Mine is an interesting school. Inner-city, high poverty, with about 1/3 of the students white, 1/3 black, and 1/3 Hispanic/Latino. What’s interesting is that though the students might tend to hang out with the people of their own race/color, they get along with each other so well that they actually take it for granted. Racism doesn’t really happen because if it did, that person would get hit from many sides, and so students just don’t see it in our very safe school.
My first period is an English Language Arts Class of 7th Graders. Amazing kids who come from a rough neighborhood. I have years of working with them, so I know how to find the balance between letting them hang out and talk during homeroom without letting it get out of control. In only a few weeks, I’ve managed to build a pretty good rapport with them. The makeup of the class is about 12 blacks, 7 Hispanic/Latinos, 6 white, and the rest are biracial/mixed. So early in the morning, they’re usually too tired to get themselves in trouble, and so I let them move around and talk during homeroom so they can kind of wake up and see their friends. They mix together and tell stories. Every now and again trouble starts between a couple of students and I step in and keep it clean. But, most of the time, it’s pretty peaceful and relatively quiet in the room.
Today, I was trying to enter attendance and when I realized that some of the students had been calling my name.
“What?” I asked.
“Hey — um...so...is Donal Trump going to kick out the Mexicans?” one of my African students asked.
I was going to give him a smart comment back (I don’t like talking about Trump to the kids, nothing good comes out of it and anger starts swelling with all of them), but when I looked up, I realized all the students in the room were looking to me. Many of my Hispanic/Latino students especially seemed concerned with my answer.
Most of the Hispanic/Latino kids I teach are Guatemalan, Honduran, El Salvadorian, and a few are Mexican. Most of them are either here illegally or their parents are here illegally. I don’t know that from paperwork, I learned that through conversations with the students. They are very afraid that at any moment they could be taken away, so we work really hard to give a safe, comfortable environment for them.
“Well,” I started awkwardly. It’s awfully early in the day for me to jump into such a careful conversation, but I didn’t want to back out of this learning opportunity, either. “Well….what do you guys think?”
“I don’t think he’s going to win,” one of the students yelled out. “He’s a <expletive deleted>”
The kids laughed, but still looked nervous.
“Well, what if he does?” I asked. “What if ICE Agents start spreading around the country, looking for our Hispanic/Latino friends?”
The students all kind of looked at each other. See, at this school, the African kids have run ins with the law, and they see Trump as a horrible person. Nearly all of my white students are very poor, but have also lived around people of color their whole lives and their politics tend to fall in with them. A lot of the white students have step parents or half brothers/sisters who are of color.
No one would really say anything, so I asked the question out loud, “If Trump wanted to take the Hispanic students from this room, would you guys help?”
There was a resounding “NO!” from all the students. I figured, but was still surprised by the response. It was at the same time heartwarming and gratifying as a teacher to see kids who sometimes fight and argue with each other protecting one another.
“I honestly don’t know how it would happen, but I can guarantee you that the vast majority of us in this room and community would do everything we can to protect and help all of our Hispanic friends,” I finished. “Now….the bell’s about to ring, time to put away your phones and electronics and get out your journals, we have a lot to do, today.”