Communities on the Move

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In fact, when the principal found out that I was from California, he said, 'I don't understand why there is such a campaign against bilingual education in California. How do you expect children to be able to learn?' I thought that was a pretty commonsense question. In a way, I found more openness to a commonsense way of dealing with the changing demographics of Madison than I often see in California, where in many communities the anti-immigrant hysteria is pretty high.

Do you see a positive end to this struggle?

Absolutely, I do, for two reasons: This year, I saw lots of immigrants -- and here I'm talking about immigrants as a whole, not just Latinos, not just indigenous people -- out there advocating for themselves at marches and demonstrations. That was a good sign, because it meant people were speaking for themselves.

I also think that we have a tradition in this country of support for equality and civil rights. I grew up during the era of the civil rights movement, and that was a very, very difficult struggle for African American people. But we did it in this country. We were able to change the laws; we were able to change popular culture; we were able to say to ourselves as a people, 'If we really believe in equality, we have to take all of these steps.' I see what's going on with immigrants as being similar to that, raising the same kinds of questions, such as, What does equality mean in the United States?

Even though you can point to a lot of negative things in our history, you can also say that over many years of struggle, people have been able to move forward toward equality here. I believe that what we're seeing now is another part of that road.

Communities Without Borders: Images and Voices from the World of Migration is published by Cornell University Press; www.cornellpress.cornell.edu.

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