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19 1. Crisis and Contract A Rhetorical Approach to Transnational Literacies America in Crisis: The New Crux of Literacy and Migration On the morning of March 10, 2010, downtown Chicago’s Federal Plaza filled with more than a thousand demonstrators who had come to protest the U.S. government’s ongoing failure to make progress on the DREAM Act,4 a long-standing legislative proposal targeted at educational access for immigrant youth. As a focal point for the event, eight young men and women stood up and publicly proclaimed their status: undocumented. Not having been born in the United States and never having been given papers to remain in the United States, they have no legal right to reside here, despite that fact that they have spent most of their lives here, have been educated here, and in many cases do not remember their home countries or languages. The Chicago event was a kick-off for a larger national demonstration called National Coming Out of the Shadows Week, a movement intended to pressure politicians to take action on the still pending DREAM Act, which, if passed, would help undocumented youth gain access to education beyond high school. The National Coming Out of the Shadows demonstrations occurred in the wake of considerable national debate about immigration, including Arizona ’s two new laws that had been passed in late 2009: HB 1080 and HB 2281. The former bill grants police the right to request an individual’s proof of legal status, while the second bill eliminated ethnic studies curricula in public schools (State of Arizona, 2010). The two laws sent the country into a 20 crisis and contract tailspin of debate. Was this racial profiling? Was it self-defense? Was it simply a practical and unavoidable component of immigration management? Moreover, the timing of these two sets of events seems more significant than coincidental, as it suggests the extent to which current U.S. citizens remain profoundly uncertain of how to handle immigration—particularly as it relates to youth, education, and our nation’s future. Indeed, the passage of Arizona’s laws was followed by a hearing at the level of the Supreme Court, as well as the adoption of several related state-level immigration laws in Alabama (2011), Indiana (2011), South Carolina (2011), Utah (2011), and Georgia (2012). These ongoing layers of conflict reveal a deep moral schism in the United States: What is our responsibility—either morally or economically—with respect to educating those young people who live within our borders? Further, if we decide, either for moral or pragmatic reasons,5 to make a full range of educational options available to everyone who lives within U.S. borders,6 what forms of curriculum and programming are most effective? In contrast to conservative trends like HB 2281—and, earlier on, the English -only movement of the 1990s7 —that curb certain types of curriculum, including curriculum delivered in languages other than English, more progressive responses to these questions have focused on increasing access by supporting diverse curricula, as well as initiatives like the DREAM Act. However , even these well-intentioned, student-focused responses can have deeply ironic implications. As an educator, I have witnessed the complexities that surround our nation’s general desire both to manage formal education and to make it broadly available. For instance, in 2008–9, I worked with South Tucson’s GEAR UP Project.8 GEAR UP is a federally funded program that seeks to strengthen college readiness initiatives in school districts with low socioeconomic status. As a GEAR UP staff member, it was my job to encourage students at high schools in South Tucson to plan for college. In support of this mission, my colleagues and I developed college readiness programs for teachers, students, and parents. These programs touched on topics ranging from course planning and study skills to financial aid. However, while the programs themselves accomplished their mission in several instances, it was not at all uncommon for parents to approach me and my colleagues to ask: “What happens if my child doesn’t have papers? Can she still go to college?” The answer is never easy. Without legal status in the United States, students are not eligible for most forms of financial aid; and, in many cases, they cannot legally complete a college application. In South Tucson, this meant that dozens of the students with whom we worked were stymied. Even if they followed our advice and programming to prepare for college, they might...

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