Guest Column
A series of chronicles: In search of a dream
- By Jerry Gonzalez
- Atlanta Latino
September 1, 2005
In January 2004, President Bush declared the federal immigration system as a failed policy. In January 2005, Governor Perdue lent his support to President Bush because “it’s the moral, right thing to do to address immigrants, documented and undocumented, to meet the needs of workers and citizens in the country.” There is acceptance by some that federal immigration policy is broken and that people must work towards a solution.
One thing to remember in this process is that very little is known about the people who are affected by a failed immigration policy. What happens when someone looks at this issue on an individual basis? Usually people tend to humanize the situation a bit more and come up with a better understanding of the situation.
Through a series of features, the human aspect of undocumented students will be told. As the new school year begins, people must keep in mind the challenges many undocumented students face daily.
The first story is about Jose and his personal struggle with the educational system of this country, from high school, all the way to college.
His story is shared by tens of thousands of undocumented children across our nation. Despite his challenges, he feels a sense of gratitude to the United States of America for allowing him the opportunity to get an education. He has taken theses challenges as an opportunity to overcome and believes it has made him a better person.
Jose’s story illustrates how a failed public policy impacts the very real lives of children. It is important to work towards a comprehensive immigration reform that takes into consideration the dreams and talents of people like Jose, who only want to share in the American dream and contribute to this land of opportunity with his talents.
INSIDE THE CLASSROOM
Maria’s initial plan for her son was for him to get an education; in fact, that was the very first thing Jose heard from his mother after his arrival to this country. Jose started to visualize the scenario of a foreign child attending an American high school like having lots of friends, who liked him and would provide a support structure for him as he matured into adulthood. Years later, Jose looks back on it a bit differently.
“I imagined that attending high school was supposed to be one of the most exciting times of my life. I wanted to attend school for my remaining two years, and make it to college the following year. That was my dream until I had a rude awakening that changed my life, as well as my way of thinking because I was undocumented.”
Jose’s lack of immigration status and low level of English proficiency were the initial obstacles he faced before he could make an effective transition to the U.S. educational system.
The high school near his house would not accept him because the school did not have an English as a Second Language (ESOL) program. As a result, he had to attend another high school, which was located 30 minutes away from his home.
Regardless of the distance he had to travel to get to school, Jose was rather optimistic about making his long voyage an everyday routine. During his first few days in high school, Jose had to face several issues that distressed him. First, he had to live under the shadows of a badly conducted ESOL program, which did not promote the intellectual growth of the students.
On several occasions, his ESOL teachers told Jose that he was not good enough to graduate from high school. When Jose mentioned his desire to go to college, his educators would laugh in his face.
To complicate things further, many of the native-born students did not want to interact with him at all. Jose felt horrible about his high school experience because he was not being challenged and he had very few friends who would actually interact with him.
These challenges almost resulted in Jose dropping out of high school. He could find a job just like some of his friends had already done. He thought that instead of suffering in school, he could help his family financially by working.
Like many other kids his age, Jose did not want to tell his mother about his desire to quit school. Consequently, Jose came up with some juvenile ideas to get expelled from high school, which included walking slowly to the bus stop so he would miss the bus and misbehaving on purpose to get suspended and expelled.
Maria found out about Jose’s juvenile antics and she gave him an ultimatum. If he wanted to live in her house, he could either stay in school and work only weekends or he would quit school and work two jobs including all weekends.
Reluctantly, Jose decided to stay in school and he made a commitment to give his best effort.
Today, Jose is grateful for his mother’s efforts and her good judgment. Because of this, Jose calls his mother his “Alma Mater” which means, “nourishing mother.” Through his journey, Jose has met a lot people who wanted to help him just like his mother did; however, he also met people who tried to do exactly the opposite.
In the next chronicle, which will be published in two weeks, further details about Jose’s life and how some people almost limited his ability and opportunity to go to college, will be told.
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Article from GALEO newsletter - GALEO is a 501 (c) (6) statewide nonprofit and non-partisan organization providing a voice for the growing Latino population in Georgia, and providing a framework for collaborative and proactive legislative initiatives for Georgia's Hispanic community. http://www.galeo.org/story.php?story_id=0000000312
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