January 14, 2025
What About Us?
By John Myers
By Nicole Santiago
On November 5, 2024, the world stood still as it was announced that Donald J. Trump would be the next President of the United States. With his presidency comes Project 2025, or “The Conservative Promise” a 920-page wish list, outlining a conservative-led world. It significantly undermines public education and jeopardizes the well-being of immigrants across the nation.
According to “NeaToday” Project 2025 will cut funding from public schools and be redirected to charter and private schools. Our future will have well-funded private schools and underfunded public schools, further adding to the division between social classes.
Curriculum reforms will limit teachings on race, gender, or political ideologies to promote conservative values, restricting topics like climate change, Critical Race Theory, LGBTQ+ rights, colonialism, and more. These lessons are essential to understand how America is structured. Restricting these teachings will interfere with our understanding of the past.
In my literature class, Billy Collins’s poem “The History Teacher” reminds us that ignoring history can have negative consequences. The poem depicts a history teacher downplaying major historical events like the Hiroshima Bomb to protect his student’s innocence. However, this ignorance leads to harmful consequences, as shown when the children “Torment the weak and smart”. Without understanding history, we risk repeating mistakes and hindering progress.
Immigrants or “Aliens” (as the future president might call them) have helped build our country through their labor, from building our hospitals to building community resilience and social movements. Dolores Huerta, a farmworker activist, popularized the declaration, “Si se puede” to symbolize a call for action against abuse of power. Former President Obama frequently used it to inspire empowerment and change. “Si se puede” has shown immigrant children the strength of unity and perseverance. Immigrants have also helped shape U.S. policy innovations like “The Dream Act” to protect immigrants and enrich American culture with their art, language, food, and dances.
Project 2025 plans to create a harsher route to citizenship. Indicating that the true intent of immigrant policies is not to welcome immigrants, but instead to never allow them to become a part of a nation they built. A nation that supposedly stands for “liberty and justice for all”, yet allows systemic inequities based on one’s identity.
According to Pew Research, in 2022 the majority of immigrants will come from Latin America, fleeing difficult conditions sponsored by policies like NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) which increased economic inequality and rural poverty. These immigrants, like my father, come seeking freedom, opportunity, and safety for their current or future families; values conservative parties claim to prioritize. Emphasizing the importance of supporting organizations like NILC (National Immigration Law Center) and RAICES (Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services).
Recently I was able to meet a woman dear to me that I only ever spoke to through a telephone. She traveled from Colombia to the border of Mexico to give her children a chance at a stable future. A future like mine. Where her daughter can have access to healthcare, education, and career opportunities. Or where her son can have support systems to achieve his goals.
Deporting immigrants won’t produce the outcomes conservatives expect. CNN has highlighted that it will worsen inflation by harming the labor force essential for necessities. Families will be separated traumatizing children placed into the unsafe foster care system. Mass deportation will endorse problems and disrupt immigrants and border control.
Donald J Trump has downplayed his involvement in this project while allowing cabinet members like Russell Vought, an author of Project 2025 work alongside him and lead the Office of Management and Budget. We can see a glimpse of the future that awaits due to the outcome of the presidential election. As individuals with more privilege under our citizenship, we must be the voice for the silenced to ensure the immigrants of America are respected and public education is protected.
