Stuck in Limbo
The debate about the Dream Act often concentrates on the 65,000 high school graduates each year who are unable to follow their dream of acquiring a higher education due to the undocumented status passed on to them by their parents.
But there is another group of young people, who have worked hard and proven themselves, who also need the passage of the Dream Act...perhaps even more.
These are the young people who have managed against all odds to complete their higher educations. Working low paying jobs just to make ends meet and pay their own college costs, many of these students, once completing their educations, face an uncertain future where the skills and knowledge they have worked so hard to acquire cannot be put to use.
Without proper documentation and social security numbers they are unable to move from the "underground economy" of their parents world into the mainstream workforce that their educations give them the ability to participate in.
Without the Dream Act these young people will forever be stuck in limbo, somewhere between the undocumented world of their parents, and their dreams of a bright future.
This is the second in a series of videos that will be posted featuring the voices or stories of those who have waited so long for the passage of the Dream Act.
Link to video
Learn more about the DREAM ACT
More on the Dream Act from MigraMatters
Contact your Senators and tell them to give these young people the opportunity they deserve by supporting the DREAM Act.
catagories:
DREAM Act,
immigration
2 comments:
This is the 1st place I've ever heard about the Dream Act, and I consider myself reasonably well informed. NOT I guess!
Jodie Z, Collin Co. TX
Slightly OT, but somebody suggested recently that Latinos should become more involved in homeschooling.
This is traditionally seen as a kind of province of right-wing, Christian Right flat-earthers, but in fact, an awful lot of home-schoolers I've met have been well-educated and very considerate-- they just want their kids in a healthier environment than the dilapidated US public schools.
Hace buen sentido para mi.
My poor niece attends a public school in her neighborhood-- the traditional, English-medium only school rather than the ones that provide part Spanish-medium instruction, which do seem to be higher quality-- and she recently asked her mother why everybody seems to have have a knife in their backpacks.
Mind you, this is a *middle school*-- I don't even want to consider what the high schools are like. And as for getting anything resembling an education, forget it-- the underfunded, broken-down US English-medium public schools are probably the worst in the civilized world.
There are three alternatives as far as I can tell. One is the increasingly popular, Spanish-English dual-medium schools, now not just at the elementary level but also in high schools and even universities, which tend to be higher quality overall and attract a better quality of teachers.
The second is private schools-- also with the best being dual medium variety.
The third is homeschooling, in which parents can also establish a dual-medium curriculum, give a safe environment and actually educate our kids.
More Latinos are doing this, and as some people are saying, it's especially valuable to do this in states outside of the SW, Chicago and Florida where Latinos have a traditionally strong presence and can rely on each other in the scholastic communities.
Yo mismo lo recomendaria a los padres Latinos que deben enfrentar los fracasos de la sistema de escuelas publicas en EEUU.
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