The Little Hawk
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Two City High students share their parallel stories of immigration to the United States and give insight into how they let their undocumented status define them
UND OCU MEN TED
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New England in Iowa
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Schedule One
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Changing Face of Education
PREVIEW
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New england in Iowa
By Danielle Tang
You don’t need a plane ticket to feel like you’re at a boarding school in Massachusetts or on the set of Dead Poets Society. See the Hilfiger-inspired looks we’re (fall)ing for this season
Schedule one By Madeline Deninger
Inside the medical cannabis movement in Iowa and across the country
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COVER PHOTO BY SARAH SMITH
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Changing Face of Education
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undocumented
By Nova Meurice
As mobile technology plays an increasing role in education, it’s also forcing educators to decide how it should be used in the classroom
By Sofie Lie and Lucy McGehee
Two City High students share their parallel stories of immigration to the United States and give insight into how they let their undocumented status define them
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NEW ENGLAND IN IOWA Photo by Danielle Tang
YARA MOUSTAFA 17’: Shirt- Forever 21, Dress- H&M, Coat- Michael Kors, Scarf- American Eagle, Tights- Urban Outfitters, Shoes- Merona; MOLLY LIU 17’: Top- Forever 21, Skirt- 35th and 10th, Jacket- vintage, Socks- H&M, Shoes- Sperry; TONY BRANDT 18’: Shirt- Kohl’s, Tie- Van Heusen, Jacket- vintage, Pants- Old Navy, Shoes- Apt. 9; NOAH FREEMAN 17’: Shirt- GAP, Sweater- Arizona Jean Co., Pants- Croft & Barrow, Coat- J. Ferrar, Shoes- Johnston & Murray, Tie- Calvin Klein, Scarf- Preston & York; SOFIE LIE 17’: Shirt- American Apparel, Skirt- Columbus Avenue, Coat- Miss Sixty, Socks- vintage, Shoes- Urban Outfitters, Tights- American AppareL
AJ BOULUND 17’: Shirt- J. Ferrar, Sweater- 21 Men, Pants- Calvin Klein, Shoes- Sperry, Tie- Formal Fashions Inc., Glasses- Burberry; OLIVIA BAIRD 19’: Shirt- Croft & Barrow, Sweater- Tommy Hilfiger, Vest- Delia’s, Jeans- Aéropostale, Boots- Arizona Jean Co.; JORDAN LAFAUCE 18’: Sweater- Retro Fit, Jacket- H&M, Jeans- American Eagle, Boots- UGG
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SCHEDULE
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i n s i d e t h e M E D I CA L ca n n a b i s m ov e m e n t By Madeline Deninger 6 Little Hawk Feature Magazine
Margaret Gaer, a 26 year old from West Des Moines, began using hemp oil 19 months ago, but she’s suffered from Dravet syndrome, a severe form of epilepsy, almost all her life. Before using hemp oil, Gaer tried multiple prescription medications to treat her seizures, including two to counter the effects of the seizure medications themselves. After Iowa legalized the use of cannabidiol (CBD) oil for intractable epilepsy in May 2014, Gaer applied for a cannabidiol card. However, because the legislation passed did not permit CBD oil to be produced in Iowa, Gaer had to reach outside of the state for treatment. “We had to wait, even though we had her cannabidiol card under Iowa. We had to wait until we were able to get it from Colorado,” Margaret’s mother, Sally Gaer, said. Sally Gaer is a representative for Iowans 4 Medical Cannabis, a coalition made up of patients of a number of conditions as well as caregivers, physicians, and family members. The coalition supports a comprehensive program that would broaden the currently relatively limited legal uses of medical cannabis in Iowa. “I hope this legislative session we are able to get a comprehensive medical cannabis program in Iowa where the medical cannabis can be grown, produced, tested, and dispensed in Iowa, for Iowans, for diseases that physicians determine, not legislators,” Gaer said. In total, 41 states allow for medical use of cannabis to some degree. Iowa is currently one of 16 states to legalize the use of CBD oil, a non-psychoactive extract of cannabis, for medical uses. CBD oil does not contain THC and therefore does not give patients a high. 25 states currently allow medical use of the actual cannabis plant. Beyond these two categories, individual state laws can vary enor-
mously. Iowa, for example, is the only state in which CBD oil cannot be produced, despite being legal for intractable epilepsy, and no legal dispensaries exist in the state. By contrast, California permits medical cannabis for any illness for which it can provide relief, and companies like Eaze can deliver it right to a patient’s doorstep. Mae Van Der Weide ‘16 currently works as a model in Los Angeles. In recent months, Van Der Weide has been involved with nonprofit organization Grow for Vets, which donates medical cannabis to veterans in need. “I got involved with medical marijuana because I saw its potential to help cancer and PTSD patients instead of taking a cocktail of unnecessary medication,” she said. Having lived in both Iowa and California, Van Der Weide can attest to the difference in perception in the two states surrounding the plant. “The attitude toward cannabis in Iowa is incomparable to that of California. California always takes the lead with progressive policies,” she said. “It’s only a matter of time before medical marijuana fully makes its way to the Midwest.” This variance comes in part due to the federal regulations surrounding the drug. Cannabis is currently classified as schedule one, meaning it has no accepted medical uses and a high potential for abuse, according to the DEA. Other schedule one drugs include Heroin and LSD. Carl Olsen, an application developer at Drake University and cannabis blogger, has been actively involved in numerous petitions at the national level to have cannabis rescheduled and recognized for its medical merits, including the 2002
petition filed by the Coalition for Cannabis Rescheduling. This petition eventually ended in the US Court of Appeals in 2013. “Now it’s just more of a residual stigma. That stigma’s kind of going away, but how do you undo all of that international law and federal law?” he said. “[The DEA and federal government] put up so many obstacles that it’s really hard to reverse all of that.” Because cannabis is a schedule one drug, research at a federal level is highly restricted. However, research does exist on a smaller scale. Frank Caligiuri is a professor of pharmacy and board certified pharmacotherapy specialist. He has spoken on panels at the state capital regarding the medical uses of cannabis. “When it comes to cannabinoid research, looking at the compounds found in cannabis such as THC and cannabidiol, the list goes on and on. You name it, there’s plenty of research. It’s just that most of that research is at a subclinical level, a level of animals,” Caligiuri said. “But in most of those studies, whether it’s looking at inflammation, pain, Crohn’s disease, or certain types of cancers, there’s certainly plenty of literature to suggest at a cellular level, this is what’s happening, and it’s the cannabinoids that are primarily doing that.” For as long as cannabis remains a schedule one drug, its legal use will largely be left up to the states. A bill that would have permitted Iowans to attain CBD oil in Minnesota as a means of keeping production out of Iowa while still granting patients access was shot down by the Iowa House last April. The bill would not, however, have changed the fact that
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transporting cannabis across states lines is a federal felony. Caligiuri emphasizes the importance of having medical professionals at the center of medical cannabis programs. There are currently three states, Connecticut, Minnesota, and New York, where cannabis is dispensed to patients by pharmacists themselves. “For people like myself, I think that’s the ideal situation, to have health care professionals inwvolved in the entire process and not just going to a dispensary,” Caligiuri said. One of the keys to a responsible medical cannabis program lies in having a patient registry, according to Caligiuri. “States that do have a program should have a registry where all patients can sign up so we know what other drugs they’re taking and drug interactions and things like that. States that have models and have a medical board that approves or removes certain conditions based on the evidence is the ideal model to have,” he said. Because CBD oil is only available to epilepsy patients in Iowa, part of the initiative for groups like Iowans 4 Medical Cannabis includes expanding the legal list of conditions. Aimee Loats has suffered from Crohn’s disease since the age of 10. “When I was first diagnosed, there weren’t a lot of medical options. I started taking these heavy steroids and it altered my joints, growth and puberty. I definitely suffered a lot of other side effects,” the 22 year old student at Simpson College said. “I just remember thinking that if I could have avoided that I could have avoided a lot of long term side effects.” Now an advocate herself for medical cannabis reform in Iowa, Loats believes part of the resistance to the movement lies in stigma surrounding the drug. “Now that this is becoming more of a movement, it’s something that I’ve developed a passion for. I want to bring to people’s attention that this is not about the stigma of getting high or using it for recreational use,” she said. It’s about people who don’t have any other options and would benefit from cannabis more than having extreme side effects from FDA approved drugs.” To know how cannabis actually affects the body, it’s essential to understand the endocannabinoid system, named after the plant that
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helped lead to its discovery. This system is made up of endocannabinoid receptors and endocannabinoids, which stimulate the receptors. They are located throughout the body in the cell membranes and work between the body’s various systems, allowing for communication between different kinds of cells. Phytocannabinoids are plant substances that stimulate these receptors. One of the most wellknown phytocannabinoids is THC, or tetrahydrocannabinol. “If you understand or at least know there are endogenous receptors in your body where compounds like THC work on a daily basis to regulate your sleep or appetite, you may have a better appreciation for how those cannabinoids can work in medicine,” Caligiuri said. Another bill introduced to the House Ways and Means Committee last legislative session is House File 2384. This bill would have allowed for two dispensaries in Iowa and add multiple sclerosis and terminal cancer with a life expectancy of less than a year to the
list of accepted diseases. The bill was stalled in the House Ways and Means committee, then sent to the Public Safety Committee to never be addressed. After the bill allowing Iowans access to medical cannabis produced in Minnesota failed, Governor Terry Branstad said he feared producing CBD oil in Iowa would lead to “unintended consequences.” “People who want it recreationally are not going to pay the price that it costs in a medical dispensary,” Gaer said. “A recreational user cannot get access in a dispensary, so there’s no way the recreational use goes up.” For an activist like Gaer, reluctance to embrace medical cannabis programs from lawmakers is a major obstacle. “I’m very frustrated by legislators that fail to do their homework and become educated that this is a treatment option,” she said. “I’m very frustrated that they feel we need FDA trials on everything when there’s very dangerous drugs out there that have been through FDA trials and are killing people.”
The stigma carried by cannabis was a cause for question and concern for Olsen. “I had heard so many negative things about [marijuana] that I was trying to figure out why they would lie about it. It put me in a position where I started to get extremely afraid. I just thought this is such a wild thing that they have created all this hatred toward this plant,” he said. “ I thought once you discover something that evil you can’t really go along with it, you have to protest.” With four states having currently legalized marijuana for recreational use, the attitude toward the drug is undoubtedly shifting in the US. However, Gaer maintains that recreational and medical use are separate issues and should be treated as such. “[There is] a misconception that we’re asking for recreational use, and we are not. There are so many delivery methods, oils patches, creams,” she said. “People do not need to smoke to get the benefit. It’s the old mindset that people are sitting around smoking it when that’s not true.”
The changing face of e d u c at i o n NOVember 4, 2016 9
As smartphones play an increasing role in everyday life, teachers struggle to define the role of mobile technology in the classroom By Nova Meurice When Beth Fettweis first started teaching English 20 years ago, virtually none of her students carried a cell phone. To avoid paying attention in class, students would pass notes or play games on their calculators. In the past five years, however, she has noticed an exponential increase in smartphone use and ownership across all students. “It’s not like the haves and have nots; now everyone has some sort of phone,” Fettweis said. “The level of distraction that they pose has increased tremendously.” Indeed, according to a 2015 Pew research poll, 86% of young adults own smartphones, up from 52% in 2011. Fettweis has noticed that with their increased prevalence, students have become more susceptible distraction, given their constant accessibility. “It’s a lot more pervasive now,” she said. “It concerns me, that inability to resist the ding. If [their phones] buzz, [students] have to check them.” Carrie Watson, a social studies teacher, has noticed a similar trend. Furthermore, she believes that con-
stant activity on smartphones have led to a significant enough decrease in students’ attention spans, that she has felt compelled to modify her teaching style. “[Because of their phones], students move onto the next thing so often that I see that it appears to be difficult for people to focus on a single idea for a sustained idea for a long period of time,” she said. To ensure that students are learning the material, Watson has been breaking lectures into more palatable 15 minute presentations. “Twenty years ago, I could easily do an half hour lecture, and I have a good voice for lecturing, and I move around. But half an hour now would be very difficult,” she said. Watson also tries to keep her student engaged in class by making the class more entertaining, and by connecting the material to pop culture. However, she feels ambivalent about putting “I put on the ‘dog and pony show,’ but the reality is that the internet is entertaining. [Teachers] are not entertainers, we’re educators,” she said. “There’s been the expectation that it needs to be fun and interesting to learn. It’s great if
it’s interesting, it’s great if it’s fun, but it shouldn’t have to be fun or interesting, you should be able to adjust your brain to the activity.” For Watson, her students’ inability to focus is cause for concern. “Sustained attention is more limited, and that worries me for kids going into college because professors just stand up and talk for an hour,” she said. “In some ways, I find that our use of technology is enabling of bad habits instead of helping us.” Although evidence of decreased attention spans is visible anecdotally, both to teachers such as Watson and Fettweis and to technology writer Nicholas Carr and British scientist Susan Greenfield, who have both written books making such claims, empirical evidence is still lacking as few thorough studies have been conducted. In addition to noticing their susceptibility to distraction, Fettweis has also seen an increase in students multitasking while doing schoolwork. This inability to focus on a single task, Fettweis noted among her students, often leads to lower efficiency or lower quality work produced. “They have this hubris when it
“ACCESS TO INFORMATION IS SO MUCH MORE DEMOCRATIC. NOW, ALL OF MY STUDENTS HAVE ACCESS TO INFORMATION AT THE TIPS OF THEIR FINGERS.” CARRIE WATSON
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comes to multitasking, and they think, ‘I can do this, this is how I roll,’ but there’s a difference between undivided attention and effort and the things we do while we’re multitasking,” she said. “If what [students] do while multitasking is becoming the only effort they ever give, that becomes their best effort, and that’s concerning to me.” As an English teacher, Fettweis also worries that smartphones alter the way that people read. “I don’t think that it’s the same reading experience,” she said. “I tried to read on my phone and I found myself less likely to go back and re-read parts that I didn’t understand, or to try to connect the pieces of the narrative.” She also is concerned that the pace of social media makes people less inclined to read immersively, which in turn causes them to miss out on sustained ideas or narratives. “I think people are satisfied to read a feed rather than a sustained narrative, which has an effect...It matters to still read sustained text,” she said. “Reading on the phone is one way of reading, but for a lot of students it’s become the way of reading.” Nevertheless, both Watson and Fettweis acknowledge that smartphones can provide internet access to those who don’t have wifi or computers at home. Watson notices the decrease in the access gap most acutely with her government classes. Where only some students had access to newspapers in the past, now every student can read them online. “Access to information is so much more democratic now,” Watson said. “Now, all of my students have access to information at the tips of their fingers.” Additionally, she believes that because smartphones are nearly universal and because they enable constant access to information, they serve as equalizers students of different socioeconomic backgrounds. “That consistent daily, hourly, or even by the minute access to information enables them to be on more equal standing,” Watson said.
For some of those ‘have versus havenots,’ technology has narrowed the gap.” However, Watson has observed that if a student doesn’t have any access to technology, the gap increases exponentially. Not just assignments, but government and legal resources often require access to the internet. “If you are a have not and you don’t have access to technology, you’re left out completely and you actually don’t have access to what you need to be a citizen,” she said. Despite having certain reservations about students’ cell phone use, Watson has started using technology as a teaching strategy. This year, she’s ‘flipped’ her classroom, meaning that students are expected to view videocasts of her lectures outside of school, and complete assignments in class, where they can collaborate more easily and ask questions. The prevalence of smartphones and tablet ownership among students, she says, is one of the reasons that she felt confident making this switch. “I’m hoping to see a higher degree of comprehension among students because of [the inverted classroom model] because they have more access to me,” Watson said. One of the advantages that Watson has noticed so far is that students, especially those who struggle in class or who have just learned English, are better able to learn at their own pace. Instead of missing information when a lecture moves too quickly for them, they can rewind the videocast. “Right now, [students] are in that learning process developmentally where they’re understanding how to listen and write at the same time, and still listen to the next idea. I think that a lot of high schoolers aren’t quite there yet, so this is kind of a scaffolding step towards that end result—encouragement for them to identify the speed that is best for them,” Watson said of her videocast lectures. “Particularly for our ELL students, it’s helpful because it’s also in closed captioning, so everything I say is written in words, so they can read along as I speak, and I think that there’s a higher degree of comprehension.” Watson also uses other technological tools in her classroom, including an app called Socrative, which allows students to take formative quizzes on their laptops or smartphones. She finds that this kind of activity fosters class
“I USED TO SEE STUDENTS WHO STRUGGLED THE MOST IN MY CLASS HIDING IN THEIR PHONES A GREAT DEAL, AND IT WAS THOSE SAME STUDENTS WHO WOULD BECOME MOST DEFENSIVE IF I TOLD THEM TO PUT THEIR PHONE AWAY.” BETH FETTWEIS
engagement, and helps students check their own understanding. Other apps such as Remind and Powerschool help Watson keep students and their parents informed about deadlines. While she finds that parental oversight in grades and homework helps some students, she also worries that these apps encourage them to become over-involved with their students’ schoolwork. “Online grades are great,” she said of Powerschool. “You have accessibility, you have understanding of where you are in a class, and parents do too. But some students don’t check their grades because their parents do it for them, and that creates a lack of accountability for themselves. Also, if they know that if their parents talk to them about grades that it’s going to be bad, so they’re taking that negative emotion and I feel that they’re putting it onto the schoolwork itself, the school environment, and the experience.” Fettweis sees similar issues, adding that the Powerschool app’s notifications and arrows charting grade movement make it easy for students to obsess over the numbers instead of “There’s that perpetual fear and knee-jerk response that [it elicits from students] where students, instead of seeing feedback, they just see that red arrow,” she said. Watson, too, worries that obsessing over grades deemphasizes learning. “It takes the focus away from what’s important, and that’s the
learning,” she said. “Instead, they’re looking at the end results. And really, the end result is just a reflection of the process, but we lose sight of that, so it’s been disappointing sometimes for me.” While Watson has been trying to incorporate mobile technology into her curriculum, Fettweis struggles to find relevant ways to use it in her English courses. “I don’t find that students are using phones for learning purposes,” she said. “There’s some pressure to make it part of the classroom, but there are only so many kahoots that I can do, and Kahoots take a tremendous amount of class time, and I don’t think that it’s necessarily efficient.” However, with the new schoolwide cell phone ban, Fettweis finds that it’s easier to allow students to make use of their phones when they need to for educational purposes such as online dictionaries or textbooks. “Now we are actually able to use phones in a way that’s educationally relevant when we need to, because we have the ability to tell students to ‘re-secure’ their phones,’” she said. “I feel like students are being respectful of the policy when they ask [to use] those kinds of things because they recognize that snapchat is not an appropriate use of school time, but that there are lots of school appropriate uses of technology.” A study of British students between 2001 and 2015 found that cell phone bans helped students’ performance on national standard-
ized exams by an average standard deviation of 6.41 percentage points. Especially for low-performing students, the difference was marked with such students experiencing an average standard deviation of 14.23 points on their exam. Similarly, Fettweis has noticed a difference in the academic performance of her struggling students since the stricter cell phone rules were instituted. Where before they could use their phones during class to mentally check out of school, they now must be present. “I used to see students who struggled the most in my class hiding in their phones a great deal, and it was those same students who would become most defensive if I told them to put their phone away,” Fettweis said. “We’d end up having the wrong conversation—the conversation would be about ‘I need you to put your phone away and focus,’ and now I feel like the conversation is ‘I need to help you to learn.’” This shift in conversation, she believes, has helped hold both students and teachers accountable for staying engaged with the class. “Unless we hold all students accountable for putting their cell phones away, there are students that we’re allowing to be checked out while they’re here,” Fettweis said. “I worried about it most in our poor and minority students, where it was becoming the soft bigotry of low expectations and teachers were saying, ‘at least you’re quiet,’ but the [new cell phone ban] has done a lot to combat that kind of attitude.”
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UNDOCUMENTED By Sofie Lie and Lucy McGehee
As a young child, Lazara Pittman lived in consistent, looming fear. Her family had little food or clothing to spare; she was barred from academic achievement and neglected by peers; there was always a possibility that her parents could be imprisoned or even killed. “When you’re a little kid, those things matter,” she said. The year was 1968, and Pittman and her family, citizens of Cuba, were in quiet resistance to Fidel Castro’s communist regime. Steadily, they built up the means—in the form of permission from the Cuban government—to immigrate to the United States to escape further persecution. To do this, her father worked for eight months as a free laborer to the Cuban government in what Pittman describes as the equivalent to a concentration camp while she and her mother waited. When her family seized the opportunity to move to Florida as refugees, Pittman was eight years old. They would all eventually become citizens of the United States. But Pittman’s childhood of fear was not lost; rather, it is the basis for the empathy that her job, an immigration lawyer, requires today. “I know what it’s like to live in a place where you’re afraid that your father’s going to be taken away and killed, that your mother is going to be taken away, that the government is going to storm into your house
and kill you,” Pittman said. Her deep rooted understanding is somewhat of a rarity in the practice of immigration law. Pittman described one instance in which a lawyer she worked with suggested that she not consider the cases of many clients. Pittman made the prompt decision not to work with this lawyer anymore. “We had very different value systems because I know what it is to live under persecution,” she said. Pittman came to practice law through a fluid, hierarchical process, with her career beginning as a receptionist at a law firm in Miami at age 17 and culminating in her completion of law school and her subsequent practice of law. She has been working with immigrants since 1977, but, as immigration law has shifted, so has her practice of it. She describes her first clients in Miami as well-to-do, mostly from South America and Europe. Now, she works primarily with low income immigrants. “[Along with my clients], immigration law has changed a lot [over time],” Pittman said. “You know, it’s really broken.”
“A LOT OF TIMES WHEN I TALK TO ICE (IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT), THEY SAY ‘WHY DO YOU BEG SO MUCH?’ IT’S BECAUSE I HAVE NO LAW ON MY SIDE. I HAVE NO LAW; I’M ALWAYS BEGGING THE HUMAN FACTOR.” LAZARA PITTMAN
Among her clients are families, often with children in elementary or secondary schools. “Nobody wants to be here illegally,” Pittman said. “So the families come to see how they can all be legalized. They are very concerned for their children that are going to school.” In 2012, Barack Obama enacted DACA (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) through Executive Order. The new law enabled undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States before their 16th birthday to apply for a work permit and obtain a social security number and a driver’s license. Like many immigrants, her* family saw America as a solaceful place filled with economic opportunity. She, a City High student, is undocumented. Documentation isn’t a taboo topic for her, but it’s also a topic without much substance in friendly conversation. While her friends know of her not being documented, her classmates don’t--she asserts that there is no need for them to know; it’s not a definitive property of her character.
*Throughout the story, we will use pronouns in place of a name as to protect the anonymity of both students referenced.
“The friends I hang out with everyday know [that I am undocumented], but since I just go to school with people, it’s not like I’m telling them,” she said. While she remains mostly unaffected by her undocumented status day-to-day, there are a couple special instances in which she is especially of aware of it. “When it comes to not everyday things like getting your driver’s license or permit, voting, those things, [being undocumented] can get in the way,” she said. She is able to work under DACA and provides money for her family, herself, and her future goal of attending college. “I think a lot of families or individuals have the motive to come here to have the opportunity to provide for their family and to give their family and themselves a better life,” she said. Obama has also fought to pass the DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act. The act was initially created in the Senate by President Pro-Tempore Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Senator Dick Durbin (D- Illinois), but has not been passed. The act would grant conditional residency provided that the undocumented immigrant proves they arrived before their 16th birthday, graduated high school or have a GED, enrolled in higher education or selective service, and were between the ages of 12-35 at the time the bill is passed. This would be an eventual road to permanent residency. The bill died in the Senate in 2010 after a GOP filibuster; however, some states such as California and Illinois have passed similar acts. The main goals of both DACA and the DREAM Act are to help children and young adults brought along with their parents at a young age to the United States achieve the same academic success as documented students, as well as providing a legal avenue for working. Though this does help many families financially, it does not provide a direct path to citi-
zenship or protect adults and parents from being deported. Pittman sees many cases that involve deportation of a mother or father. A recent case involves an 11 year old boy born in the United States with an undocumented father subject to possible deportation. “I have to tell you that one of the saddest things I see is what happens to the families and to the children when their parents are deported. And those are the hard parts,” Pittman said. “Where I see the kids that or born here, or the kids that are illegal but pretty much Americanized, and all of a sudden they lose their parents. That is the hardest thing.” Pittman estimates that around 1% of her deportation cases end in success. Despite this, she remains hopeful. Her law firm a picture of this: a hectic environment, strewn with documents but also adorned with plants. She’s known for not giving up. “A lot of times when I talk to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), they say ‘why do you beg so much?’ It’s because I have no law on my side,” Pittman said. “I have no law; I’m always begging the human factor.” Immigration laws have been hotly contested, and the topic itself has become even more polarizing in the current election. Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump first engaged supporters with immigration policies involving the deportation of all of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants and a wall on the border of Mexico and the United States. This rhetoric, though highly improbable, has frightened many of Pittman’s clients. “Whether it’s my white clients that are married to immigrants, or the children, everybody’s very concerned. We feel like the atomic bomb is going to be dropped on us,” Pittman said. “My biggest problem with him is that he talks about things that are unattainable. How [is he] going to round up everybody? Immigration services probably does suspect a lot of places that
“I DECIDED TO IMMIGRATE BECAUSE OF THE DELINQUENCY, AND SO I WOULDN’T BE AFRAID OF SOMEONE BEING ABLE TO KILL YOU OR ROB YOU AT ANY CORNER. THAT’S WHY I DECIDED TO IMMIGRATE: TO CHANGE MY LIFE AND HELP MY FAMILY IN [CENTRAL AMERICA].”
have illegal aliens but we do have something called the constitution, so they can’t just come up to you and ask to see your green card.” Since Trump’s policies have been under constant fire and skepticism from both parties, not all undocumented immigrants feel as threatened. “I don’t let [Trump’s threat of deportation] bother me because so many people talk about it. What you have to do in order to do [deport all undocumented immigrants] is just such a long process,” she said. “I’ve lived here for so long that I am not really afraid [of being deported].” Though undocumented immigrants are, of course, unrepresented in the election, it appears Trump’s rhetoric has steered away the Hispanic demographic. A recent NBC/ Wall Street Journal poll shows Clinton up 50 points among Hispanic voters. She has just turned 18, and could have voted for the first time. Though she cannot vote, she still believes in the impact of democracy, but does not dwell on the impossibilities due to her undocumented status. “I feel like so many people think that voting is not important, but I think it is. One vote counts,” she said. “I don’t think that [not being able to vote] bothers me because a lot of my family can’t vote, so they don’t really talk about voting. So, if I could vote, I would vote, but I can’t, so I guess in a way I don’t mind.” She has learned not to let her circumstance hinder her familiar life, and does not think of it as a barrier, though there are still dreams that aren’t as easily obtainable. “I try not to let [being undocumented] get in the way,” she said. “I am done with my 4 years of Spanish, and I wish I could go to Spain, but obviously I can’t, but I have to accept that myself.” She and her family are originally from Guerrero, Mexico, and came to America when she was around three years old. Guerrero is infamous for cartel run streets, drug trafficking,
and unprecedented violence. Though she does not remember anything about her prior life in Mexico, to other undocumented students, like him*, violence in their own home town is still fresh in their minds. In his poverty-stricken home country in Central America, simply stepping out into the street induces fear. Mafias and cartels run the streets, threaten businesses and supermarkets to get money and even kill for cell phones. Corruption runs through the police force and government, leaving its citizens with little outlets for help. “In my country, [life] is very difficult,” he wrote in a letter in Spanish at the start of his experience with the ELL program. “You will never overcome poverty and you will never achieve your dreams of becoming someone meaningful.” Instead of living a life of fear, he chose to immigrate to the United States unaccompanied. “I decided to immigrate because of the delinquency and to not be afraid of someone being able to kill you or rob you at any corner,” he wrote. “That’s why I decided to immigrate: in order to change my life and help my family in [Central America].” He left his grandma and aunt who raised him, the gritty streets, and the violent life that he has only ever known at 9:30 in the morning. The sky reaching overhead broadcasted a trail of clouds that pointed in the direction of where he was so desperate to go: America. A treacherous journey ensued through other Central American countries with the same cartel and mafia violence. He recalls being in the same trailer for 17 hours with 67 other immigrants, also desperately searching for opportunity, and only eating once during the ride. “When we finally arrived in [our next destination], we couldn’t get up because we had cramps for being in a single position for so long,” he wrote. Trailers became a familiar place for him during the endeavor. He took another strenuous 16 hour ride, but this time, it was spent in hiding.
“They put us where the driver was, and they covered us with sheets so if they were to check the trailer, they would think we were luggage,” he wrote. Danger lurked outside of car doors as well. They were still nowhere near safety at this part of the journey. He details being turned into a local mafia and staying in a house that kept the mafia’s kidnapping victims held until their ransom had been delivered. 15 days were spent in the house with only one meal a day. Ultimately, he made it across the border to find himself in a trailer once again. This time, however, it was a mobile home. Though there was a small comfort of being in U.S. territory, his journey was still far from over, and his final dream of settling in the United States still hung in the balance. After five days of living in the trailer, he and his party were told to move on. They were pointed in the direction of mountains, with only a gallon of water and one backpack of food to support the 83 people now traveling alongside him. They walked during the night, and slept during the day. The trek was to last seven days, however by the fifth day, food was dwindling. Exhaustion, thirst, heat, and hunger were taking a toll. “Little by little the number of people decreased,” he wrote. “They would faint due to hunger and thirst. On the seventh day, only 48 of the 83 people made it.” He is part of the trend of unaccompanied minors that have immigrated to the United States without any familiar family members or friends alongside them. In just this year alone, 60,000 unaccompanied minors have entered the United States through the Southern border, according to U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. There are thousands of similar, harrowing stories; however, his story exhibits a promising future. He was reunited with his mother who has been living in Iowa for quite some time, and is now getting an education, a notion that seemed impossible just a few months ago.
“JUST LIKE [OTHER STUDENTS], I CAN GO TO SCHOOL AND DO MY HOMEWORK AND WORK,” SHE SAID. “TO ME, [BEING UNDOCUMENTED] IS NOT AN OBSTACLE THAT I FEEL I HAVE TO OVERCOME.”
“It was really worth it because I’m studying,” he wrote. “I work as well, and I’m helping my family in my country. It has changed my life.” Laura Lala works with students like him everyday, alongside others with a variety of cultural backgrounds as an ELL (English Language Learners) teacher. Many of the students, however, share commonalities. They share a past that required immense perseverance through violent homelands and rigorous escapes and a present that presents new challenges, such as fitting in with their new, safe environment. “You’re now with all these other students who are now interested in Homecoming, and football and all these other things, where [the ELL students] themselves are coming from the standpoint of, ‘Am I going to live to see another day?’ It’s a very different perspective and having to adapt and try and fit in, when they’re coming from very different experiences [is difficult],” Lala said. As undocumented students get to high school especially, they must more directly face their undocumented status. Privileges that come with citizenship such as a driver’s license, social security number, access to financial aid for postsecondary education, and the right to vote are not readily available for undocumented students. According to Pittman, these differences can, in effect, polarize undocumented students from their documented peers. “When the kids come [to my law firm], they tell me that they feel as if they are less than the rest because of not being able to get a driver’s license,” Pittman said. While being undocumented serves as a roadblock for her, she ultimately says it doesn’t define her character or interactions. “Just like [other students], I can go to school and do my homework and work,” she said. “To me, [being undocumented] is not an obstacle that I feel I have to overcome.”
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