In just a week, the new presidential administration has sent a wave of fear and shock into every DC area school. I teach at a school that’s 60% Hispanic, with many undocumented students hidden in plain sight. When I quietly handed out MCPS fliers on immigrant rights, printed in Spanish and English, nearly every student grabbed one.
My students don’t talk about it with me. It’s my first year at a new school, and all my classes are co-taught. So we haven’t developed the kind of mutual trust that I am used to by this time of year. But my colleague who works with newcomer students said they were panicking.
Violent January 6 criminals are granted blanket pardons while innocent children, many of whom are refugees from political violence, are at risk of deportation. I keep coming back to my mantra from the previous Trump administration: “This is not who we are.” But clearly, I do not understand my fellow Americans. Apparently we are a bigoted, anti-authority, xenophobic country.
We’re living in an upside-down reality, like an episode of Stranger Things.
I will do everything in my power to help my students. But I wish I could change the channel.
Eva K. Sullivan 