Family advocacy class homework: Write a (fake) letter to an office including personal position on a bill of choice.

September 24, 2014

 

President Obama

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Washington, D.C.

 

Dear Mr. President:

 

I am writing to you in my support of H.R. 3431. This is a bill that aims to preserve the family unity between United States Citizens and a foreign national given a ban from entering our country due to prior undocumented status. This bill is not a loophole for immigrants to enter the country, but is an advocacy effort for family unity. The family is the key component to which all of our laws and customs are provided for. Our country can do better in our current immigration struggles, especially in this specific area of immigration—hardships dealt to our own citizens. These families deserve to have their rights honored and respected.

 

Our nation prides itself in protection and intervention efforts to support children and families in times of need. The United States has traditionally provided a safety net to families in distress that distinguishes us from third world countries. The families that are affected by the current immigration law are in need of intervention. I am asking for your personal intervention in the lives of these citizens of the United States.

 

The pending bill H.R. 3431, or “American Families United Act,” is for the purpose of preservation of United States Citizens families with an immigrant family member. These are United States Citizens lives that are being torn apart. There is no relief effort available. The emotional comparison for these families who have their family member deported or detained is death; however, there is no option to grieve, so these family members are stuck in emotional limbo. Their only relief is to fight for the safe return of their loved one. There are children who maintain a phone relationship with their parent. There are fathers who attend the birth of their child via Skype. There are mothers who struggle to not only survive as single moms, but deal with deep emotional scars as they fumble through the complicated immigration law. If these affected Americans want to keep their family together, sometimes their only option is to move with their American children to a foreign country to live with their deported spouse.

 

The United States has been deemed the Melting Pot thanks to Israel Zangwill’s turn of the century Broadway play that depicted the romance of two people with different nationalities living in the United States. Zangwill also said, “If they would but suffer to be melted in the pot, then they would become just as American as anyone else,” (PBS Online, n.d.). There is no justification for the separation of families due to lack of immigration reform.

 

As an American Citizen, it is difficult to imagine that a marriage is not honored by our government. It is hard to fathom that the weight of a person’s citizenship is not enough to pull in their immediate family member—but it is not. The Illegal Immigration Reform Immigration Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA) has become a nemesis for families. Before 1996, the requirement for an unauthorized alien to marry a United States Citizen and acquire a legal visa was to simply pay a fine. Due to the IIRIRA of 1996, the action of obtaining a legal visa by paying a fine has been replaced with an automatic 3, 10, 20-year or lifetime ban from the United States regardless of marriage to a citizen. This ban is applied to the United States Citizens where there is a family.

 

The bill specifies in section two that Congress is to protect the rights and interests of the United States Citizen family members. It also seeks to provide the immigration court with discretion in proceedings in which a United States Citizen is an immediate family member. To place an immigration ban from the United States on a family member causes the entire American family to potentially be dislocated from our country. That is a denial of rights of protection for those citizens. “In many cases what triggers a banishment of three or ten years, even life, is a trivial or even wholly technical violation. It can be as inadvertent as being the passenger who nods when the driver is asked a question in a language not understood,” (AFU, 2014). Asking the United States citizen to choose between their spouse and their country is not a choice, it is an abuse.

 

These grieving citizens who have experienced a loss of spouse due to detention or deportation are desperate for relief. The 1996 IIRIRA bans that are placed on citizens’ spouses are making people vulnerable to unscrupulous lawyers.  The new electronic visa application submissions are “forms [that are] easier to fill out [that] would keep people from turning to fraudulent lawyers, also known as ‘notarios,’ who trick immigrants into paying high fees for services they either do not or cannot deliver,” (Wilson, 2014).

 

The private prison industry is benefitting. Each year billions of dollars are made in immigrant prisons. This is wrong. This is profit made through the abuse of human rights.

“It took 596 days for them to give Pedro a day in court and finally give him permanent residency. Every one of those days was a profit for CCA (Corrections Corporation of America). In the first quarter of 2011, CCA’s net income was $40.3 million and with each quarter their income increases. Each time there is a new anti-immigrant law like SB-1070 in Arizona or HB-87 in Georgia, their ‘beds’ fill up with immigrants and their profits increase…. CCA was at the original planning discussion to initiate SB-1070 because they profit from harsh immigration laws” (as cited in Bring Pedro Home, 2011).

My dearest friend Emily is only one of thousands of United States Citizens whose spouse was taken from them. Today the annual profits are at a minimum of three billion a year due to the Continuing Appropriation Act of 2014 that requires a bed quota of 34,000 minimum immigrants to be in prison per day (Lindsey, 2014). How can we justify rich getting richer from arbitrary policy regarding the family of US citizens?

 

United States Citizen children have been affected. Separation from a parent is indeed a traumatic event not only dealing with the missing parent, but with the remaining parent’s stress and debilitated parenting skills, economic status, and legal battle. Laurel Scott is regarded by many in our family unity activism groups as one of the top immigration lawyers in the United States as well as advocate for family unification and helping other lawyers with this extremely complex law.

 

“Immigration law as it is written is too harsh. The effect of the law is often to keep foreign nationals from their children for a period of ten years or longer. If one polls convicted felons and asks them what the most difficult part of incarceration is, many will report that the separation from family is the hardest part. While a common sentence for manslaughter is one to three years in prison, one to three years away from one's family common "sentence" for immigration violations is ten years away from one's family. I'm not sure that's what Congress meant to do, because I don't think Congress contemplated the commonality of US citizens and unlawfully present immigrants falling in love and starting a family. There may be some unconscious racism in Congress' failure to consider just how often Americans and Mexicans fall in love. I think Congress also failed to consider how difficult it is for US citizens to move abroad. It is especially difficult for US citizen women to move to countries with a street harassment problem, which is quite common in much of the world. As Congress is mostly men, it is not surprising that they did not consider how inhospitable most of the world is to women. In the end, the law is very harsh, probably due to Congress' failure to consider all the factors.” (L. Scott, personal communication, September 23, 2014)

 

Let us consider the factors of what an American family would endure for family unity abroad: language and cultural barriers, financial barriers, health-care issues and educational barriers, to name a few. An American child attending public school in another country is at a disadvantage not only in assimilating initially to that country, but upon return when the ten year bar is able to be petitioned against with a hardship waiver. Educational barriers for American citizen children have rendered the No Child Left Behind law in complete disregarded. There is no Individual Education Plan (IEP) or tutoring offered for displacement upon return. The education that a child citizen is forced to miss in the formative years has everlasting effect. I am aware of these facts due to my education in Early Childhood Education and because of my own first-hand ethnographic accounts with my own children as well as stories of other families’ experiences shared with me.

 

Health-care is generally a step up from home-remedy. Giardia, a parasite found in water, is a common illness within the families living in exile. Exposure to the Chagas bug of Latin America that creates an incurable, life-threatening illness has become important enough to be questioned when giving blood at the Red Cross. They ask, “Have you lived in Latin America?” because if you are infected by this common bug, there is no cure. Numerous digestive issues are common due to the unrefrigerated meats. The lifestyle in general is incomparable to what a typical United States citizen ever will experience within the United States, without question. These are all experiences shared between affected American Citizens and with my own first-hand ethnographic accounts with health issues as an American with small children while living in Mexico.

 

How are families to survive when they cannot speak the language or are at a disadvantage financially because they cannot function in their spouse’s country? Many have found online work or are teaching English. Their wages are below American poverty level. They live without conveniences such as hot-water and large appliances that even our poor in America have. This is not my opinion, but it is a summarization of years of shared data among the families that this letter is regarding.

 

Then there are the families that are separated that simply cannot move abroad due to healthcare dependency for themselves or their child or for other reasons. Their marriage is completely held over a phone for months, sometimes years. Parenting becomes transformed into single-parenting. Any lack in a two-parent income falls onto the remaining parent. Applying for assistance requires a petition for child support from the missing parent. This would ultimately destroy their visa petition, appearing as an uncooperative parent when the order is revealed in the system. The impossibilities of financial contribution as a father are exacerbated when weekly salaries are sometimes forty to fifty dollars. Therefore, financial responsibility falls completely on the remaining parent, most of the time a mother, on top of the legal fees to file the extremely expensive visa process. It becomes near impossible for the family to afford to visit each other. I know this to be true from my own experience and from the shared experiences of other families in this situation that remain as unofficial published data.

 

Dear President Obama, “policymaking is a cyclical process” as Blumer expressed (Lens & Gibelman, 2000). This bill could help solve major issues within some very special and unique family situations that are no less deserving of their American citizen rights than you are. I am personally involved as a friend and activist for these families and have experienced both living in exile with my children, as well as, living years of separation from my former husband. It is a very difficult life full of trauma. The numbers are growing. What used to be tens of us have grown to be hundreds or perhaps thousands of families in a few short years. According to the Congressional Budget Office, “1.5 million undocumented immigrants are married to a U.S. citizen or lawful resident, but have been unable to gain legal status themselves,” (Altman, 2014). It is not a fair situation nor does it express a quality of liberty or justice for any of them.

 

Thank you for your time and consideration regarding the issue of family unity for immigrants with American Citizen Spouses and the hardships that they endure due to current immigration law.

 

 

H.R. 3431 Family Unity Bill

 

I started a new blog called Dull Pencil

If you would like to view it, this is the link...

http://writingaddictiondontstopnow.blogspot.com/

Child Molestors in the Church

I am hurt by the way humanity is

No one cares but yet everyone is so quick to judge

It is so easy to hurt someone and damage them forever

And only keep expecting more as if they are a black hole of happiness devouring mouths

That never stop talking about how everyone else is bad

If someone is a victim and you say you feel bad for them, making judgment on the stigma of the situation only hurts everyone, not just the one that is meant to be hurt, only to satisfy your own fears of who you are

I am tired of people making fun of my church as a bunch of child molesters

Have you ever been close to a child molester – cared deeply for one?

Have you ever been the victim of a child molester and forgiven your assailant?

Have you ever had to report someone that you loved, to protect someone that you love?

What right do you have to accuse the whole of my church in this and laugh about it so insensitively?

If a child molester was a marathon runner, should we laugh at all runners?

If all fishermen were child molesters, would we stop eating seafood because of the stigma?

And make anyone who does eat seafood feel guilty for eating child molester fish?

People that say they do not like to be stereotyped are the worst

I have watched countless trolls online that hate the undocumented with some type of vengeance

When they are immigrants themselves (but did it the 'right' way)

Why are you afraid to forgive people when you are not perfect?

What if the person that you love more than anything is something that you hate and you find out and you have to judge them whether you want to or not, even if it is the most horrible thing that you have ever had to do. Because you love them, you see why they did it, you see the innocent baby that they were born as, and you know their good side, and what happened between then and now – what broke them into the piece that committed the act that you now have to judge.

To know that your judgment is going to break them into more pieces, to an permanent broken state

Because they broke someone else into pieces, they must be broken into more pieces

Then everyone is broken… all of the innocent babies that were born of this are now all broken as adults

And to not understand where and how to forgive, to begin to heal, to find where it went wrong

The basis of Christianity to forgive, conflicting with judging another as a human

Child molestation is not what you think. It is not about sex.

It is about broken people breaking more people

It is not about the Catholic faith or the Catholic Church, period.

kinetic energy of bullshit

                to All legislators:

                                                   Kiss my ass.




                                     

Journal Therapy for Mary Catherine's 3rd Birthday

On February 9^th, three years ago, my third daughter Mary Catherine Socorro was born in a hospital surrounded by a couple feet of snow in Western Pennsylvania. This hospital is where my mother gave birth to me in 1970 and fell into a comma for ten days following. When I was twenty-three years old, I gave birth to my first born daughter Rachel in this hospital, then at twenty-six my son Thomas. Julian was born two and a half years later, and then Leah Rose a year after that. Eliott was born in San Diego seven years later and in two and a half years more came Mary Catherine. The women in the maternity ward recognized me, as we had shared these moments when souls connect in a dimly-lit room while a new person is welcomed into the world. The time span between my first and last daughters is seventeen years and the women in the maternity ward and I shared the wrinkles of life in our faces.

        

            Mary Catherine was conceived in Mexico in our home in the interior of the country in an urban area south of the capital. At that time we were living a life of trying to achieve residency in the country for myself and the kids, but to no avail. We had too many Americans in our family to be an economic dependent of my Mexican husband. However, we had several burners on in our planning and were opting to find a way to make everything work out. Hope has a way of blinding a person to the reality and that hope kept our drive and comfort that our pregnancy was justified, even with the negative comments. A two week visit to Pennsylvania while 9 weeks pregnant gave a second lawyer, an expensive, big named lawyer in the heart of Philadelphia 5 hours’ drive, an opportunity to ask someone directly knowledgeable in immigration law if the fact that I was sitting there pregnant made a difference in the outcome of obtaining a visa into America for my husband. The answer was no. The answer was the same as the previous high-profile lawyer that I visited in a downtown Pittsburgh high-rise a couple years prior.

            Some people say that I do not plan well. They do not consider all of the plans that I do juggle. Having to live in two countries without a way to make either life legal and the awareness of the children’s futures creeping up to an ugly head of reality can take a lot of planning regardless of the socially-correct aspect of it. I loved him so deeply, and carried within me the will of the youth of a sassy American, I just told myself inevitably I will be determined and I will find a way to make It all work. That is the hope that, like I mentioned, drove me to continue my wretched torture with a smile.

            The entire prenatal care and pregnancy was carried in Mexico – very modified in comparison to the extensive medical take-over of a woman’s body that American maternity doctors put into effect. The prenatal care that I did seek was from a doctor perceived as one of the better doctors in the city. It consisted of a series of monthly ultrasounds… no other tests. This was my sixth pregnancy at 40-years old, post cesarean. The reality of these conditions are something that may label me as negligent in American terms. I am aware of the attitude that I got when I walked into a hospital in labor and told them that I received my prenatal care in Mexico when I gave birth to my son in San Deigo on the border. They called child-protection on me for it. I was well aware of the perceived indications that I was somehow not okay to want to spend my sensitive emotional pregnancy with my husband in Mexico, as we were not given an option to be in America. I am not attempting to diffuse the responsibility in that statement, but that is something that I mention as to show the weight on my mind at that time in my life.

            There was a Sunday morning that came along that when I was in my seventh month of pregnancy that we went to Catholic Mass at one of the several churches that we visited ritually and faithfully every Sunday. This particular church was built centuries prior and was crumbled in much of the rock’s exterior with faded paint and birds living within the deterioration. The garden surrounding gave the sense of a magical mystical enchanted purity in this historical building that many considered only to be their weekly revival. I felt at peace there. We were accompanied by my sister-in-law, her influential husband, and their three sons. Their family was well-known in all class statuses of people in our area, so we made somewhat of an entrance everywhere we would go between their notoriety and our Americanism… so people were generally respectful to us with an air of eagerness to please. An old woman all wrapped in shawls with a wrinkly face, tough hands, and less than four foot ten came up to me out of the crowd and held her hands on my stomach and chanted some words with sincerity in her stare into my eyes… and walked away. Her blessing, her message, was that my baby was okay. The worry of my societal obligations was gently handed to God at that moment.

            

          The plan at this point was for me to fly to Pennsylvania at Thanksgiving. Mary Catherine was due on January 21^st and no one wanted me to wait longer than that like I did with her brother a couple years prior – as I flew up to the border at the pregnancy’s due date to renew my tourist visa that was to expire the day after the due date and I could not get an extension. Actually I say my visa was due to expire, but that also included Julian and Leah who were with me as small children. Thanksgiving time, and the scheduled departure, came closer and my belly grew real big with Catherine’s pregnancy. I looked full-term at only 6-months gestation. I had trouble accepting that I had to leave. Our tourist visas were due to expire in December which left us no other legal option so that we had to leave the country. We contemplated riding a bus to the border, or driving our van, to renew my visa and then return to give birth in Mexico. Again it was not just my own visa that needed renewal but Julian and Leah, as well as little Eliott who was at that time a couple years old. My father made it clear with his insisting that we fly to Pennsylvania to give birth and my husband sided with him for the safety of me and the baby. It was settled.

            The day came for me to be at the airport and I became physically, mentally, and emotionally unable to function. I could not pack the clothes that would be necessary for Julian, Leah, and Eliott, and myself in the suitcases. I could not think straight. I was dragging my feet so much that we were so late to get to the bus-station that took us on the two hour drive to the city’s international airport. We were involved in a minor traffic-accident on the way due to the hurried, frantic mode of travel that we were in. I sat in the passenger seat crying and began to hyperventilate at the thought of having to leave my husband, my home at heart, my comfort. We missed the last bus that would have arrived in the city before the scheduled airline flight. The flight was cancelled.

            My father was angry and my older two kids that were living in Pennsylvania with their father, my first husband, were planning on meeting us that day at the airport, were terribly sad. It was the day before Thanksgiving, but we rescheduled for Christmas Eve. I needed more time to process the tear that I experienced in having to break away from my husband and my home that we built together. Guilt surrounded my every thought in not being able to please and provide contentment and consistency to all those who I loved so dearly and it tore me in half.

            Christmas Eve came and by the time I was focused on staying calm. I had an entire month to stabilize my emotions. I was now in my ninth month of pregnancy and absolutely huge. I accepted what had to be accomplished and separated that plan from my emotions, as one would do when the responsibility overrides the desire. We placed emotional blocks on the building Christmas spirit that was in every aspect of our lives at that time, with friends’ invitations to holiday parties that we turned down and decorating that was not a part of the season for us as a family. We told ourselves that it was just another day that year… there would be next year.

          

          The next year never came incidentally as we spent the following two years in immigration law limbo purgatory while getting that visa secured, and yes my sassy American attitude did make it work after being subjected to the torture of being a family that was considered to not be important enough by my country to give relief to, or protective outreach at best. Yes, I made it happen, without their help, at the price of my emotional stability and possible future mental trauma for my entire family. Does it sound exaggerated or dramatic... Maybe… I am accustomed to expecting less it seems in order to deal. If my words carry an exaggeration that is nothing more than a typical situation of a woman who cannot accept proper societal role, than my deepest apologies for writing it out for it to reach another’s eyes.

            I sought medical preparations for my daughter’s birth. I assumed that the birth may have to take place in my father’s home due to there not being insurance established. My son was born on the border and because I was not a resident of California, I was personally billed for the entire amount, ruining my already ruined credit. His birth also included the cost for his newborn first days for a week in intensive care. This fact caused me to aim for a home birth to alleviate any more debt than I already had. The local association of mid-wives could not handle my pregnancy through because I was already at 38-weeks and that was an unacceptable part of their procedures, especially that I was considered high-risk at 40-years, with prior cesarean birth.

            I went to the hospital to ask if they could be so kind as to help me receive the necessary preparation of prescribing to me the prescription that eliminates the possible bacterial meningitis contracted in a natural birth, because my intentions were to just do it alone at the house. The hospital then connected me with a program to aide in pregnant mothers living in poverty. At that time I was put into their system and the multiple testing and ultra-sounds were conducted. I was continually informed that there were complications, that the baby was very large and I had too much amniotic fluid, along with the previous cesarean and my age and the abated prenatal care… they pleaded with me to get an immediate cesarean. I was sent to a prestigious woman’s hospital in the nearby city of Pittsburgh and was told by everyone that I needed to deliver right away.

            I wished to be out of that society and back in Mexico with my husband so much. I lived with sadness in my heart. Back at my father’s house were my children that were pulled out of school to make this trip. They missed three months of school. We kept up with their studies with their cuadernos and libros that they brought. We had contacts on the phone with friends in the school to coordinate what lecciones were covered. The cyber-school here in Pennsylvania was arranged the first of our arrival, but by the time that they got it together, it was time for us to go back to Mexico.

            I remembered the old woman in the church with her message that my baby was okay. It was enough for me. I told the doctors that I was in control of my body and I would not be prey to their influences. I assured them that I knew my baby was okay and would be delivering her when she was ready to come.

            She finally decided to come at two weeks post-partum at 42-weeks gestation on February 9^th.

            She was ten pounds of God’s blessing.

          

           I was able to be with my family, all of my children were with me. My oldest two children lived beside the hospital and walked through the two-feet of snow to come visit us while we lay in the hospital after her birth. My first born daughter Rachel is the Godmother of my youngest daughter Mary Catherine. We conducted the ceremony at St. Paul’s Catholic Church a week before we went back to Mexico when Catherine was six-weeks old to meet her father.

            

            When we arrived in Mexico, my appendix ruptured a couple days later… but that is another story.

            Mary Catherine is three today. She was born in the 95-percentile for her sie and is now in the lower half of percentile for her age, varying between five and thirty percentile. She is a tiny little girl, but chubby. She has above average intelligence and I know this in comparison with her gifted sister’s same attributes at her age. She has big blue eyes and strawberry, wispy hair… and she has been on ten international flights during her lifetime… plus three international flights while in my belly…

            She is a blessing to the world.

Home

Where is your home?

Proof in existence is asking yourself where you home is...

A home is important and establishes a safe place.

It can be the focus of a woman in labor as she stares
at that concentration point on the wall...

pushing her child into the world..

while her mind is focused on her home
for clarity of her existence....

It can be a man that is ready to endeavor

on major surgery to save his health

as he is wheeled on the stretcher,

he focuses on his home
for confidence that he has a
reason to live.

Marriages blossom within a home, forming families...
and routines...

... even broken marriages hang on to each other

 for the love of their home that they share...

Children find their base in life in their home...

visiting their parents when they become adults,

at their childhood home at Christmas-time.

A home can be pretty important, no matter what is considered to be a home... 

even if their only home be within the arms of their beloved.

A home is where you desire to be,

where you find comfort.

Presently, there are thousands of families that have been displaced...

from their homes...

from their loved ones...

from their lives...

And it is all on the USA Government's shoulders

in their meetings

dressed in suits

talking statistics

They say,

get in this imaginary line

with this imaginary solution...

to get your home back,

if you will.

You my dear government officials with all of your disassociation from the real guilt in the matter,

are going to have to do better than that.

We are organizing

We are going to convince the American public

eventually

and we will...

There is no "you" in America,

but there is an "U.S" in America.

We the People, matter.

Family unity.

Edu

      We had two different school experiences in Mexico. 

First one was at a private school that last a few months, called Moderno Americano run by a woman named Miss Lupita from Tijuana/San Diego area… 

       ...the second, which was basically their elementary education was the public school. The school's name was Otilio E. Montana. It was within the condominium complex that we lived in, but it was at the top of the hill/small mountain. As far as a school system bus transportation – non-existent. So everyone will walk up the hill together or get a ride from one of the plentiful taxis or if, like my one friend who lived in the next town over, jump on the route (bus) that was stationed at the bottom of the hill on the corner, then walk up the hill. It was approximately a mile walk for us. School started at 8am and ended at 1pm in the mid-day heat. I believe that most of the education system in Mexico is fairly similar to this type of scenario. I went through two pregnancies so there were times when I gave the kids a few pesos, actually it was 3 pesos each, for the bici-taxi, exactly what it sounds like, a cart pulled by a bike, so that I could stay home and not do the walk. The neighborhood generally looked out for children and most knew who my kids were, so we were okay with them being out alone to a point (safety has changed since those times as of recent there have been an increase in kidnappings with money demands due to the rise in poverty in our area, might be worse now that Nieto is president). We had a mini-van that I originally drove into Mexico from Florida. I was 3 months pregnant at the time. It took 4 days. Our van was broke down pretty often mostly due to the flooding, but once it was my fault because I tried to "gun-it" through the high water that was collected under the overpass from the run-off of the watered crops nearby. It was late, I had just dropped off clothes to my husband at his sister’s store that he slept on the floor some nights because he worked across the street at 4 am and it was easier that way. So I got the van stalled in the middle of the overpass in 3 feet of water... needless to say, I never heard the end of that big attempt at being super mom because our van was broke down for gosh like a year. I did not see much of Ricardo ever that first year because of his job was more like an ownership of his life… he worked from 4am till 10pm every day but Sunday. So I was basically on my own with the kids. The kids and I did not know 10 words of Spanish between the three of us. I tried my best to teach them with pictures that I would draw and look up in the translating dictionary and write the English and Spanish version of what the picture that I drew was and taped these pictures everywhere for them. I enrolled them in a private school when it came time for the school year to begin. In the months before-hand they learned a lot of Spanish from the kids (friends outside and their cousins). They all played out in the parking lot every night. I stayed in the house mostly because I was getting bigger by the day with my 5th pregnancy. I had two kids in the States that were to a previous marriage. So… lots of emotions to challenge us all. But we did okay. We figured out how to purchase food to eat and we ate a lot of tortillas with cheese and spaghetti because we were not only unable to converse, but we were also unable to cook Mexican cuisine.  
      We were very poor in the beginning and we did not have furniture. There was a refrigerator that the people before us left behind because it was broken and we had it turned on its side to utilize as the only thing in the room to put the TV on that Ricardo had stored in his sister's house while he was in the USA. But we could not afford beds for over a year. When the kids were enrolled in the private school, it cost a lot of money. People assumed that we had money because we were American. We generally had to be really careful about who charged what for what. I can say this because we were there long enough that we became part of the community, thoroughly assimilated, so I can compare how it was at the beginning as opposed to later as we lived like typical Mexicans. My father agreed to send the money for the private school because we were in a difficult position with securing their education in a land that we were not yet bilingual. The money went from him to us and right out of our hands into the hands of the “directora” of the school. It was difficult to live under those conditions when the amount of money that we paid for their school could have changed our quality of life at that time. I washed our clothes in a sink with a scrub brush for nearly 3 years and eventually we were able to buy a washing machine. We withdrew them from the school in November of that school year and my dad did not send the money anymore which is what the in-laws were assuming, but only right I could not scam my own father even if we were that poor. I flew up to San Diego a day before my due date, gave birth while staying at my sisters, and flew back as soon as they released my new son. He had to stay a week in ICU because of a bacteria level. So we returned, we enrolled the kids in public school - the Otilio Montana school in our neighborhood which was nice because with the private school I had to drive them across town and the directora was always trying to get me to "be seen" with her since I was American it was good for her business because her school was supposed to be bilingual (but it was not really that bilingual, but who would know that really, but I could tell because I speak English you know?). But you know when you are pregnant and in a strange environment ugh... so fragile. I read to the preschool kids there though... The rest of the years we spent there the kids went to the public and when the school wanted money for things like toilet paper we just told them we were broke. They had to have uniforms. I remember the director of the public school, he spoke a little English, he was going over all the different things with me, and he said, "are you going to make (sew) their uniforms?" as if it were assumed that I would agree... I probably laughed out loud but don’t recall. We had a neighbor make them. That principal left the school a month after we enrolled. The rest of the time there we never had an opportunity to be able to communicate from parent to teacher except with either my son's translation or my choppy attempts. It got better as time went on and the more soap operas that I watched I started to learn Spanish. Once the school gave Exams for a check on progress, my daughter was not as quick to pick up the Spanish language during the initial year as my son was - he is a year older than she is... her progress-exam was into its third day... the teachers called my son in to the room and had him finish it up for her. If that gives you any indication of the level of concern as our USA- NCLB type of laws are... there is basically nothing to compare to. My children were a B average throughout their years in elementary in Mexico. They are now both fully bilingual. Upon our return to the States, we had many cultural hurdles. Of course they still knew how to speak English as I only ever used English, but no one else on a daily basis. I brought with us a collection of about 300 children's books and workbooks from the States with so they had books. They knew how to read. 

       We made it back in the middle of the school year in their “fifth and sixth” grades. I asked the principal of Meridian school here in PA if he could put them into the “fourth and fifth” grades instead. I remember back when I was their age and I what I learned in school at that age and they were not close to what they should know. I was extremely aware of their faulting areas especially in comparison to how I could remember my days in that same Meridian school.... they basically were behind or completely faulting of history, English, reading, spelling.... science and math were even different. The principal said no, that it would damage their confidence, which was sort of dumb. You know when you know what needs to be done but no one will listen to you? That was one of those moments. I had many battles with things and the school. The kids did not receive extra help but it was sort of blamed on me for taking them out of the country and they made a point to make me feel like I should be dedicating the time in teaching them at home because they had their own full classrooms. Of course during those times I have the babies and I was working and the whole mental thing with the immigration battle and FB and oh so many excuses but all of them made it genuinely difficult for me to give my kids any type of additive... especially when I did not really know what or how to do it. 

        That was some of the incentive for going to school for teaching because I am angry about that whole thing... but also because it seems to be the best occupation to influence so that we have less of a mass of people without empathy walking around in the States. Plus it is a good position to change the world... And, I realized that if anyone was going to take what I have to say seriously, I had to step it up a notch and get a degree in something…anyway, so now they are both in the JR high. My daughter cries because she is really smart, but she is in a reading class that is her present reading level, and she said she is the only typical child that the entire class is challenged...  How do I respond to that type of thing? You see... I have a lot of anger at myself, especially in comparison of the “what is and what could be”… Then I find out that there are laws that protect the child from falling behind. Like IEPs and free tutoring that was never discussed past the blame game… I start to get super angry because all of this time I am beating myself up about it. I keep pulling my college teacher aside after class to ask her about something that I am wrestling with or reflecting upon... she is the professor of education for my class that I am learning all of the history and laws regarding education in America... she knows like everything... I am sure she has noticed the tears in my eyes on several occasions during class...Everything that I have learned in the past two years of college has been absorbed through this "how can this apply to immigration" type of filter in my mind... every expression in class has a underlying tone of the needs to create diversity appreciation or directly to my experiences.

       There is nothing in legislation that pertains to children that are in another country like my kids were, like many kids are about to do or the multitudes that are already gone of course because we just deported over a million people, so yea of course this is a totally new playing field. But if you go back in history, every single little step in education ends up effecting how the country is run; it is quite obvious in the connection. I guarantee that there is a way to press for recognition to this amazingly unique and new area. No child left behind is a LAW and these children are American with guaranteed ties to that law. By 2013-14 all students are to be proficient or better in reading and math. When we returned, my son was reading at a 3^rd grade level in 6^th grade. His teacher called me towards the beginning of our transition. She said, “he knows English right?” I said of course he does, I talk to him every day… She said that when she is talking/lecturing the class/ teaching… she can tell by his eyes that he is just not getting it. She said that she will approach him and say Julian do you understand what I said? And she said he was always so confused. I said well, maybe he is not used to hearing someone else speaking English and maybe there are a lot of words that we do not generally use at home that he has to use a little more concentration on. He got E’s and D’s that first year that we came back… he is now getting A’s and B’s only because of his own determination. Like I said we have not received any special attention or supplements.

Let me stress, that the No Child Left Behind LAW was brought into America by Bush during his first term and does not mention if the parents are of particular “worth” that the child will be considered in their no child left behind… This law pertains to EVERY American child, without exclusion in the discrimination of the parent’s living situation or class status or ability to provide… it is a law that is completely focused on the child’s inclusion.

      My kids have worked so hard for every amount of catching up that they have had to accomplish in both countries.

       I have highest of hopes that we can make some kind of difference. I know that my situation is not experienced in the exact same way as every family that goes off to live. Many of these families now have access to the internet with our FB groups and whatnot, that was not part of the scene before with us, but right now it is so these ladies have an advantage with that resource. Also there are some ladies that are educated before they go so they are aware of their child’s needs, many of them teachers of English in the foreign school systems…

      I would love to initiate a Charter School in DC that is Federal instead of State, which includes the American children living abroad. This guarantees a free and appropriate public education to EVERY American child. It can be funded through a non-profit organization.

In this there lies a law that is not being taken responsibility for…

     Not just a claim to our pain, but an actual law.

      Can there be a scientific approach to this? Yes. In a scientific approach, there can be a control and an experiment. Compare what happens to a child who lives in another country and comes back to a child that is able to go school in his own country….or compare a child that goes through the public education in another country to a child that is with the ability to be supplied with an American education even if living abroad (military-base children). Proof of a law being thrown to the wayside during their deportations and exclusions that what answer is there for this?

      Suddenly I see a loophole for family unity.

And people will probably call me nuts... its okay I'm getting used to it.