[lg policy] In Boston's Dual-Language High School, One Teacher Grapples With Changing Tide Of Immigration

Mon May 28 15:19:49 UTC 2018

 In Boston's Dual-Language High School, One Teacher Grapples With Changing
Tide Of Immigration03:30
<https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/traffic.megaphone.fm/BUR1479210158.mp3>

<iframe width="100%" height="124" scrolling="no" frameborder="no"
src="https://player.wbur.org/edify/2018/05/28/muniz-academy-teacher-refugee-el-salvador"></iframe>
*Play*
May 28, 2018

   - Willie Gomez <http://www.wbur.org/inside/staff/willie-gomez>

<https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwbur.fm%2F2IUbal9&text=In%20Boston's%20Dual-Language%20High%20School%2C%20One%20Teacher%20Grapples%20With%20Changing%20Tide%20Of%20Immigration&via=wburedify>
<https://www.facebook.com/dialog/share?app_id=134067973330252&display=page&href=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wbur.org%2Fedify%2F2018%2F05%2F28%2Fmuniz-academy-teacher-refugee-el-salvador&redirect_uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wbur.org%2Fedify%2F2018%2F05%2F28%2Fmuniz-academy-teacher-refugee-el-salvador>
<?body=In%20Boston's%20Dual-Language%20High%20School%2C%20One%20Teacher%20Grapples%20With%20Changing%20Tide%20Of%20Immigration%0D%0Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.wbur.org%2Fedify%2F2018%2F05%2F28%2Fmuniz-academy-teacher-refugee-el-salvador&subject=wbur.org:
In%20Boston's%20Dual-Language%20High%20School%2C%20One%20Teacher%20Grapples%20With%20Changing%20Tide%20Of%20Immigration>

*This piece was produced by Willie Gomez, who was an Edify intern this
spring. He is a graduating senior at Boston's Margarita Muñiz Academy,
where Kelly Gil Franco was his teacher and debate coach.*

Teacher Kelly Gil Franco says all of her students are “amazing.” But she
admits there’s one 16-year-old girl who stands out.

“[She] was a child refugee, who actually had to cross the border,” Gil
Franco says. The girl -- whom Gil Franco declines to name, protecting her
anonymity — is an honors student, with a part-time job, who’s "willing to
try her best every day."
More from WBUR
In The Wake Of Mount Ida Closure, Legislature Considers More Control Over
Higher Ed
<http://www.wbur.org/edify/2018/05/25/higher-education-money-problems>
*Play*
Edify <http://www.wbur.org/edify>05:01May 25, 2018
Quincy College To Reimburse Some Students Of Now-Defunct Nursing Program
<http://www.wbur.org/edify/2018/05/23/quincy-college-nursing-program>
Edify <http://www.wbur.org/edify>May 23, 2018
What's Next For UMass Boston After Chancellor Candidates Withdraw
<http://www.wbur.org/edify/2018/05/23/umass-boston-chancellor-hiring-process>
*Play*
Edify <http://www.wbur.org/edify>03:36May 23, 2018
14 Arlington Students Could Avoid Vandalism Charges With Restorative
Justice Program
<http://www.wbur.org/edify/2018/05/22/arlington-students-hateful-graffiti>
Edify <http://www.wbur.org/edify>May 22, 2018

Gil Franco says she "cannot visualize teaching a class without" seeing the
girl. Now, she will have to.

“She’s actually required, now, to leave the country" and return to her
native El Salvador, Gil Franco says, her voice trembling. That's due to a
recent change in immigration policy.

Gil Franco teaches Spanish-language humanities at the Margarita Muñiz
Academy in Jamaica Plain. It's the only dual-language high school in
Boston, meaning that all subjects are taught in both English and Spanish.

As immigration policy began to change under the Trump administration, Gil
Franco says her students started to ask questions that she couldn't answer:
“'Do you think that I’ll be allowed to enter the [United States] if I leave
now?' " Or: "'What do think will happen if I return to El Salvador?' "

The research firm InSight Crime recently calculated El Salvador as the
deadliest place in Central America, with 81.2 murders per 100,000 people
<https://www.insightcrime.org/news/analysis/insight-crime-2016-homicide-round-up/>
in 2016. (Salvadorans make up 11 percent
<http://www.bostonplans.org/getattachment/e0019487-138b-4c73-8fe5-fbbd849a7fba>
of Boston's Latino community.)

Similar questions are on the minds of many foreign-born students in the
U.S. — and there are more of them than ever. According to the Migration
Policy Institute*, *the proportion of immigrants who are under 18 has
doubled <https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/rfk-what-if/>
between 1990 and 2016.

Under the Trump administration, those young people are exposed to new
uncertainty -- not only because of the rollback of DACA protections but
also because of the termination of Temporary Protective Status for
immigrants who fled El Salvador
<http://www.wbur.org/news/2018/01/08/tps-ends-el-salvador>, but also
Honduras, Haiti and Nicaragua. Many of those families have lived in the
U.S. for years.

Gil Franco understands better than most. She herself was brought to the
U.S. as a child two decades ago; her family left their native Colombia
during a violent era of guerrilla warfare
<http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-19390164>. And her own journey
was uncertain: “My family moved to Boston when I was 9 years old, and I was
able to reunite with them when I was 11 years old."

Adjusting to a new country and language, Gil Franco says she learned a lot
about her future profession.

And, she says, by being a teacher who helps young people adjust to life in
America, she's paying back a debt of service from her time attending Fenway
High School in the 2000s: “If it had not been for all the support that I
received from my teachers, I don’t think I would have been able to become a
confident student that was willing to share my experience, and what made me
unique in my community.”

Now, she says, that confidence is being tested. "There are days when I come
into work, and ... I want to ignore it," Gil Franco says. "But I have
learned that I really need to remain strong, because these kids are still
coming to school."

So, Gil Franco says, even though she herself sometimes worries, she has to
convince her students *not* to: “Children sometimes come into the classroom
crying, because they're terrified of losing their parents."

She says she tells them: “Don't be afraid. You have never committed a
crime. Your parents have never committed a crime by wanting to offer you a
better future.”

-- 
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+

 Harold F. Schiffman

Professor Emeritus of
 Dravidian Linguistics and Culture
Dept. of South Asia Studies
University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305

Phone:  (215) 898-7475
Fax:  (215) 573-2138

Email:  haroldfs at gmail.com
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/

-------------------------------------------------
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/lgpolicy-list/attachments/20180528/6d644ad3/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
_______________________________________________
This message came to you by way of the lgpolicy-list mailing list
lgpolicy-list at groups.sas.upenn.edu
To manage your subscription unsubscribe, or arrange digest format: https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/lgpolicy-list