MLK Day Prize: Education Without Borders Network

I just got back from the national meeting of the Education Without Borders Network in pretty Amiens, France (most famous for its marvelous cathedral). The marvel is really the existence of the network and the work it does protecting undocumented students and their families. These citizens would make Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., proud. (Happy birthday, MLK!)

Their logo above explains a lot of how they see things. The police are taking children out of classrooms, putting them in handcuffs, and deporting them. Legal protection of children is taken seriously here, and deportation evokes World War II trains heading to concentration camps to the east. So, when Sarkozy took over as Minister of the Interior in 2004 (again) and introduced new overzealous immigration measures, a mass of teachers, parents, unions,and other organizations came together to form the Network.

Who can imagine a classmate shackled and led to a plane while the other students in the class recite the national motto: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity?

So the network came together by 2004, and a most quintessential action took place in the neighborhood where I do my field work, in the spring of 2007. Three police cars arrive to take away a grandfather who was waiting for his grandson to come out of elementary school (this was a policy put in place with Sarkozy as Minister of the Interior). As you can see in the video, a crowd crystallizes instantly, and forms a barrier to prevent the police from leaving with the grandpa. They have whistles, and even lay out in the street to prevent the police cars from taking off. There are a few videocameras filming and you can watch the episode here and here.  The resistance to the police tactics is effective in the end, and the grandpa is released.     

An Undocumented Youth= A Stolen Youth

Teachers and parents of the network are active in schools, give advice to kids and their families. They 'godparent' students and families in the municipal halls. Entire schools mobilize to support a single undocumented student! They travel together to the courtroom or to the police headquarters in an extraordinary show of solidarity. And this apprenticeship into citizenship is didactic, providing real-life experiences of how democracy works. On a more personal level, I also hear from kids about how they feel included, how the stigma recedes, and how they are inspired to become French.   

Who’s to say to these kids they are not integrated, when they have the community in the streets on their behalf? 

Thanks to Amiens for having us and to the Lukowskis for the hospitality! 

13th century Cathedral of Amiens

A Better Life

Vacation is over, retour au boulot! On the flight back to Paris I willed my eyelids open and watched the opening of a movie called A Better Life. It said it was about a gardener in East LA. Sounded good to fall asleep to.


From almost the opening credits, the story pulled me in with its completely believable, if romanticized, depiction of immigrant family life. A Better Life is really about a father-son relationship. The father, Carlos Galindo (played by Demian Bichir), works long hours as a landscaper in rich seaside mansions. He makes enough to support him and his son, 14 year old Luis (Jose Julian) though as an undocumented worker, Carlos has no job protection. This precariousness makes it more difficult to raise his son how he'd like to. When his need to provide for his son faces this vulnerability, the movie takes off.

The acting is not terrible, though the real gem is to see all the ways not having legal status degrades your ability to make good on family obligations, how the sacrifice of parents is heightened, how the children seek to redeem this sacrifice, and how the US system does not support families with US citizen children. I won't give away the ending! Out on DVD now. Tell me what moral lessons you get from it after you watch!


Trailer


Who should have rights in the US? And how does it affect us when some people among us don't?