Students Speak to Spanish classes on Immigration

Thursday, January 21st, two students from Cleveland who have experiences with immigration came to talk to Spanish II students in the media center. Fr. Robert Reidy from La Sagrada Familia in Cleveland also came and gave a brief presentation of all of the legalities involved with immigration. Fr. Robert Reidy is from a bilingual Catholic church in Cleveland. The other two speakers were Alicia from El Salvador and Carmen from Mexico.

Fr. Robert Reidy made his purpose clear when he said, “If you leave here with no longer calling immigrants illegal aliens, but instead undocumented people, then I have made a difference.”

He continued to explain all of the discrepancies and misperceptions that americans believe to be true about immigration, alternating between speaking english and spanish the entire time, to accommodate all audiences.

The presentation stressed the unfair treatment of immigrants caught by border control and then transported to detention facilities near San Antonio and other areas. Families are often given little freedom and their living circumstances resemble that of a prison. Many mothers are forced to give birth to children in these facilities. There is a movement to get these detention centers dissolved.

Alesia was the name of one of the young ladies who spoke on her immigration experience. Her family immigrated here from El Salvador, the country with the second highest rate of immigration to the United States, behind Honduras.

Alesia said, “Everyone thinks that people immigrate to America to steal US jobs and everything, but that’s not what is actually happening.”

She proceeded to explain that there is a civil war going on in El Salvador and safety is a danger there. There are gangs everywhere so it no longer a good place for a family to raise children.

“Immigration isn’t because people want to, it’s about safety and education. Education is more stressed in El Salvador. Here, everyone is probably just at this presentation to get out of class,” said Alesia.

The other young lady that spoke of her experience was Carmen, whose family immigrated from Mexico, the country with the fourth largest rate of immigration to the United States. Carmen stressed her lack of differences from the average american.

She said, “I go to Tri-C, but I had to take the second semester off to work and help my mom with the tuition. I have a two year work permit that allows me to stay here.”

Her parents on the other hand were not as lucky as her. Since her family illegally came to the United States, they were caught and her mother was forced to go to prison for a month, where she risked deportation.

Towards the end of the presentation, an intrigued Spanish II student asked the girls why their families chose the United States to come to instead of another country.

Carmen said, “I think it’s the whole idea behind the ‘American Dream’ that people are so eager to have that.”

On the presentation as a whole, JoAnne Prasnick, an Aurora High School Spanish II teacher said, “I thought that this was a discussion that was very relevant to what is happening now in our country. Each day, the topic of immigration is in the news and with the presidential elections coming up, it is a hot topic for candidates to address.Our hope was to present the human side of immigration from Fr. Reidy (who works extensively in the community with immigrants of all statuses and visits the immigration detention centers) and from two teens who have been through the process of immigration.”

Students were able to hear what it’s like to be an immigrant first hand, a topic we normally only hear about when it’s targeted by the media. Often americans never hear this perspective on the issue, only the negative things about further restricting immigration in campaigns.

This new perspective allows students to empathize with each individual situation and understand why families feel they have no choice but to come to the United States. Seeing just the large number of immigrants that live in the US can be alarming, but this further insight offers an explanation.

The main goal was to present the topic of immigration from the perspective of immigrants and Alicia summed it up perfectly when she said, "I'm literally like you. I just have a different nationality."