Not long after Trump was elected, I gathered a group of educators to develop recommendations for talking to friends and family who support Trump. We wanted to figure out how to enter into, manage, and shape conversations with those who supported him. As educators, we are, in one way or another, in the business of changing people’s minds, and that’s what we set out to do.
In November, we published this and then, in January, a week after the inauguration, this. We were reaching for a strategy that felt more promising than simply listening to Trump supporters, empathizing with their struggles, and affirming their interests. We wrote:
It’s tempting to dwell in empathy and curiosity. These are spaces of relative peace. But, if we are to change minds, we must also, simply put, say something. As we have throughout our conversations, we direct our attention to the what and the so what: what is at stake under a Trump presidency, and why does it matter? We take issues one by one, prioritizing those that matter most to us and to our loved ones, and we tell stories that illustrate (make visible) and animate (put into motion) these issues.
As teachers, we weren’t content to simply advise people to say something, to tell stories. We approached this work as teachers would, breaking down our advice into specific criteria for successful stories. We decided that stories with the promise to change hearts and minds were stories that were dense with facts of everyday experience, concrete, framed in terms of interests, rather than power, and rich with revealing language.
But, as teachers, we weren’t content with these criteria either. We recognized that we needed examples of such stories, and so we set out to write them. Over the month, we’ll publish sets of stories that address some of the issues at stake under this presidency. These are stories of our own lives and stories of our students’, friends’, and colleagues’ lives. They are stories about healthcare, gender, sexuality, race, immigration, religion, and military service. Our hope is that our stories illuminate and clarify our recommendations so that readers can begin to imagine their own stories to share.
We begin with four educators’ stories about immigration--and more specifically about the everyday effects of the racism, xenophobia, and Islamophobia that are the undercurrent of our public discourse on immigration. Each begins with a short version that could be told in conversation, followed by an elaborated written version.
Story 1: The Travel Ban
My Jewish grandparents lived in Germany when Hitler came to power, and my grandfather spent time in a concentration camp. At that time, many people in the U.S. didn’t want to allow Jewish refugees into the country because of their religious or ethnic heritage—despite their persecution at home. Many Jewish refugees were turned away early in the war only to perish in the Holocaust. Eventually, after U.S. policy changed, both of my grandparents got to come as refugees. My grandfather returned to Europe as a solider to fight in the war and serve as a translator. Some time later, my mother-in-law immigrated from the Philippines, a country now in danger of being banned due to the presence of some religious extremists. Today, I look at my children knowing that our family wouldn’t exist if the United States hadn’t welcomed refugees and immigrants.
This winter, the President introduced an immigration order temporarily suspending the entry of refugees into the United States. This order indefinitely stops refugees, including children, from civil war-torn Syria from seeking asylum in our country. Further, he suggested a religious test may be put in place allowing the entry of Christian refugees, but excluding refugees from other religious groups, specifically Muslims. This particular order was blocked by the federal courts, but a similar order is currently under review and the administration continues to state a commitment to this line of immigration policy. Why does this matter to me?
Both of my paternal grandparents grew up in Germany during the time Hitler came to power. They were forced to abandon their homes because of war and their religion. My grandfather spent time in the Dachau concentration camp. At the time, some groups within the United States did not want to allow Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe. Fortunately, Roosevelt moved toward a more open refugee policy, and many Jewish refugees were allowed entry during the early 1940s. My grandparents each immigrated to the United States more than 75 years ago, met in Philadelphia and married, and started a family. My grandfather returned to Europe with the US Army to serve as a translator and to help the war effort. If a refugee ban or lengthy “extreme vetting” process were in place at that time, my father may never have been born.
Last August, then-candidate Trump suggested immigration from the Philippines might be banned due to terrorist activity. After both iterations of the immigration order banning travel from several Muslim-majority countries, speculation continues about what other countries or nationalities may be banned from visiting or immigrating to this country. Why does this matter to me? My mother-in-law is a Filipino American immigrant. She met my father-in-law in Manila and immigrated to the United States more than 45 years ago to get married, start a family, and serve her community as a special education teacher. If an immigration ban from the Philippines were in place at that time, my husband may never have been born.
I look at my children and know they might not be here if the proposed immigration policy had been in place 75 years ago, or 45 years ago. Would my grandparents have passed through “extreme vetting” of refugees? Would they have been lucky enough to win the lottery if a small quota were in place for Eastern European Jewish refugees? Would my mother-in-law have been able to join my father-in-law in America to get married and start a family? I can’t be certain, and this uncertainty disrupts my lifelong feeling that my family and I are safe and welcome in our community and in our country.
Story 2: The Conventions by Rachel
To teach my 3rd graders about current events, I often ask them to study photos from news articles and make inferences about what they see. After the Democratic and Republican National Conventions last summer, I had them study two photographs and infer which was from the DNC and which was from the RNC, expecting that they’d draw on the campaign slogans visible in the background. "This is a picture from the RNC, and this one is from the DNC,” one of my students inferred. “I can tell because one reporter is brown, and the other is white. The white reporter must be at the RNC because Donald Trump hates brown people." Donald Trump, who has led many of my students to believe that he "hates brown people” and therefore many of them, is the first President they will ever remember being elected.
"I know! I know! This is a picture from the RNC, and this one is from the DNC. I can tell because one reporter is brown, and the other is white. The white reporter must be at the RNC because Donald Trump hates brown people!" I am a third grade teacher in Seattle, Washington, and I had just asked my students to study two photographs in their Time for Kids magazines and make an inference about which picture was from the Democratic National Convention and which was from the Republican National Convention. We had just read an article about the election, and I was expecting them to correctly differentiate between the two conventions because of the campaign slogans visible in the background.
This was the first of many difficult moments I experienced while teaching my students about the election. Having a presidential candidate who simply can’t serve as a role model soured what could have been an enriching experience for our class. For example, I didn’t feel comfortable requesting that my nine-year-old students watch the presidential debates or any of the news coverage on election night because I assumed that, one way or another, Trump would offend. Little did I know, he would go on to be elected. Donald Trump, who has led many of my students to believe that he "hates brown people” and therefore many of them, is the first president that they will ever remember being elected.
Story 3: Maria
I grew up in Denver and met Maria when I was in high school. I learned early on in our conversations that she and her two children came to the United States from Mexico. From my parents, I learned that she and her children were undocumented and working to gain their citizenship. From my time with Maria, and later with her two children, I learned that, for Maria and her family, living in the United States offered safety, education, and economic opportunities—a livelihood she couldn’t build for herself in Mexico.
Maria is undocumented. She came to the United States from Mexico fifteen years ago with her two sons, Manuel and Francisco. Life in Mexico was fraught with great financial struggle and offered grim schooling options for children. Five years earlier, Maria’s sister immigrated to Denver and found stable work and good schools for her kids. For Maria’s family, the United States offered a path out of poverty. How could they not take this risk?
Housekeeping occupies Maria’s time, six days a week in Denver. This income is barely enough to cover basic needs: the rent for a 200-square-foot one-bedroom apartment and Maria’s monthly $500 diabetes medication (because the family is undocumented, they don’t have health insurance). Though making ends meet is never guaranteed each month, Maria is never discouraged. She comes to work every day with a positive outlook and a strong sense of urgency, even when her work involves menial tasks like cleaning the toilet and doing laundry. Her sons Manuel and Francisco, now 15 and18 years old, respectively, achieve academically and work after school to supplement the family’s income. Each family member is working toward obtaining United States citizenship.
By all accounts, Maria and her family are much better off living in the United States. In Mexico, they faced a lifetime of struggle. Maria and her children have no regrets about coming to the United States and will continue to invest in their lives as Americans, even as their livelihood is threatened under the new administration. It should be our responsibility as citizens to ensure that Maria and her family can safely reside in their American home for the foreseeable future.
Story 4: November 9th by Amy
I work with teachers and students in many different elementary classrooms. The morning after the election, I arrived in a 5th grade classroom to see students who were so worried about themselves, their friends, or their families being deported, they were in tears. They asked their teachers when they would be sent away. Others weren’t sure how to console their friends. All of these students, and others around the country, have gotten very clear messages about how society feels about them. And I can’t help but recognize that this diverse group of children manage to work together as a community every day in ways that the adults involved in this election seemingly could not.
I cried the night I watched Hillary Clinton accept the Democratic Party’s nomination for President of the United States. I wasn’t really prepared for it. I’d been traveling for work, and I decided to stream her speech on my phone as I waited to get off the plane and made my way to baggage claim at JFK. I didn’t really think of it as more than a distraction from the annoyances of the airport. But the power of it, of watching the first woman to take the convention stage not as a wife or a sidekick, but as the candidate, took my breath away. I stood there, tears of joy streaming down my face, right in the middle of the taxi line.
That feeling was in stark contrast to how I felt the morning after the election. After a night of little sleep, I dragged myself out of bed for a subway trek to an elementary school, where I had scheduled a student teaching observation. When I walked into the fifth grade classroom, the student teacher pulled me aside. She looked as tired and distraught as I felt. She explained to me that some of the students had arrived in tears that morning. Several of the students she frequently worked with in small group to support their English acquisition approached her to ask if she knew when they and their families would be sent back to the countries from which they had immigrated. These are not scenarios that a teacher training program prepares you for. The student teacher, her cooperating teacher, and I put our heads together to figure out how they could approach the discussion of the election with the class, a diverse group of children who worked together as a community every day in ways that the adults involved in this election seemingly could not.
I worry about the fifth graders in the classroom I was in on the morning of November 9th. And the kids in all the classrooms across the city that I am lucky enough to work with, and the ones I haven’t met yet. Because they are watching what’s happening during this presidency, and they are getting all kinds of messages about the way our society feels about them. They are learning who they can be and who they can’t be, who is safe and who isn’t, and the limitations of the words of the Pledge of Allegiance they repeat every morning: “with liberty and justice for all.”