Don't shatter dreams

LatinX live in place that is truly home

As I write this sentence, I am sitting in a narrow glass-enclosed section of the Starbucks on Dupont Circle in Washington, D.C. It is a favorite place, a protected location amidst the bustle of heavy foot traffic, Uber drivers and bike couriers. There is a similar space in Fayetteville: a front corner chair at Mama Carmen's, also glass-enclosed, in which I am re-typing my notes for this column. Both spaces offer calm in the midst of movement, quiet access to chaos.

The Dupont Circle location has been there a long time -- at least since the time I lived in DC in 1996. Not all locations on the planet exercise this earthbound traction, a spirituality of place, but for whatever reason this one does -- it reminds me that I am here, precisely here, in this spot and no other. The world spins, the universe expands, our solar system hurtles along at an ever-accelerating pace, yet here we are now and nowhere else, on this enclosed and defined portion of planet Earth.

While I was in Washington, D.C., I had the chance to sit on the couch in Rep. Bruce Westerman's office. Congressional offices feel like the opposite of being "in place," because they are offices representing Arkansas, but located miles and miles away in DC. There are echoes of the location they represent -- Rice Krispies on the end table, a signal to the state's agricultural production -- and many of the staff hail from Arkansas. But in the end, it is an office that serves the interests of a place while itself dislocated to another.

We sat down with Westerman to talk about the end of DACA and the need for a clean Dream Act. In the room were many Dreamers, young adult LatinX advocates for legislation that would extend permanent legal residency to those who arrived as young people and are now either undocumented or protected only for a short time because of their DACA renewals.

When you listen to the stories of Dreamers, you realize how much they value place. Although their story is connected to migration, it is actually the place they now live that is truly home. They are here, right here, among us, home-owners and business-owners and Razorback fans and Arkansans, and yet, because of the Byzantine nature of our immigration policies, they lack a piece of paper -- or worry that the papers they've relied on to build their lives and ground themselves here might be taken away.

It is as if they are sitting in that corner window, but the glass has shattered. The security and confidence is gone. We all know how essential it is to have some space, a room of one's own, to do a lot of our best and most creative work. If the glass shattered around me as I wrote this column, I'd have to pick up and move elsewhere. I'd miss my deadline. Rain would strike the laptop, and wind would blow away the papers.

It's simply not right, or just, or good, or human, to shatter the protective windows around 800,000 young adults in our country. These are builders, movers and shakers. They are part of the visionary generation next that will make America great. More than that, they are our friends. They are the people I want sitting in those corner windows, writing and creating and thinking and envisioning who we will be. And I want them to very securely know that they belong here, right here, and nowhere else.

The vast majority of Americans (82 percent) want DACA to continue. So it was good to hear from Westerman a promise that. indeed, they will work to find a legislative solution that offers protections for Dreamers. He said no one wants those protections to lapse. I believe him. And so I hope that he and all those with the power to make it happen, will do so as quickly and energetically as possible. If it's the right thing to do, and supported by the vast majority of Americans, then certainly we can find the collective will to do it.

NAN Religion on 11/18/2017

Upcoming Events