As major U.S. newspapers continue to ignore the Luna story, a few have posted stories on the young DREAMer who committed suicide a few days ago. The
Washington Times published on Luna, as did Inside Higher Ed. Otherwise its still silence.
MTH
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A comment to the article from Inside Higher Ed explains the DREAMers situation:
"As anyone who works with undocumented students will tell you, there is
an intense fear and complex, overwhelming process that comes with doing
it "the right way." We as a nation provide an education for these
students through high school, then just as they're ready to make
something of themselves we snatch all hope away. The caste system
comparison here is tragically accurate."
In which a
veteran of cultural studies seminars in the 1990s moves into academic
administration and finds himself a married suburban father of two.
Foucault, plus lawn care.
The Joaquin Luna DREAM Act
November 27, 2011 - 10:02pm
This story makes my heart hurt.
Joaquin Luna, a high school senior in Texas, committed suicide on
Friday. He wanted to become an engineer to provide a better life for his
mother, but realized that his status as an illegal immigrant made that
impossible. Despondent over the failure of the DREAM act to pass, he
dressed up in a suit and tie, said goodbye to his family, and shot
himself in the head.
Any parent knows, intuitively, that the death of a child is the single
worst thing that can happen. My condolences to his family, and to all
who knew him.
I’ll concede upfront that it’s impossible to know everything that was
going on in someone’s mind. Many people face obstacles and
disappointments and don’t respond the way he did.
But it’s hard not to admit that he had a point. That’s what makes the story even more wrenching than so many others.
The DREAM act offers legal status to people who came to this country
illegally as young children, conditional on their attainment of a
college degree or on performing military service. It gives people who
simply came with their parents a chance to attain full membership in the
society in which they grew up. Since many of the people covered by the
act came across the border as toddlers or young children, the United
States is really their home. K-12 districts are required to educate
these kids, so many of these kids go all the way through and graduate,
only to hit a wall at the end of high school.
I recognize that there are complicated issues around adult
immigration. But around kids who come with their parents, I have a hard
time seeing it. Joaquin saw, correctly, that he was essentially
confined to a lower caste through no fault of his own. He got the
message -- again, with some warrant -- that the United States didn’t
really want him. And since he wanted so badly to be here and to work
hard for his family -- values that, in other contexts, we claim to hold
-- he just couldn’t accept a life sentence to being the working poor.
It’s fashionable lately for people with highfalutin’ degrees to ask
whether college is necessary. But on the ground, it clearly is. Yes,
student loan debt is a serious issue, but the basic truth still holds
that you’re economically better off with a degree than without one.
Yes, there should be economically viable alternatives for people who
don’t go to college. But that category shouldn’t be decided by the time
a kid is six years old. The way to tamp down the student loan bubble
isn’t to ban brown people from college; it’s to get costs under control
and restore subsidies through progressive taxation.
Joaquin Luna was, I’m sure, a complicated, three-dimensional person.
It would be a mistake to reduce his suicide to a simple political
statement. But it would also be a mistake to ignore the message that he
was apparently trying to send. He saw that his adopted country was
willing to visit the sins of the father upon the son, and the burden was
too great for him to bear. Now a family is grieving, and a country has
lost a driven young man cursed with insight.
I hope that when the act comes up again -- and passes -- it bears his
name. Let the Joaquin Luna DREAM act ensure that we never consign
anyone to a lower caste because he followed his parents here as a
child.
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