by Kelley Gecik

Created on: June 27, 2008

Juan nervously enters the classroom on his first day of high school. He looks like any teenager with his baggy jeans and spikey hair. The sea of faces in front of him are not familiar and his pulse races. The teacher tells him where to sit. He doesn't respond. He can't. He doesn't understand the language.

This is a very real situation for me at the beginning of every school year. I teach ESL-English as a Second Language at a California high school. Each year my classes are filled with students that are trying to learn English and pass their other classes as well. My students are wonderful people, regardless of their immigration status, and their stories can be at times heart-wrenching. When the immigration debates began, I really heard both sides of the story. My students, who are mainly from Mexico, but are not all here illegally, cried racism, said it wasn't fair, that they are just here for a better life. Soon, what I heard more clearly than anything else, were their cries of entitlement.

"We deserve to be here!"
"We have rights as humans!"
"We are discriminated against!"

It wore on me. No one deserves anything. History teaches us that Mexico lost this territory during the Mexican-American war. The United States paid Mexico 15 million dollars for the land, it was not stolen out from under them. Try telling this to a class of fifteen year olds.

No one has taken away their human rights, they aren't being forced to stay here and live in the sometimes inadequate and unhealthy circumstances that they often do. They do not and should not have rights as American citizens, but plainly, they aren't. This goes for all illegal immigrants here: from Sweden, Germany, China or England. If I try to live in the European Union illegally, I'm not going to get far. I will be deported. I will not have any rights as a EU citizen and if I tried to demand them I can say with a degree of certainty that they would laugh at me.

It's so easy to turn to racism or discrimination as an out. Racism is hating someone because of their race-their color. While I don't disagree that there are some people in the world that are truly racist, I don't think the vast majority of us gringos are racist. Ignorant, yes. Racist, no.

So why are these students allowed in our schools to begin with? They cost this country millions of dollars a year in resources (paper, copies, books) and of course teacher salaries. They raise the student per teacher ratio in classrooms, dominate teacher time because they are unable to do the work or sometimes cause problems in schools because they have given up due to frustration. I don't believe my students are in gangs. They really are good kids, very respectful (something that American students could take a lesson on) and less obsessed with being "cool" than American students. I just can't help wondering though how if we don't want illegal immigrants here, why are we offering them the service of a free education at our (and our children's) expense?

The fact I am arguing this is illogical. If it weren't for these students, I wouldn't have a job. But wait. I don't. Because of the California educational budget crisis, I was unable to secure a position in the fall. My health insurance will run out in one month and I am not eligible for unemployment. America: land of opportunity except for its own citizens.

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