Monthly Archives: January 2022

Increased Migration and Deportation for Nicaraguans is Misunderstood by USA

Sunday morning, I spoke to a woman working at a hotel in Phoenix, Arizona who had arrived to the United States just two months ago. She said she was told it would be warm here. We gazed over the city’s industrial parking lot and gently spoke of the Nicaragua landscape. Her name was Cynthia and she had a young daughter. I too was suffering from a culture shock having returned to the U.S. to try and teach youth about food system. I threw away so much food that week and having known hunger in Nicaragua it deeply broke my heart. Urulsa A. Kelly in her work Losing Place: Reluctant Leavings and Ambivalent Returns claims migration is type of death, a transition needing a type of mourning not often given or address culturally. Kelly writes of migration and death, “death, it seems, cannot be allowed to disrupt the economies of efficiency that organize contemporary (postcapitalist) life. The moment in the morning was brief, but there was very few individuals who could meet us in our liminal state. And I am grateful for the human connection.

Cynthia told me hesitantly of the journey, the difficulty at the Mexican border and how we left her daughter for fear of loosing her in the States. $100 here, she said is actually not that much money and in Nicaragua it could last a month. I nodded and thought of the young 21 year old Angel, a Nicaraguan I had met three weeks prior. He was preparing to take the journey by land from Nicaragua to the United States. Roughly 3 months, 5k in coyote fees, and exponential danger. I urged him not to go, knowing his dream to work in a nice hotel like this woman. Perhaps he too would not find his dream in the reality of the US economy. I prayed he would be as lucky as Cynthia to at least arrived safely and find work. e said it was dangerous now in Nicaragua.

I asked Cynthia why she chose to come. She said it was dangerous now in Nicaragua.

According to November 2021 reports “authorities caught over 50,000 Nicaraguans trying to cross the U.S. border illegally in 2021, up from 2,291 in 2020, according to Customs and Border Protection data. Erlinton Ortiz was deported last year, one of over 5,000 Nicaraguans returned from the United States since 2019, into the hands of an administration that Washington has accused of civil rights abuses, corruption and holding sham elections.”

That is a shocking increase from country the size of an East Coast State. Moreso when one considers the number of undocumented migrants that have arrived to stay into the United States and the many who were turned around, returned or killed on the journey.

The stories of fear from Nicaragua began increasing in Central America around 2018 when student protest were first met with violence on the street. However, the current situation of increased violence and migration is not gaining the coverage the needed coverage in the national news. According to USN News article, judges are sending Nicaraguans back to their country without understanding the situation or dynamics in Nicaragua, deporting in a fashion that is against international civil rights.

Interestingly, “Under U.S. law, asylum seekers cannot secure U.S. residency because they are fleeing gang violence. They must convince authorities they have credible fear of persecution on grounds of their race, religion, nationality, or political opinions.” It seems our notions of asylum are deeply dependent on the context of our morals. In a region plagued by gang violence due to US government insurrection, gang violence is a very serious and worthy reason for migration and asylum. However, our legal system contextualizes asylum based on our sense of constitutional rights.

“In Nicaragua, it’s about state terrorism,” Orozco said. The White House did not reply to a request for comment.”

I am humbled by the reality that so many people are fleeing their homes out of fear from the States and local violence. I am humbled when I think of my young friend Angel making the journey. Because one you leave you cannot return. To migrate is a type of death. In my travels in Central America, I distinctly remember the people I met who were deported. They felt like angry, lost souls. Stuck in the limbo between here and there. I agree with Kelly, our governments and culture do not understand the psychological implications of migration. Justice would look like legal and social systems that would gently support the transition to a new life

Jill Clark-The Most Dangerous Ways to School.

After reading about the theories, I became interested in learning more about how the Dependency Theory affects educational systems in periphery countries like Nepal. Periphery countries are those that are less developed than the semi-periphery and core countries. The country of Nepal fits this definition. It is politically unstable, it has a corrupt bureaucracy, there is a lack of industry, and Its political situations have always been compromised because of interference from China, India (Kalam, 2020).

In this very interesting documentary The Most Dangerous Ways to School, the children of Nepal have to travel for more than two hours to get to school. In their travels, they must cross a dangerous river on a cable in a basket. This video also brings to light the economic and social disparities between the rich and the poor.

It is possible for an underdeveloped county to become developed? According to Keynes’ economic approach, in order for a country to become developed it must improve the following: 1.) develop an important internal effective demand in terms of domestic markets; 2)  recognize that the industrial sector is crucial to achieving better levels of national development, especially due to the fact that this sector, in comparison with the agricultural sector, can contribute more value-added to products; 3)  increase worker’s income as a means of generating more aggregate demand in national market conditions. 4. To promote a more effective government role in order to reinforce national development conditions and to increase national standards of living (Reyes, 2020) However, is this possible when the Dependency Theory is designed to benefit core countries?

Special Education Identification for Language Learning Students

This video describes the interesting predicament of the over and under identification of Language Learners for Special Education Services. As a Special Educator I have seen both sides of this problem. I have worked with students who were identified with a Speech and Language disability with areas of weaknesses including reading, writing and speech who is also identified as a Language Learner. These students are often labeled with a disability, when in reality their weaknesses are stemming in not having enough time to learn the language. Conversely, I currently have a student who is identified with a Learning Disability who was not identified until third grade as a result of being a Language Learner. They were waiting to see how the student responded to language interventions prior to pursuing a Special Education referral. This student has significant weaknesses in the areas of decoding, encoding and math. As a result of being a Language Learner as a young child, they were not identified early enough to receive early intervention for their disability, which may have impacted their progress early on. In many of the school districts that I have worked in, when a Language Learning student is identified for Special Education, their ELL services are discontinued and replaced for Special Education services. These services have different purposes and there have been many instances where I have had to advocate for students to be able to receive both services because that it what is appropriate to meet the students needs. Additionally, I have also had several experiences with students who have immigrated to the country with a documented disability, which creates an interesting situation. Legally, districts are required to provide these students with special education, but the student is also still adjusting to American schools and learning the language. We have had to create extremely specific and creative programs to provide students with the services that they require.

Overall, the intersection of the Special Education process, Immigration and Language Learning process can be an incredibly complex and nuanced conversation.

Student DREAMers Alliance

This is a picture of the Student DREAMers Alliance, one of the many programs supported through the Hispanic Alliance of Greenville (SC). This program supports DREAMers from Greenville area high schools in their pursuit of higher education. When I worked in college admissions, this is one of my favorite groups to work with because they are high achieving students who just want a chance at attending college. The biggest challenges are they can’t attend a local college and stay closer to home and/or the financial expense of college is too great. In their program they talk about a variety of topics from college admission, attending college, what to make of the college experience, how to finance college, etc. The challenges these students face are ones that can be alleviated, worked around or through. I’m just really passionate about advocating for the rights of all to access the same resources.

Haitian Immigrants

Jill Clark

Although Haiti has had many tragedies and is one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere, It is has a rich history and the Island full of vivid beauty. I chose this video because fifty percent of my students are from Haiti. In fact, I have one student that just came to the United States about two months ago. Am also intrigued by how they have endured so much, but yet remain strong.

Teaching a Moroccan Student in Florence

When I studied abroad in Florence, I got the opportunity to teach English in a fourth year classroom in a Florentine primary school. There were twenty-five students in the class, with one student having recently immigrated from Morocco. My cooperating teacher told me that he was having trouble fitting in with his classmates, particularly because of his minimal Italian language abilities. It became a goal of my lessons to incorporate socialization among classmates so that he would eventually become more comfortable doing so on his own.

This image is an example of work this student would produce during my lessons. This student amazed me because, despite the challenges, he was able to use the Italian he knew to learn English. Towards the end of my time at that school, this student was showing great progress in both languages. He also started to become more confident when interacting with his classmates. I learned a lot from all of my students in that class, but my experience with this particular student really stuck with me.

Welcome!

Welcome phrase words cloud concept

This poster hangs in the front lobby of my school. I smile every morning when I walk by it because it serves as a reminder that no matter who you are or where you are from, you are welcome in our school community. 

I often wonder what students think when they view this poster. I hope that when a new student from another county enters the school they can find “welcome” in their language and know they are seen and will be accepted for who they are. 

Module 1 Media Reflection

When reading the articles for this module, I started thinking about my own identity as an immigrant, more specifically an Asian immigrant.

My parents immigrated to New York City when I was 6 years old, but they had their own reason. As Kelly (2009) puts it, “It is important to avoid any inclination to collapse or homogenize all migrations and instead to note the specificity of context” (Kelly, 2009, p.31). My parents believed that raising me in the United States would offer better opportunities for my educational and professional future. They gave up their jobs and said goodbye all our family members to pursue a life in Brooklyn. Even though they both held college degrees, they returned to school in a community college to learn English. Due to language barriers, my parents could not find jobs that matched their years of skill and experience. My dad transformed from a manager in a medicine company to an assistant who cleaned medical equipment, and my mom went from a middle school teacher to a paraprofessional. They chased the “American dream”, but we did not experience much upward social mobility. We had to move back to China during the financial crisis of 2008 because of financial troubles.

I chose this article because it addresses a lot of the issues that I have thought about, both in general and through reading the articles in this module. Asian Americans are associated with the “model minority” term, and stereotyped to be hard and intelligent workers. On the surface, this may seem like a positive term, but the stereotype also includes quietly working without protest, or serving non-leadership jobs. Furthermore, this gives a false sense of success. Experiences are diverse across any racial group, and this over-generalization seems to single out one group. Just as the article mentions, there is still a high-income gap among Asian Americans. I agree with the article that not only does the myth mislead people, it also compares and pits different minority groups against each other. The myth views Asians in technical roles, and not as outspoken representatives in business or politics. Just like how English language learning does not necessarily lead to success (Warriner, 2007) discrimination simply cannot be avoided just by working hard and increasing income as the model minority myth suggests.

Works Cited:

Kelly, U. (2009). Migration and education in a multicultural world: Culture, loss, and identity. Springer.

Warriner, D. S. (2007). Language learning and the politics of belonging: Sudanese women refugees becoming and being “American”. Anthropology & Education Quarterly38(4), 343-359.

Afghan Refugees in North Carolina

Link to article.

This is an article from September 2021 discussing the arrival of about 1,169 Afghan refugees into my home state of North Carolina. When I began searching for media to include in this assignment I was overwhelmed by how unaware and disconnected I am about current issues of migration and globalization. This article piqued my interest because it concerns the state in which I live and connects to the recent US withdrawal from Afghanistan. After the withdrawal and subsequent Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, the subject has not been as prevalent on cable news programs or national newspapers.

In this article by Will Wright of The Charlotte Observer, some lines that stood out to me are, “in 2015, then-Gov. Pat McCrory, who is now running for U.S. Senate, was one of about two dozen governors who asked the federal government to halt the settlement of Syrians to their states. Saying at the time that his ‘primary duty as governor is to keep the citizens of North Carolina safe,’ McCrory said he wanted to halt the flow of Syrian refugees until he was satisfied with the vetting process. Although the request was condemned by human rights advocates, other North Carolina politicians, including U.S. Sen. Richard Burr, also called for halting the refugee program for Syrians.”

I am thinking about those kinds of statements regarding safety, which plant seeds of fear and separation in the hearts of listeners and readers. Why is their an assumption that welcoming refugees threatens our safety?

Practice Media Reflect Blog Post

This is a picture of my Nana. She and my grandfather passed away in 2020 at the start of the pandemic. I chose this picture because Nana immigrated to the USA from Kinvarra, Galway Ireland. She wasn’t able to have children, so she adopted my dad. Before she died she kept asking to travel home to Kinvarra. My maternal grandfather also immigrated to the USA from Ballindoon, Sligo, Ireland. He’s not well right now, so family is very much on my mind. My grandfather now spends about half the year in Sligo on the family arbor farm. Unfortunately the pandemic has kept him in the States.

I cannot imagine the journey they went though. Lately my grandfather has been writing short stories about his childhood before emigrating. My mom loves it now because she is a genealogist. Although, my father and mother described being embarrassed by their parent’s accents or not normal habits as children. I can imagine it was very hard for them to be transplanted into a new culture. My grandfather’s siblings moved with him, but my grandmother’s sister stayed in Ireland. Also, as an older woman, I think my Nana probably had the hardest time adjusting and experienced the most pressure to blend in. Even today, its hard for me to imagine the challenging immigrant experience as I’ve only spent significant time in the USA. When I’m across the pond, I’m seen as the American. When my grandparents are here, they’re still seen as Irish after all this time.