idea is that by having one foot in two worlds, we're able to gain perspective of each without taking any nuances for granted in either. Insider status may give us full access to a world but can make us so close to things in that world that we become blind to that which we take for granted; whereas outsider status may mean having no access to another's world but can also provide the distance needed to recognize what is taken for granted by members of that world.

But how do we get inside or outside of a world? What determines membership to worlds like Black, [non]Immigrant, or African? Is there a common understanding by each member as to what this is? Or does each individual understand their membership differently? I'm leaning towards the latter. Take the world of "women" for example. You may argue that there is a biological requirement for membership into this world but the term "woman" may mean different things to each of us who identify as such. So I wonder then, if I can use this as a starting point to find comfort in my intersec[shun]ality.

Society will assert whether we are insiders or outsiders of any given world but perhaps the truth is that we each comprise of our own.

Law as a Looking Glass

Sometimes law is merely a reflection of a nation’s collective values. Policies are not always an echo of policy-makers’ hidden agendas. It’s important to remember that policy can be--and is meant to be--a product of the beliefs of the people it governs. We are so used to thinking of governments doing a bad job of representing their respective people that we forget that laws can be in place simply because much of the population is in agreement.

Of course, various stakeholders have a hand in the policy-making process so when policies fail, it is neither easy nor appropriate to place the onus on any one entity. This does not mean, however, that outcomes cannot be traced back to key influential (f)actors. And while scholars may not agree on the (f)actors most responsible for societal problems, too little attention is paid to the role played by our collective values.

The US context is a great example. American scholars have highlighted the influential role of elected officials and placed the onus of societal problems on the Supreme Court and, more specifically, key decisions that it made at crucial times in the nation's history. At their core, these scholars are veritably attributing society's shortcomings to the political system and/or the ideologies of elected officials and the majority of the justices, respectively. Let us not, however, discount that there was a community – from which these individuals arose – that also supports said values. Policy-makers may all have agendas that may indeed be a mere consequence of power-play but their decisions are not void of the system of beliefs that exists/existed in the nation.

Others have held responsible, the complicated ways in which issues come to the forefront, such as “purposive organizations” that influence what issues come to the attention of the Supreme Court. Interest groups, for example, have a direct influence on what is brought to the table. There is not enough consensus about the policy-making process amongst these particular scholars, to allow us to come to a conclusion about who/what is most responsible for things like inequity. Still we see one thing for sure: they overlook the backdrop of the public's social values or make the assumption that these values are not in line with that of the government's.

The influence of the public's values remains evident nonetheless. For example, let’s look at people’s actions in spite of the law. De jure segregation, for instance, had just as much to do with the law as it did with American values at the time. Even after Brown v. Education, many states worked hard to challenge and reverse the decision. When a law is passed that isn’t in line with existing values, it will not be supported. And if policy instruments are used to force values, society may abide but the shift in values is highly unlikely. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, or national origin”) led to schools using quotas to ensure racial balance. Racial-balance was a political move but never really addressed the social problem--we are five decades out and still having some of the same conversations. When social values are not in line with the law, policies seldom stick.

This is not to say that all law represents the values of society but merely a reminder that some laws do. It is also not to say that law cannot change the values of society but that it is less likely than the reverse. Law representing the true views of the people it governs: a very simple and intuitive concept that we only seem to remember when a nation does well. When we have inequality, however, we blame broken systems and never an immoral society.

La Recherche Pour La Recherche

A researcher's role is often driven by the consumption needs of the academic community, other researchers, policymakers, and/or practitioners. Research then becomes an attempt to address a perceived gap in knowledge, which is an externally dictated agenda. Recently, I’ve been witnessing professors pressed to ride the wave of scientific popularity by chasing after topics that are timely and/or lucrative.

Photo Credit: tate.org.uk

I took a Modern Art class in undergrad... it feels like it was ions ago but many things about this class really stuck with me. Prominent amongst which were l'art pour l'art and l'art pour l'artiste: French expressions that mean art for art['s sake] and art for the artist['s sake], respectively. The former is a progressive expression that captures the essence of movements in art built to eradicate the didactic element of art required by communities in the early 19th century (think James Whistler and impressionism). It revolves around the concept of doing away with social obligations and just creating something that is pleasing to look at. The latter is an even further deviation from what was traditional, in that it does away with even the need to please the audience. It is a concept that embraces the artist, and not merely the art. It is the belief that art should have no purpose at all, but just be an expression of the artist, in whatever shape or form the artist pleases (think Vincent van Gogh and post-impressionism). In the 20th century, this became the foundation on which movements like fauvism, cubism, and dadaism emerged... traces of these movements are still very much alive today. 19th century France is given credit for most of the revolutionary transitions that had to take place to lead to this and the game changers are always the ones that braved the fundamental questions: What is the purpose that art fulfills? Does it have a purpose at all?

Today, I find myself reflecting on this thought as a researcher. If we approach research with the same audacity as Marcel Duchamp’s approach to art, what would that do to our research agendas? What would it mean to conduct research for research’s sake? What if we did away with the need for researchers to publish in areas that would further elicit readership and funding? Can we be bold enough to explore agendas we set for ourselves? Can we let our own voices drive our research and not that of other academics and/or funding agencies? I fear that the academic community's incessant need to publish, to respond to calls in order to get in on popular discourse only accessible to academics takes something away from the research experience. And if so, I wonder what research institutions (academic or otherwise) can do to counter the current climate that is competing with this notion of research-dadaism?