Thread: Students struggle as immigrants do

Students struggle as immigrants do
Saturday, December 15, 2007 3:18 AM
By Holly Zachariah

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

FRED SQUILLANTE | Dispatch
Erica Vieyra's Spanish students at Olentangy Liberty High School present their projects on immigration -- the culmination of three weeks of pretending to go through the steps that Latino immigrants take to come to the United States, legally or illegally.
POWELL -- The students had a role-play project: assume a Latino identity, build an imaginary life in your home country and develop a workable plan to immigrate to the United States.

Try it legally, Erica Vieyra told her 40 senior Spanish students at Olentangy Liberty High School. Fill out the correct documents, follow the proper steps. And then, after they spent days completing the actual paperwork from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, she took out her red ink pad and stamped a big, fat DENIED across every request.

Now, she told the students, come illegally. Forge your documents, find a way across the border. Then, research real ads and find a place to live in Columbus. Figure out what it would cost, how to get food. Plan how to survive.

The students had to go to real businesses and ask for Spanish-language job applications. They had to visit a bank and ask for new-account documents written in Spanish.

Vieyra promised them that the process -- even in make-believe -- would frustrate them. But they would gain, she hoped, an understanding of what is one of the most important political and humanitarian issues facing the U.S. government today.

After three weeks of work, the students presented their projects yesterday and discussed their conclusions. Most said it was a grueling experience to even pretend to walk in an immigrant's shoes.

"I can't begin to fathom how they can survive here," said Yana Lyon, 17. "Everywhere you turn if you try to become legal or help yourself, there's a roadblock."

For her project, Yana assumed the identity of 28-year-old single mother Margarita Sola, a barmaid in Tijuana, Mexico. Yana had Margarita stay at a Columbus Knights Inn until she found a $7.50-an-hour job at Chipotle. Eventually, she rented a Town Street apartment for $320 a month because it was close to a bus stop. She quickly found a man to marry to gain legal residency.

At first, Yana didn't want to participate. She said as much to her father one night. She told him it was stupid, a bunch of busywork. He walked away from her and emerged from the basement a few minutes later with a faded box. It contained the paperwork from Yana's adoption from a Russian orphanage in 1994. Yana knew about it, but she'd never seen the papers.

"You tell her you already did it," Robert Lyon told his daughter as he handed her the box. He was supportive of the project, Yana said. But he sensed his daughter's trepidation at exploring a subject sure to be emotional for her.

"This project was about me," Yana said. "I realized that, for a grade, I was about to re-create what my parents had to endure to give me the opportunity to live the American dream. That scared me."

This is the fifth year that Vieyra has assigned this project to students in her Spanish V class. Each year someone, a teacher perhaps, maybe just a friend, cringes: "They say, 'That's such a hot topic. Are you sure you want to go there?' "

She always answers yes. But she cautions that the point isn't to sway the students, only to teach them a little empathy.

"These kids will become our leaders, maybe even the people who make the laws," she said. "At the very least, they'll certainly be the people who vote on them. Shouldn't they learn something about it all now?"

hzachariah@dispatch.com
http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/co ... ml?sid=101

Try it legally, Erica Vieyra told her 40 senior Spanish students at Olentangy Liberty High School. Fill out the correct documents, follow the proper steps. And then, after they spent days completing the actual paperwork from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, she took out her red ink pad and stamped a big, fat DENIED across every request.

Now, she told the students, come illegally. Forge your documents, find a way across the border. Then, research real ads and find a place to live in Columbus. Figure out what it would cost, how to get food. Plan how to survive.

The examples are so utterly stupid it's criminal!

This teacher is teaching them that it's OK to break the law.

If a country DENIES you permission to enter, you do NOT then enter illegally and you do NOT encourage others to enter illegally!

I would have raised holy heck if some teacher tried that with my kids and if it didn't work - my kids would have been withdrawn from that school.

"These kids will become our leaders, maybe even the people who make the laws," she said. "At the very least, they'll certainly be the people who vote on them. Shouldn't they learn something about it all now?"

This teacher needs to be fired. i am so mad i am grinding my teeth. These students spent "3 Weeks" pretending to be an Illegal Alien.. Our taxes are paying for students to learn this crap... How about we focus on Physics, the Sciences, Engineering, mathamatics ... you know.. the jobs / stuff thats being outsourced ....

Who is this nut case and why hasnt she and her supervisor been fired. This is Fraud, Waste and Abuse of Tax Payer Funds

I guess in this instance of no child left behind we were to busy playing border stuff than actually learning or figuring out what they want to focus on in college or life rather than a hispanic life lesson this liberal teacher wanted to display

No wonder our schools are failing at an alarming rate. Do our schools no longer follow a cyllibus or is it just random wacko life lessons on how to break other countries laws

next give them drivers ed. Drive as if your illegal, can't read signs,
drink and drive, do a hit and run, handi-cap park at Wal-mart

Then vocational training:

leafblowing 101

Plastering while plasted

hanging at Home Depot

pissing in public

getting food stamps

get a girl or a puppy

demand your rights

Drink Miller beer

open an account at BofA

make baby

What a bunch of crap. Boy I wish my kids had been in that womans class.
I would have raised heck! Why can't she teach those kids that the best policy is to always follow the law. Period.

This school is a very well off school - the report card is excellent. All white. If these kids feel so sorry for them, let them give up some of their cash. This is not your typical school, I'd imagine that teacher is making more then most teachers do.


These children would have a hard day doing the typical american citizens work.

Americans and legal immigrants also suffer hardship in some cases
but they do not ask for handouts, they try to solve their problems
without breaking the law.

Hello, My name is Stephanie and I go to Olentangy Liberty High School. I am a freshman in Profe Vierya's Spanish I class and i reviewed the Spanish V projects last Friday December 14th, 2007. These were not bad projects at all! They were hard to do for the students but the truth of the matter is that the all completed these projects just as the students who had this previously. Profe is one of the nicest and most sweetest teachers in the school and she only does what she dows to help us learn. Most are over reacting and if you want the real story and not this (MOD EDIT) you're thinking to make you believe this is a horrible teen changing event, then go to google and type in "olentangy liberty high school illegal immigration project" and click the first thing that's from the Columbus Dispatch where the story was said and not turned into a stupid, critizing idea. And by the way, if you don't know Profe Vierya, (MOD EDIT) if you say she should be fired. This overduing of this project is causing most to lose track of grades as well, all Spanish V students aren't allowed to speak about this mess. Just stop the back talk of your ignorance and think, it's just a project in a small community that doesn't really effect everyone and it's been done for years.
};{ Kittynaomi

And by the way, some students now don't watch the news or read about it because of this (MOD EDIT) happy with your over reacting and ruining the lives of a bunch of students by your stupid comments. So to all above who critize, thank you for destroying our education and some of the happiness in our lives. (MOD EDIT)

Maybe teach them to steal and the difficulities of fencing the stolen goods or the difficulting of passing forged documents or how about the difficulity of serving time in prison or paying thousands in fines!.

It is possible to "nice" yourself into oblivion by not enforcing laws and chosing relativism over absolute truth. How about teaching some empathy for the victims of illegal aliens, including the thousands of deaths and disabling injuries caused by people that ignore laws. Or maybe some empathy for the American taxpayer who scrimps to pay taxes for people leeching off the system to the tune of hundreds of BILLIONS annually. It's the American people who need some empathy.

Try asking someone who has spent years straightening out their life because some illegal stole their identity. Only a few short yrs ago, people never thought about identity insurance. Now it has become a necessity as well as "Uninsured Motorists". There seems to be no end to the financial burden on Americans and it's an affront to decent people to ask them to have empathy on those who have no respect for laws and culture.