As a graduate student at Indiana University, I was provided with the opportunity to watch the movie “Fear and Learning at Hoover Elementary”. This movie reflects on a school, Hoover Elementary, in Los Angeles, CA. This movie is shot by Hoover Elementary 4th grade teacher Laura Simon, before and after voting took place on Proposition 187. Proposition 187 was a ballot initiative in California in 1994. This proposition strove to create a screening system that prohibited illegal immigrants from having access to health care, public education and other social services in California. Simon showed how diverse of a community Hoover Elementary is, not only it’s students, but also it’s teachers.
We saw life through the eyes of Mayra, a student of Simons at the time. She showed us not only how much she truly loved going to school and how receiving an education made her realized her dreams of going to school to become a lawyer, but we also saw Mayra’s life outside of school. The film showed Mayra spending the day alone in the apartment she lives in with her mother and uncle while everyone was at work. She was not allowed to leave the apartment to play because her mother felt it was not safe for her.
We also saw life according to third grade teacher Dianne Lee. She was very open about the fact that was going to vote for Prop. 187. She felt that the over crowding and needs of immigrant students was bringing Hoover down and that only legal immigrant and citizens of America deserved a public education.
We saw the opposite opinion from first grade teacher Arcelia Hernandez, the daughter of a migrant worker. Arcelia has the opposite view of Dianne. She felt that it was right to people to take their frustrations out on the children and blame them for the problems in California.
Things get heated as the last few days come to an end and the voting begins. Prop. 187 passed but it was never put into action because it was ruled to be unconstitutional.
While this might seem like an odd movie for school psychology students to be watching and reflecting on, it truly brings about important issues for everyone working in schools. It would be ignorant to say that immigration is not a hot topic in America these days. While immigration laws might not seem like they would be an important thing for educators to consider, they truly are.
The movie did make an interesting point that I have never really considered in this issue. Schools receive money depending on there level of student attendance. Hoover Elementary frequently lost out of money due to the erratic attendance level of migrant students. The erratic attendance was explained to be because migrant parents often pull their children out of school when they are able to or because children and their families have been deported. This clearly made sense and was an issue. But for me it seemed like something that could possibly be easily resolved after a conversation with parents about the problem there children erratic attendance makes.
Regardless of personal feelings about immigration and how it relates to other issues in the United States, the important issues here is allowing ALL children to receive a free and appropriate education. Regardless of how children came to be in the United States or their level of skills, we have an obligation to provide them with education.
One argument that often going hand in hand with immigration is that illegal immigrants create violence in the community. The librarian at Hoover Elementary even tried to blame messy streets on the migrant children. But the important thing to see in all of this is that A) Crime is always going to exist in the United States and B) Studies have shown that education tends to decrease ones likelihood of being part of committing crimes. If these children were allowed to get off the streets and get an education, they would be able to see that there are other alternatives to life and also realize their dreams.
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