They are afraid. They wonder if they will be deported. They worry about their family. They don’t know if they can visit their grandparents.
Some asked their teachers about the electoral college and why Donald Trump was elected president despite receiving fewer votes nationwide. This was perhaps the easiest and most straightforward question of the day.
Teachers also reported that children asked questions about what Trump’s election meant in relation to particular family members who are recent immigrants or refugees having fled from violence in Mexico. Will my father, mother, grandparents or cousin be deported? If they move back to Mexico, could they be killed?
Children of all ages without citizenship or legal status who immigrated to this country with their parents also asked questions about whether they will be allowed to stay in this country. Will I be sent away? Will I be separated from my family? What if I don’t know anyone in Mexico because everyone is here and I’m deported?
Children also had questions about Trump’s proposed border wall and whether they will be able to visit with their family in Mexico or have their family visit them here in El Paso. Will I get to see my grandparents on Christmas? Will I see them ever again? What about my cousins and my friends? What about sick relatives?
There were also questions about the Trump electorate and wondered if the rest of America hated them because they were Mexican. Why would people elect Trump president after what he said about Mexicans and women? Do white people hate Mexicans? Does Donald Trump? Does he think we are all rapists? Do you think he hates me? Why has he said such things about us?
Think about the children in El Paso.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Sounds like a great teaching moment on the mass media, sound bites, bias and tolerance, providing the differences for them on objective and subjective interpretations and reading to understand both sides of the story.
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Family separation and an uncertain future are on the mind of most unauthorized people here. They live in the shadows always afraid they will be found out. Perhaps if Obama had delivered on his “path to citizenship,” there would a lot less worry in immigrant communities. With Trump taking office, the Latino communities have more urgent concerns. I have an unauthorized family member that has been here for seventeen years. He works hard, and has his own business. His wife and child are American citizens. He missed his mother’s funeral, but frequently talks with his father who is in poor health. He wants to live here and work to support his family. He now has deep roots in this country. It will be tragic for so many children and young people, if Trumps splinters families and leaves them without support. It will cost America a lot more as well in food stamp, welfare and healthcare. Deportation will cost us more and create more problems than it will solve.
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On a happier note, there is a project called “Hugs across the Border.” It allows family members to meet at the border to hug each other. It is a small attempt to understand the predicament of many unauthorized people.http://www.fronterasdesk.org/content/10395/after-years-apart-reunited-families-get-hug-across-us-mexico-border
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THINK: SLAVERY where families were separated and slaves were considered just breeders for more slaves.
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Their fear is very understandable. After watching the news this week and seeing a beautiful three year old shot and killed in a road rage incident and others mowed down in front of their homes and even through the walls of their homes; every child should be afraid.
As a child five to six decades ago I was never afraid of guns. The only guns I ever saw were on television in the westerns. Now guns are ubiquitous and so is hate. Yes little children, be afraid. Be very afraid. There are people out there who mean you harm.
Merry Christmas
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It is not just El Paso, we have faced it in San Rafael, CA when children go home to find no parent there. Who takes care of them? What do you tell them? How can we justify doing this to families? It has been going on for decades in many communities, question is how do we change this unjust action?
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This is also happening in New Mexico schools. At the school where I work, we have students coming in tears and are seriously terrified that they will be separated from their family. The superintendent of Albuquerque Public schools sent home a letter a few days after the election and stated that all students attending APS were safe. There was only one board member who spoke out against the letter. She stated that “there was never a letter sent home after Obama was elected and why don’t families just ‘self-deport’ themselves” and further explained that families can move back to where they come from together. She is a BOE member who was bought and paid for by our Koch-funded governor.
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The BoE member you refer to was financial supported in a big way by Martinez’s (AKA Governor) PAC in order to get rid of the BoE member who was actually speaking the truth about Skandera, our so called NM Secretary of Education. Martinez could not and cannot deal with the truth when it is about her and the weaklings she has in her cabinet and and other appointments. Martinez and Skandera are the worse things to happen to public education in NM. Skandera, as we are told, may become a deputy of DeVas, the next US Sec of Ed. What a disaster that will be for public education in the United States
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Joan…In LA, Mayor Garcetti and Police Chief Beck have been publicly outspoken in saying they will not support any rounding up of parents, grandparents, or anyone who is not a criminal. The Catholic archdiocese also proclaimed their church a sanctuary. Teachers and children now have available counselors in their schools to help them with their anxiety over deportation threats.
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These scenarios are playing out in classrooms across the country with children from all kinds of disenfranchised groups. Here is my reflections on the story of my students on November 9th, and my thought process regarding where to go from here.
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Lets start off with an amnesty for all those who are here lets even throw in the ability to reunite splintered families members of whom are still in native countries . Establishing those facts as a given before I continue. .
Jeffery Sachs posted some interesting points on immigration in an article on Brexit months before 29% of Hispanics voted for “Little Hands Von Clownstick”
Sachs:
“Third, don’t punish Britain. Instead, police national and EU borders to stop illegal migrants. This is not xenophobia, racism, or fanaticism. It is common sense that countries with the world’s most generous social-welfare provisions (Western Europe) must say no to millions (indeed hundreds of millions) of would-be migrants. The same is true for the US.”
Of course what Sachs proposes is that we change our foreign policy to one of development not war “Economic Hit Men ” and corporate profiteering on the backs of poor and indigenous peoples around the globe.
“Fifth, focus resources, including additional aid, on economic development, rather than war, in low-income countries. Uncontrolled migration from today’s poor and conflict-ridden regions will become overwhelming, regardless of migration policies, if climate change, extreme poverty, and lack of skills and education undermine the development potential of Africa, Central America and the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Central Asia. ”
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/meaning-of-brexit-by-jeffrey-d-sachs-2016-06
Now we could eliminate almost all undocumented immigration into this country . By doing what “little Hands ” has no intention of doing . Hold employers criminally responsible for the hiring of future undocumented workers from Tyson Foods to Walmart’s undocumented cleaning staff, to the local Gardner.
This is not an immigration issue this is a labor issue “Von Clownstick” has no intention of solving the problem he will send in the Gestapo to break up a few families very publicly here and there. It may even become a new reality TV show produced by the Trump kids “The Deportee”
He may even build a wall with tunnels underneath to allow in all the cheap labor American employers require.
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/19634/stop_blaming_immigrants_and_start_punishing_the_employers_who_exploit_them
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many of whom
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I doubt Trump and his crew of deplorables will have any appetite to punish the so called “job creators,” even the exploitative ones.
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None what so ever .
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As is too often the case, the children are collateral damage to a politically popular concept… building walls, bombing Syria, cutting welfare to the “undeserving”…
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