AS Blog

Immigration is always in issue that needs to be addressed and debated. There are so many different views that for me, it’s hard to decide what the best thing to do is. Jenna’s presentation shows a great overview of what the issue is and how if affects everyone living in the United States. She points out the different, important topics relating to immigration. First of all, I was able to make a connection about schools. Bilingual education’s main line is targeted at those that are non- English proficient who generally tend to be first generation in the United States, which means there parents were immigrants. When children cross over at a young age with their families and attend a school here, what is going to happen when they want to continue their education by going to college? If the DREAM Act isn’t passed, then they will be contributing to the number of illegal immigrants working at low income jobs. What really caught my attention was what was said about the crime and prisons. I didn’t think so much about how much was spent everyday for someone that doesn’t even belong here. I’m debating with myself on whether or not hospitals have the right to deport these people. Their job is to attend to them; they are not border patrol to be sending them back to their country. But then again, the whole issue of anchor babies and health care comes to mind, and I think maybe hospitals are only trying to help those who pay taxes and get affected by this. And of course, the US just can’t send the illegal immigrants back but building a fence isn’t going to stop them either. Maybe if US didn’t make the process of becoming a citizen so hard then maybe there wouldn’t be so many illegal immigrates here in the first place. Applying for a visa can take so long and isn’t always guaranteed, so people just find it easier coming to the US illegally for “easier.” But of course that isn’t right. They become part of a huge, huge problem the deals with the economy, schools, crime, discrimination, health care etc. So it raises the question of what the role of the US is. Does it help these people out or stop them from coming in when they are only looking for a better life? Do the consequences of having these people here out weigh morals? (a better future, better education, better pporunites)

A Charming View

Reading Alyssa’s presentation “Hard Knock Life” brought upon a certain sadness. All I knew was that child labor existed but I really never understood or knew how bad this problem has gotten. I feel that I’m not the only one that feels this way. No one knows how terrible the working conditions are for these children, what their lives are like, and how much these children suffer everyday. The first video taught me-well showed me- through statistics and pictures the horrible things children must go through to receive little money to be able to support their families. What these children are doing is something adults here in the United States don’t even do. They work almost twice as much and to think they are only children. What is scary is that this is happening right now, someone is dying right now. The hardest decision anyone makes is when they have to decide as a child whether they want to work in horrible, horrible conditions or not work and find a different way to supply their bodies with the simple nutrients they need. The question Hunger or Work? was a great way to put things in perspective. Not many adults in the US have to make this hard of decision. It’s just sad children must go through this and that something like this exist today; 2010. I never thought that buying at stores like NIKE and Gap, I would be supporting child labor! I totally agree with Alyssa and what America has to do to help. An American is helping those that cannot help themselves. Even with the slightest help, such as buying clothes from somewhere else and getting people informed about this, can really make a difference. We need to bring this to an end and make sure that without sweatshops and child labor, families and the countrycan still move forward and progress. Today, I think people in the US take everything for granted and forget at times just how lucky we are for getting simple things like having clean drinking water. People forget how fortunate it is to be able to go to school even though it’s a pain without having to give up the cost of food.

Jill's Blog

Reading Jill’s Blog- The Power of Music in America, made me come to a realization I never thought of. Every day at school, it seems like now everyone is listening to music either on their iPods and other music devices. I always thought music was something we just listened to, dance to and sing to. Of course there are those certain songs that really can inspire a person but I never thought anymore than that. After reading Jill’s Blog about the power of music in America, it showed me music can do so much more. I realized that music - although danceable, singable and listenable – can also bring the wall down people put up and help a cause. A great example shown was the Haiti video presented. There, all different styles of music were represented by the artists. It wasn’t just one style of music. Artists who do not enjoy a certain style of music dismissed the dislike to come together for a great cause such as Haiti. Music is able to put all differences aside but at the same time show that the music community is so diverse.
In the end, it didn’t matter what kind of music these artists like or what kind of music they sing, they came together and used their talent of singing to create a wonderful song for everyone to enjoy. Music is a great form of expression. It’s a great way to put one’s ideas out there, share a belief or thought. Through this, people are unified once again. Listeners can come together and share each others opinions and review just what the song is trying to convey. Anyone who does this for a living has a pretty awesome job. Not does their work inspire others, but they themselves get to be part of it. Music helps them launch who they are. Whether it is to dance, sing, listen, inspire, unify, music will always be present everywhere. A world without music, well, let’s just say I can’t imagine that. It’s always present whether we like it or not.

Citations: Final Presentation

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JOURNAL ENTRIES

American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California. "Subsidizing College Tuition for Illegal Immigrants Is Just." Opposing Viewpoints: Students' Rights. Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. Deerfield High School. 5 Feb. 2010 http://find.galegroup.com

Bilingual Education Act (1968)." American History. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 30 Jan. 2010http://www.americanhistory.abc-clio.com/.

bracero program." American History. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 29 Jan. 2010. .

Chicano movement." American History. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 29 Jan. 2010. .

Connerly, Ward. "Subsidizing College Tuition for Illegal Immigrants Is Unfair." Opposing Viewpoints: Students' Rights Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. Gale. Deerfield High School. 5 Feb. 2010
Latinos in U.S. society." American History. ABC-CLIO, 2010. Web. 28 Jan. 2010.


Sacchetti Maria. From in-crowd to out: Illegal Immigrants often find the road to college blocked." The Boston Globe May 17, 2009.

Ramirez Eddy. Should Congress Enroll Illegal Immigrants? A new front line in the immigration debate: access to higher education" US News August 7 2008


Rodriguez Richard. "Aria" Growing Up Latino: Memoirs and Stories Ed. Harold Augenbraum and Ilan Stavans 1993

Warner Margaret, Ron Unz, and James Lyons " Debating Bilingual Education," Annals of American History. [Accessed February 1, 2010].

Current Event: Analytical Updated

The U.S. Department of Education has been accomplishing many of its goals since it has started. Currently, they have helped a new act called “The No Child Left Behind Act” which “is based on the belief that setting high standards and establishing measureable goals can improve individual outcomes in education” (NCLB) also have supplied funding and other programs as well. Today there is a new concern about education. A large majority of the Hispanics living in the United States are illegal immigrants and every year an estimated 50,000 to 65,000 illegal immigrant children grow up in this country and attend a school here. In 1982, a Supreme Court decision entitled a free education from kindergarten through high school for everyone, regardless of their legal status. After receiving their basic education and succeeding with the help of the bilingual education programs, many of these students want to graduate from their high school and continue their education onto college. These students are often stopped because now, their legal status matters in college. Because these students are illegal, they cannot provide a social security number which means they cannot quality for financial aid. Financial aid excludes undocumented students, making paying for college much more expensive. Because these illegal Hispanics students can’t afford college and cannot qualify for help, many do not end up going to college. The goal of the US Department of Education, “assuring access to equal educational opportunity for every individual” now conflicts with this problem because without a college education, success isn’t always present. It was present throughout the basic years but now “equal educational opportunity for every individual” isn’t valid when a student is illegal. Now because these students cannot continue their education, they must work; illegally, not have a college education and the pattern would continue for children. Some of the senators recognized this problem and introduced the DREAM Act. The DREAM Act ( The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act) “would permit undocumented students who graduate from high school to apply for legal residency and allow these students to pay in-state tuition at public colleges and universities in their home state.” If this act gets passed, illegal immigrant students apply for legal residency which means they can pay in-state tuition, get the financial help they need, go to college and work legally in the United States. The article “Subsidizing College Tuition for Illegal Immigrants is Just” points out the “the young people at issue did not have a say in the decision to come to the U.S. and it is wrong to hold them fully liable for an immigration status that was derived from their parents.” In other words, if these students want to continue their education onto college, they should be able to and not be punished for their parents’ actions. They didn’t choose to be illegal; their parents’ did. Students like these who have had to “overcome the odds of growing up in tough neighborhoods and impoverished immigrant families to remain in school and yet succeed,” (Subsidizing College Tuition for Illegal Immigrants is Just) deserve the benefits that come if the DREAM Act is passed. But not everyone agrees. The article “Subsidizing College Tuition for Illegal Immigrants is Unfair” explains that (focusing their attention in California), illegal immigrants would get charged less to attend a California public university than any other U.S. citizen who wants to come from another state. Citizens who attend UC for example pay around 4,000 dollars in tuition while out-of-state students pay about three times that for the same education. The article says “becoming illegal he or she can get a huge annual tuition cut of about 11,000 dollars.” Why do illegal immigrants get to pay less when paying less should be a privilege an American citizen should have is the question that gets asked. The article makes a point when it says, “[working families] take out a sizable loan to finance their children’s college education and many of whom will never be able to afford to send their children to college- how can we ask them to subsidize the education of those who should not be in our country at all?” William Gheen, an advocate of stricter immigration controls says the scare education dollars that the states have “should be spent on making college more affordable for U.S. citizens, not illegal immigrants…we need to worry about American students.” This new concern about education for illegal immigrants brings up what the United States responsibility is towards this issue. America has always been viewed by immigrants as a place to aspire themselves and get better opportunities than what they could have received in their native country. They come in search of the “American Dream.” They want a better future, but how can they work towards one if their college future isn’t a promising one?

Literature: Analytical updated

Richard Rodriguez shows readers what a bilingual education has done for him in his short personal story, Aria. In his story found in the book Growing Up Latino, he describes his experience as a boy having to go to school in the United States even though he only knew Spanish at the time. Both of his parents were Mexican immigrants living in California. His family and him lived around “gringos;” Americans. He remembers how every time he stepped out of his house, he’d “[remember] that in this world so big, I was a foreigner.” Outside of his home, Richard always felt separated. He would only hear English around him but would never know what was being said. His parents didn’t speak English all that well and every time they spoke it, they were hesitant. The only place he felt he belonged was in his home. In his home he was “delighted by the sounds of Spanish.” So when he was at home speaking Spanish, he would belong; “Like others who know the pain of public alienation, we transformed the knowledge of our public separateness and made it consoling- the reminder of intimacy. Excited, we joined our voice in a celebration of sounds.” To Richard speaking Spanish had meant a certain closeness. Spanish was something that always brought the family together. When he spoke Spanish, he wasn’t alone because his family was there with him. When the Bilingual Education Act was passed, Richard’s teachers told his parents to only speak English at home and was given a tutoring session everyday at school. Now, Richard had felt that he “had no place to escape to with Spanish;” English wasn’t only outside of his home but also in the inside. As time went one, English became more and more normal to him. Richard had begun to understand the teacher, and participate in class. With his new profound knowledge of English, Richard now belonged to the society. Because he knew the public language, he could play with the neighborhood kids and no longer feel alone. He now considered himself as an American citizen. “Only when I was able to think of myself as an American, no longer an alien in gringo society, could I seek the rights and opportunities necessary for full public individuality.” These rights and opportunities were his friends, being able to take part in a society where he can converse with people and no longer having to feel that he cannot belong because he doesn’t know the language. Richard is an example of what bilingual education can do to a student that wasn’t English proficient. Bilingual education can open the door to success in the society. In Richard’s case, he has become a successful, confident student, and now even a well-known author. He clearly shows what the goal of the US Department of Education wanted for every student; bilingual education had brought him success and many opportunities.

Background: Analytical updated

Education is the base that America is set upon. President Obama has said during his national address to America’s school children that, “What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country.” Education today has progressed significantly over the years. Everyday new strategies and new methods of teaching are thought of to better the quality of education. In 1980, the US Department of Education was founded with many goals intended towards bettering overall education; one goal for all students was, “assuring access to equal educational opportunity for every individual.” Looking back at the 1950s, America was merely beginning towards progressing its school systems. During this time as well, America seemed like the place to be. Many of the Hispanics groups such as Cubans, Puerto Ricans and Mexicans were migrating to the United States in look for better opportunities. Many Puerto Ricans came during World War II while Cubans came for safety since Cuba was under dictatorship. A lot of the Mexicans were here because of the Bracero Program. This program was an agreement set between Mexico and the United States in 1947. The agreement was that Mexico was to send agricultural workers to the Southwest to work in the United States. An estimated 142,000 workers came with their families. When the program ended in 1964, many of these workers stayed in the United States. Because the number of Hispanics immigrants was increasing, bilingual education came to a rise. Many of these children were non-English speaking and were attending public schools here in the US. These students were only speaking in their native language which at the time was primarily Spanish; it was the only language they knew how to understand and speak. The students were forced to go to school but once there, they did not understand much since everything was in English. Many did not have any previous knowledge of the English language so the concern was how does a student learn when they do not understand the teacher. In 1968, Congress passed the Bilingual Education Act because they recognized that “there are large and growing numbers of children and youth of limited-English proficiency, many of whom have a cultural heritage that differs from that of their English-proficient peers.” Congress in the act said, “in order to ensure equal educational opportunity for all children and youth and to promote educational excellence, to assist State and local educational agencies, institutions of high education and community-based organizations to build their capacity to establish, implement, and sustain programs of instruction for children and youth limited English proficiency.” But this act was debated carefully. After four or five years after the act was carried out, problems arose because according to Ron Unz, an anti-bilingual supporter, said “only 5 or 6% of all students that didn’t know English, actually learned English.” The goal of the act was to make sure all of these students learned English so bilingual education had no place in the public schools in the United States. James Lyons on the other hand, said that “bilingual education has made it possible for children to have continuous development in their native language, while they’re in the process of learning English. Because of the number of Hispanics now living in the United States has vastly grown and, according to the 2007 American Community Survey “there are 45 million Hispanics who speak Spanish as a first and second language and 6 million Spanish speaking students,” the Department of Education has stuck to its overall goal and has helped bring upon many improvements to bilingual education programs. Bilingual education is still needed since more and more immigrants are coming to the United States and now students can be comfortable in the classroom while speaking their language yet still learning English. The Department of Education has helped Hispanics students have success in their basic education.