In support of our students, in support of the DREAM Act
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In suppor t of our students, in s u p p o r t o f t h e D R E A M Ac t Latino Studies (2010) 8, 438–441. doi:10.1057/lst.2010.49
1 “Welcome to the DREAM Act Portal,” http:// dreamact.info/ (accessed September 16, 2010).
Dear Friends, I am sorry to see so many progressives effectively take the side of racists like Sharron Angle, Michelle Malkin, Glen Beck, Lamar “Anchor Baby” Smith and the scurrilous Americans for Legal Immigration Political Action Committee in their opposition to the DREAM act. Well-established non-profit organizations are withholding their support from the DREAM act because they claim that the military service option in the bill will facilitate the recruitment of more people of color into the armed forces. Yet the DREAM act movement is a movement led by youth of color, many of whom are also ardent peace activists! Without the pathway to Conditional Permanent Residency that the DREAM act would provide, younger “undocumented” immigrants who arrived in the United States of America before the age of 16 years – some of whom have earned straight “A” averages in our universities – are not even allowed to get a job or go to graduate school; they are kept in a state of economic servitude. Who are the students who are in the front lines of the DREAM act struggle? They are the young people who lead our May Day marches; they are the pupils whose energetic protests have saved ethnic studies in scores of universities; they read Dr King’s Letter from the Birmingham Jail and they study the Chicano Movement of the 1960s. They are some of the best community organizers in the labor, Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender and anti-war movements. To betray them in the name of anti-military absolutism is outrageous. The DREAM act is flawed.1 I wish the military service option could be replaced by a community service provision instead. However, the act also creates clear incentives for students of color to finish high school and to attend college. If the left had any heart, it would focus on this aspect of the bill. We would push universities to double or treble their outreach to low-income and communities of color and enlarge the small space that the DREAM act creates to push for a democratization of colleges and universities. My white progressive friends routinely ask me to support causes that have major flaws. I usually go along, because I understand that we live in a less-thanperfect world. These causes include sexist trade unions that mistreat their young r 2010 Macmillan Publishers Ltd. 1476-3435 Latino Studies Vol. 8, 4, 438–441 www.palgrave-journals.com/lst/
Guest Editorial
organizers, countries where single-payer health care co-exists with homophobic policies, and peace organizations that are chock full with racism and class privilege. On most days, I tell myself, “At least these folks are trying to do good things. I’ll go ahead and support them.” I find it strange that now many of our same friends refuse to support the DREAM act because it is less than perfect. My colleague George Lipsitz has a name for t
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