City & State New York
September 25, 2017
A KATZ/SHUTTERSTOCK
Anne Frank was a Dreamer. Maybe the first one ... She wrote her diary, later published as the highly regarded book, “The Diary of a Young Girl,” to feel better about her life as a teenager while hiding from the Nazis from 1942 to 1944. At 14, she thought it would never be read by anyone. Her private world became ours to read a few years after she died from typhus at a German concentration camp toward the end of World War II. Rereading the diary, I found Frank’s clever and insightful writing just as painful today as when I first read it decades ago. It’s a book that all our Dreamers here in the U.S. should read. These Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipients, or Dreamers – named after the failed DREAM Act – were brought to the U.S. by their immigrant parents when they were young. Despite President Donald Trump’s plan to kick them out of the country, they want to stay – just like Frank wanted to stay in the Netherlands, where she hid from the Nazis who wanted to throw Jews into concentration camps and gas chambers. Trump doesn’t have a camp or a chamber for American Dreamers; however, they will be kicked out of the country, going to places that they don’t know much about and where they don’t want to live. Some of them are starting to hide from Trump. Others are protesting loudly in opposition to his latest propaganda about Dreamers taking jobs away from Trump’s supporters. After the protests, Trump, as usual, started playing a political game by negotiating with Democrats and Republicans to blame Congress or somebody else for the Dreamers’ nightmares. Maybe, though, he will change his mind and go back to his original thinking. His presidential behavior is closer to Hitler’s than either George W. Bush or his father. Our president is leading a sick attack against people who aren’t white, aren’t Christian or just don’t agree with him. He is entrapping some of our country’s smartest Americans. Trump’s decision to end DACA proves why we must remove him from office, relieving the country of his bipolar approach to governing. One day he opposes DACA. A few days later, he promises to work with Democrats
to fix DACA and save Latinos. Meanwhile, Dreamers remain in the shadows as pawns in a game designed to deflect blame away from the White House. Clearly Trump should be blamed, even though he tries occasionally to hide his racism and clean up his heinous deeds after some of his political assistants work to prevent him from being so honest and open about what he really believes. Some of them think Trump mimics certain racist conservatives only because it makes his base happier, but I think that’s nonsense. Trump’s DACA decision demonstrates that he is mean, hateful and arrogant. He is never going to change. He is arguing that a 77 percent jump in unaccompanied children who traveled in 2014 from Central America to the U.S.
9
treatment of people of color. On Oct. 9, 1942, Frank wrote to “Kitty,” the name she gave her diary: “Dearest Kitty, Today I have nothing but dismal and depressing news to report. Our many Jewish friends … are being taken away in droves. The Gestapo is treating them very roughly and transporting them in cattle cars to Westerbork, the big camp in Drenthe to which they are sending all the Jews. … The people get almost nothing to eat, much less to drink, as water is available only one hour a day, as there’s only one toilet and sink for several thousand people. … If it’s that bad in Holland, what must it be like in those faraway and uncivilized places where the Germans are sending them? ... I feel terrible.” Many of us feel terrible today. The U.S. is home for the Dreamers, just as the Netherlands was for Frank. Most of the 50 states are where Dreamers grew up, matured, studied, played, fell in love. What can we do to convince Congress to stop the president’s madness? We must not let Trump run this show. We should call Congress, lobby against him and threaten defeat in future elections.
Tr u m p ’ s D A C A decisio n demo nstrates that he is mean, hat eful a n d arrog a nt. H e is never going to change. border occurred because DACA essentially enabled them to work for the MS-13 street gang that, despite Trump and U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ false accusations, originated in the 1980s in Los Angeles, not Central America. In 2014, nearly 70,000 children were apprehended at the southern border. The Washington Post reported that most fled violence and abuse in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. The Obama administration found that the 77 percent jump had nothing to do with DACA. Trump is delivering his lies by duplicating some parts of history in his
We must help Dreamers do the same and develop relationships with as many as we can where we live now and where we grew up. We should keep Anne Frank in our memory by bringing Dreamers into our homes to support them. Find your Anne Frank diary. Read it again. The U.S. is not Europe in 1942, but the parallels are clear.
■
Karen Hinton is Fenton’s chief strategy officer and the managing director of its New York City office as well as the former press secretary to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.