Support these kids
I am quite sure our new President will never see this letter, buried as it is in our friendly hometown paper out here in the West—although I wish he would.
I am a Lake County substitute teacher serving several schools, teaching Transitional Kindergarten through eighth grade. As such, I probably see over a thousand students in the course of a school year. I am passionate about the success of the kids I face—both as students and, in the larger sense, as people.
Our area has a formidable Hispanic population, a demographic reflected in every classroom, usually close to 50 percent. If you the reader, along with President Trump were to visit any of my classrooms, you would see this to be true. What you would also see in each classroom are these kids, sitting tall and proud, working hard, largely happy and outgoing, indistinguishable from the rest of their classmates except for minor physiological differences and a Mexican name. Enough has already been said about their documented status, but not enough about the fact that when all is said, they are kids.
You would also note that they are, by and large, socially adept, clean, immaculately dressed and obviously well cared for at home. You would not see their homework, but I can tell you that it is regularly handed in. I am immensely proud to have these kids in my classes.
Yet they live in unrest. While it it probably outside the purview of my responsibility as a substitute teacher to say so, I’d like to be able to tell them that no one will be coming around in vans in the middle of the night to whisk them and their families away. But this was a fear expressed to me in class a couple of days after the election. In my heart and mind forever, will be the 12-year-old boy, his eyes brimming with tears that day, telling me, “Our new President hates us.”
I wonder two-and-a-half months later, the extent to which they still harbor these fears—these kids who want desperately our approval and acceptance of them as citizens/residents of this nation, and how long their eyes will sparkle with the love of country they feel, and the promise they want to enjoy.
So, while President Trump will not see this letter, perhaps in some small way it will help to engender among all of us a measure of support for these kids—whether they are citizens or not—to grow up to become the happy, involved and contributing patriots of our nation that I believe they want so much to be.
Robin C. Harris, Kelseyville
Resist
Whew! I thought the Juggernaut of Republican ideology had hit us after a few months of GW Bush in office. But this Trump Juggernaut, after only four days… And the ploy of getting everybody arguing about the size of his inauguration audience compared to Obama’s — or the number of marchers on Sat. compared to other protests… This may be working in his favor again. The red herrings are dragging us away from the focus of reality so that we may not notice what is really happening.
There’s no time for “wait and see”. Leaders of the Resistance, stirred up by Saturday’s Women’s March, are urging us to phone our Senators whenever we see an injustice being made into an Executive Order or about to become a law… or a confirmation. On day one of Trump’s administration, he suspended a decrease in the FHA mortgage insurance premium. The National Association of Realtors stated that “30,000 to 40,000 new home buyers will be left on the sidelines in 2017 without the cut…”
Besides aiding and abetting the mortgage companies, he loves the American people so much that he is undoing the Obama administration’s efforts to stop the dirty oil pipelines crossing sacred land, thinking that it is better to let that oil contaminate the underground water of the area than for him to lose a part of his own fortune from his investment in the Dakota pipeline.
Currently Trump has signed papers eviscerating the Environmental Protection Agency and commanding the people working there not to talk or write about it… But he wants us to talk about “4 to 6 million illegals” who “would have vote for him but couldn’t”. And discussion of his “wall” will certainly draw attention away from his stellar Cabinet nominee: Rick Perry who couldn’t remember the name of the Dept. of Energy which he is supposed to head up; and Betsy Devos, Dept of Education, whose history has shown she really does not believe in public education; just two among others who certainly do not belong where they have been placed.
Where are the Republicans and independents who were so worried about Hillary’s “corruption and dishonesty” during the campaign? We even have a new phrase to excuse the lies: Alternative facts. Fascinating! Wake up America — and call your congressman or woman, daily!
PS: The litany of lies and broken Constitutional laws are moving so fast I must apologize for writing about old news. I started this on Tues. and today the list is even more formidable: the Department of Agriculture was told to stop publishing scientific research. The EPA has been ordered to purge any references to climate change from its website. Freeze the U.S. refugee program for 120 days, cut the current refugee quota by more than 50 percent, and take steps to initiate a “Muslim Ban”—targeting and banning immigration from upward of seven Muslim-majority countries. Call for a brutal immigration crackdown, including a likely acceleration of mass deportations and an effort to cut funding for sanctuary cities. The US will use torture; he sees nothing wrong with it.
It goes on and on. And this is only the fifth day. RESIST! WRITE LETTERS, MAKE PHONE CALLS!
Shirley Howland, Clearlake
