Life is not Disneyland
The article “Life is no Disneyland” immediately caught my attention, and it was a really interesting read and easy to follow. It also gave me some new interesting facts. For example, what the Dream Act was. I have never heard of that before. I was also quite shocked by the following line “Every year, approximately 175000 people are detained and deported at the border, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement data (Life is no Disneyland , 102)”. For me, this is a very big and sad number.
The article also gave an insight into a young girl growing up is a country without a legal status “Young people such as Yunuen have begun their adult lives feeling part of a country that legally does not acknowledge them (Life is no Disneyland ,100)”. It was a really personal insight.
When I connect the article to my community work, I found the following sentence the most interesting “Starting a new life in the US is hard. Deciding to migrate may be the hardest decision many people ever have to make: leaving behind everything they know, their family and friends, their culture and support network (Life is no Disneyland ,103).” People often forget how hard it is to leave everything behind. Just imagine how hard it is to come to a foreign country without knowing anyone, without speaking the language and without legal status. I do not even want to imagine. And in my opinion, it can be even harder for kids, as they often do not fully comprehend what is going on. They also have to adjust to a new school system in a different language. Another important point is that people do not immigrate for no reason as can be seen in the following quote “We are here for a reason (Life is no Disneyland 111).” and “we were not in that situation because my dad was lazy (Life is no Disneyland, 111).” There was no work and her family barely could afford food.
The counterstories are that Yunuen is exactly not what some politicians call her. She is “Against all the odds, Yunuen is successful (Life is no Disneyland, 110) “ She is not only bilingual, coming from difficult financial circumstances, who has worked to support herself and pay for her education, first at community college than at a university but also she has worked as a volunteer and had her work published in several media outlets. In my opinion, this is very impressive and so important to change the social myths about immigrants.
Yunuen can give something back to society. Her photos and stories are personal and from an authentic perspective. Despite all that she went through she thinks that the United States gave so much to her and she wants to give something back “She is aware of what she has to give back (Life is no Disneyland, 112).” One sentence that I found really impressive is “As a photojournalist how can you tell stories about minority women if you’re a white male (Life is no Disneyland,112).” This is so true. She has experienced everything and thus able to talk about it authentically and realistically. She is not only summarizing views of people, but she is also telling her point of view. She knows om what to look at and the right ways to communicate that. People can try to understand stories, but they never truly comprehend it if they haven’t experienced it. This can be seen in the following quote “I know some people can be empathetic when they hear those stories, but if they don’t understand the experience, if you don’t understand where they are coming from, you’ll never get the whole story (Life is no Disneyland ,112).”
I was most fascinated by her point of view about being illegal. She refuses to hide, which shows her bravery. Her tweet was a powerful statement “I’m undocumented and Unafraid and I am here to stay (Life is no Disneyland ,113).”
Yunuen already touched one “counter-story” that people at my community partner site are impacted by. It is Adapting to a new school system and access to higher education. Yunuen mentions that for a kid it is extremely difficult to come to a new school, with no friends, without speaking the language and without knowing about the cultural difference. School systems vary from country to country, which makes it hard for children to fit in during the first years. Another important point that Yunuen mentions is that for higher education only documented kids can get financial aid from the government to go to college. Even if a student has been living in the United States for almost her or his whole life, there is no chance to get aid in order to go to college. And the average college price is 35000$ which is unbelievably high. The kids at my community partner side may be affected by this. I know for sure that there are some refugees from Guatemala and that there are a lot of immigrants from Mexico. However, I do not know about their legal status. What I know for sure is that 70% of the students learn English as a second language, which means that it must be hard for them to feel fully comfortable in the classroom. However, there are a lot of students who seem to be very smart and ambitious and I am sure they will make it to college and live a life that they deserve.
For my bibliography, I want to focus on the problem of English only classes in early childhood education and on the advantages of bilingualism in connection with Spanish speaking children. On my way through the Database, I have found several articles and books that deal with this problem. One of them was ¿Only English? How Bilingual Education Can Mitigate the Damage of English-Only by Jennifer Moreno.
MORENO, J. B. (2012). ¿Only English? How Bilingual Education Can Mitigate the Damage of English-Only. Duke Journal of Gender Law & Policy, 20(1), 197–220. Retrieved from https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=90307624&site=eds-live
This article discusses issues related to English acquisition in public schools of the U.S. which treat language diversity as a problem or a social liability. It talks about a language conflict that non-English speakers experience as they experience powerlessness and vulnerability. Moreno also talks about the advantages of bilingual education. For example, immigrant children learn English faster if they use their heritage language skills while learning a new language. She distinguishes between two parts of bilingualism “‘strong”‘ forms of bilingual education, which is where a student’s home language is cultivated by the school and Weak’ bilingual education programs, which focus on replacing a student’s native tongue with English. A weak bilingual education has proven less effective. Although Moreno talks about the advantages of bilingualism in education, she also gives a critical approach and advises on the right way of using bilingualism in the class. I also found it interesting that she touches on the legal situation in the united states. Furthermore, she gives a lot of sources for further reading, which will be beneficial for my further research.
