"The day after the election was tough. I teach in a school whose population is a mix of immigrants and first-generation students. My students come from all over Latin America, Korea, Philippines, and Bangladesh.
We started class with a community circle, and each person had a chance to share or answer a question. One of my students who is in a wheelchair talked about how his mom told him she wants to move back to Mexico (his doctors for his muscular dystrophy are here), another talked about seeing his mom cry for the first time, a third from Bangladesh talked about not feeling safe even though she doesn't wear a hijab.
Each period was filled with these stories. One girl said that she had moved to the US because of the gang wars in her country and now she doesn't feel safe here either. Another student had stopped wearing his turban previously because of harassment on the way to school.
So hard to hold all of this.
My students are working on units that directly apply: writing about if the American Dream is achievable, synthesizing a bunch of texts including speeches by President Obama and John McCain, the Declaration of Independence, poems by Langston Hughes, and an essay from Studs Terkel. The day after the election, we didn't get much done, but soon, we'll finish gathering evidence and I am certain that the election will color how they feel and how they respond. It's almost painful to read Obama's 2004 speech at the Democratic Convention and to listen to him talk about uniting a divided America when so many people feel despondent and excluded from the US.
After the election, students at my school walked out to protest and we had assemblies about the importance of supporting each other and standing up to the harassment that our most at-risk populations may feel. Yet, the students are afraid and also lashing out. In fact, as I type this, people are walking out now. When my wife walked to our car, some of the students (from another of the schools on our campus) threw things at her and shouted that she was a racist and didn't belong here either.
It's all overwhelming and sad."
