My final draft of my HCP shows that I incorporated more of my ideas into my writing and made it more clearer. All my sources are cited and the notes that I left in my first draft are taken out as I continue to fix the errors. My paper is properly organized and my historical portion of my paper is completed.

Brenda Ramos

Writing 39C

Christopher J. Varela

2/6/17

Education For One, and Education For All

            In elementary school, you’re told to do well in school so that you have a promising future. Questions of “what do you want to be when you grow up?” are asked often and teachers will help keep you on the right track. In junior high, you’re told to start thinking about your future, look up colleges of where you want to go and to continue on doing well in school to strive on having a promising future. In high school, you’re told to start narrowing down which route you want to take, which college to go to, and to continue doing great in school in order to go through the higher education route. Schools are a promising and safe future for every child to hold onto, and teachers encourage their students to excel in school. Yet, this cookie cutter account is not what students experience day in and day out and year to year. Not all students do well, and not all students go to college. But for some students, it isn’t their character that holds them back, their grades, or their lack of commitment shown towards schools. It’s a social problem that incorporates a political and cultural deficit point of view where some students shouldn’t be allowed to excel in the school system due to their citizenship status. Where one intelligent student is denied the chance to succeed in a school, where they are denied the right to attend higher education, because they weren’t born here. Undocumented students, or those are under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) are faced with the social injustices held by our schools and society. In order for our education system to promote a progressive and diversive environment, the U.S. needs to support undocumented students instead of disabling them from excelling in school.

What is DACA?

            DACA was initiated in 2012 under the Obama administration. This program gave “qualified undocumented young people access to relief from deportation, renewable work permits, and temporary Social Security numbers. This policy opened up access to new jobs, higher earnings, driver’s licenses, health care, and banking. (Vaquera, E., E. Aranda, and R. G. Gonzales)” In order to qualify, an individual must have arrived to the United States under the age 16 and must have been under 31 years old when the program first began, lived in the U.S. for at least five years, and must be attending or completed high school in order to receive a diploma or a GED.  “DACA is reducing some of the challenges undocumented young adults must overcome to achieve economic and social

incorporation (Vaquera, Aranda, Gonzales)”. With a legal status in their presence, most young adults have strived towards obtaining a postsecondary education and enrolling in college, which is something that they couldn’t do without DACA. Figure 1 shows that DACA recipients are gaining more education and are given the opportunity to pursue higher education. However, undocumented students must overcome other challenges to enroll and excel in college.

Challenges Faced by DACA

One of the biggest fears from undocumented students is being deported. For some DACA individuals, they were here for the most part of their whole life. This is all they have ever known and that there is a possibility that some students don’t know that they’re undocumented until they reach high school. Undocumented students will see a “police state with more private prisons, more detentions, more deportations and palpable fear (Persuad).” A newspaper article by Felicia Persuad shows that “despite some analysts’ claims that Trump may have gone soft on his border wall plan, the memo clearly showed that the Trump transition team is still focused on satisfying the promise of a ‘big beautiful wall’ (Persuad).” This “big beautiful wall” will limit undocumented student’s education, as they are less likely to be striving for a higher education degree, will promote a xenophobia towards those who are not natural born citizens, and butchers the name of the Land of Opportunity. In school, undocumented students are faced with racial prejudices by their peers and teachers.  “Since its inception over a century ago, the public school system has been intricately involved in the cycle that oppresses certain groups of students while advancing other groups, specifically the dominant group (Armendariz)” These children, especially those who identify as Mexican Americans are going through school differently than those who are part of the majority race. In the school system, Mexicans are the minorities not because of their numbers, but because of the power that they have in the United States. White students have more power than other minority groups because they claim and oppress the others by ruling the school system. It is not the student’s fault, but rather the school’s as the education system maintains an Anglo-Saxon stratification. This stratification in education refers to where students are placed in the social ladder due their social status (Figure 2), the level of schooling one lands on, their behavior, and where might their future lead them. Minority students, let alone, undocumented students will never have a chance to succeed if DACA is taken away, and will therefore be in the bottom of the stratification of education due to their limited opportunities. The education system is only equal to those whom it lets it be equal to.

Historical Contexts of Problem

            This isn’t the first time Latinos had to fight the education system. Youth students wanted educational reform due to the oppression held by the school staff.  “White society has failed to help the ‘Chicano’ in the school system by executing an ‘English only’ approach towards Chicanos and not recognizing their needs as bicultural students (Sarabia, Price)”. There are some instances where students would get beaten up if they were heard by a teacher talking a different language.  “Instead of getting help in school for his language barrier, his teacher has given up on him as a ‘‘culturally deprived’’ child. (Sarabia, Price)” This instance shows that teachers are more willing to put the blame on the child rather on themselves. Their current point of view is of a cultural deficit, which is blaming the child’s culture, beliefs, parents, and values. The focus should be on a school and societal deficit because schools reflect what society is promoting, and if teachers and the administration aren’t taking the time to help out students who are in more need, then those “at-risk” students tend to do worse and continue on a downward spiral.

Realizing that they were being oppressed by the education system, students took it into their own hands as they initiated the East Los Angeles Walkouts (Figure 3). “In the 1968 East Los Angeles Walkouts, over 10,000 students walked out of five predominantly Mexican American high schools, motivated by poor educational conditions and the fact that previous attempts for school change by the community had been ignored (Ballón)”. The high school students, along with college students, teachers, parents, and other community members had joined in the rally to fight the school board in demands in bringing more of a focus to help out the Chicanos in school such as reducing classroom size, providing bilingual and bicultural education, removing the flawed IQ tests that could never test the true ability of those who were non native, and ending the punishment students would receive such as physical harm and emotional abuse.

            Although teachers are not allowed to physically hit students, there is still some emotional and mental abuse tackling undocumented students. With our new President, Donald Trump plans on creating a “big beautiful wal”l on the Mexico Border in order to keep out immigrants. This idea promotes a bigot America where it seems okay to bully those who are not born here. Trump plans on eliminating DACA, or at least modifying it, yet this would be disastrous as it eliminates a progressive education system. Terminating DACA would also be terrible in an economic and financial sense. Without DACA, students would not be able to acquire their first legal jobs and without their jobs, they won’t be helping out the U.S. economy.  “The mere presence of undocumented workers, especially non-criminals like those covered under DACA, is not nearly as detrimental to the economy as most people suppose, and may actually be a net benefit (Brannon)”. DACA students contribute to our economy and quantify the net costs. If President Trump goes through with his plan to eliminate the DACA program and deporting undocumented students, the U.S. economy would “be poorer by more than a quarter of a trillion dollars (Brannon)” because those under DACA would not be providing the U.S. a fiscal impact estimated at $5.3 billion. Deporting DACA students does not address the real problems that the United States are facing. DACA helps students achieve their potential by providing them with opportunities to make something out for themselves.

Conclusion

Keeping DACA would also help promote a diverse and progressive school system as it would be a fight to eliminate the social injustice. More awareness is being announced on DACA’s part and undocumented students are socializing with others who were born in the United States. Having this interaction exposes the story of undocumented students to the schools and their peers, which is beneficial to all as it strengthens one’s character and awareness about this situation. Schools would be providing a safe spot for those who need one and it would reinforce the idea that all students matter regardless of their status.

I am doing what many U.S. citizens are not even doing. I have never gotten in trouble with the law, I have excelled in school and have received numerous awards that show my potential and hard work, I am now getting close to reaching my career goals…What else does the government want to see?…All I can say to people who think us immigrants shouldn’t be here is…give us the opportunity, don’t cut our wings off before we can fly… -Guerrero, male, 23 years old (Martinez, Calderon)

Citations

Abe L. Armendáriz (2000) The Impact of Racial Prejudice on the Socialization of Mexican

American Students in the Public Schools, Equity & Excellence in Education, 33:3, 59-63,

DOI: 10.1080/1066568000330310 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1066568000330310

Ballón, Estela Godinez. Mexican Americans and education: el saber es poder. Tucson: The U of

Arizona Press, 2015. Print.

Brannon, Ike. "The Economic and Fiscal Impact of Repealing DACA." Cato Institute. Cato

Institute, 18 Jan. 2017. Web. 20 Jan. 2017.

Daniel Sarabia & Lauren J. Price (2011) ARTISTIC SCRIPTS, NARRATIVES, AND THE

THEATRE: IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION PROCESSES IN THE MEXICANAMERICAN CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, Sociological Spectrum, 31:6, 637-664, DOI: 10.1080/02732173.2011.606723  http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02732173.2011.606723

Martínez-Calderón, Carmen. "The Lives of "Undocumented" Students in Education." The

Lives of "Undocumented" Students in Education (n.d.): n. pag. Web. 18 Jan. 2017.

Persaud, Felicia. "Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid: The Trump Immigration Rhetoric is About to

Become Reality." The New York Amsterdam New 18 Jan. 2017, Vol. 108 ed., Issue 2 sec.: 18 . Print. Immigration Korner

Vaquera, E., E. Aranda, and R. G. Gonzales. "Patterns of Incorporation of Latinos in Old and

New Destinations: From Invisible to Hypervisible." American Behavioral Scientist 58.14 (2014): 1823-833. Academic Search Complete. Web. 4 Feb. 2017.