- Posts: 2
- Joined: Jan 08, 2016
- Mon Jan 11, 2016 11:53 am
#21708
I know I talk about some controversial things here, so let me know how you think that comes across. I appreciate all criticism! Thanks!
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In tenth grade I was Donald Trump. Standing on a stage in front of 20-30 people, mostly fellow high school students, my debate partner and I argued that the United States should make it so unpleasant for illegal immigrants to live here that they would voluntarily self-deport. We were debating in a demonstration round for new students in our club, and since it was the beginning of the school year, we hastily chose a case we thought was the obvious solution to an obvious problem. Our case would feel right at home on Trump’s campaign position page on immigration. It was also a comfortable choice in our national, Christian home-school debate league. But by the time competition season rolled around, I had ceased my inadvertent Trump impersonation. Rather than passively receiving opinions from my social context, I developed my own opinions through research. My partner and I were now running an “open immigration” case to lift quotas on green cards. At first this seemed like a risky decision since the judges were predominately hyper-conservative, Christian home-school parents, a group stereotypically against liberal immigration policies. Yet despite this risk, we had a winning record. Though this debate topic sparked my interest in immigration policy, I never even considered going into immigration law until a few years later.
I did not know I would encounter this career idea when I walked into my first class at COLLEGE NAME, an upper-level Spanish course: “Hispanics in the United States.” The reading list included a book by Jorge Ramos entitled La Otra Cara de América, which means “the other face of America.” Even as I struggled with understanding the Spanish, I found the book true to its name. It showed me faces—stories of immigrants’ experiences and struggles in the United States. The course motivated me to better my Spanish and to become involved with the local immigrant community. Up until this point in time, I had always emphatically denied wanting to go to law school, but in my third journal assignment for the class, I pondered for the first time becoming an immigration lawyer. But I usually kept that idea to myself.
Beginning in my second year of college, I tried to immerse myself more in the thriving immigrant community of CITY, STATE. I filled my schedule with off-campus activities such as joining the Spanish-speaking service at my church and helping with my church’s after-school program and ESL classes. Proximity is a powerful catalyst for empathy. Suddenly, I found myself changing from someone who was only “interested in” immigration to someone who cared about immigrants, and as I gained proficiency in Spanish, I could communicate with them too. My favorite day of the week was Thursday when I went to the after-school program and stayed afterward for the adult ESL class. The after-school program was for the kids who lived in the trailer park located behind my church, and most of their parents were first-generation immigrants from Mexico. Over the next couple years, I also began using class assignments to write about immigration law and policy whenever the opportunity arose. For example, in my senior thesis I researched how current hardship standards in cancellation of removal cases affect family unity and the rights and wellbeing of children. The values guiding me were not so different than the ones I grew up with; they just led me to a different conclusion.
Growing up, I had many implicit assumptions about what conservative Christians should believe about politics, including immigration. My current career goals would have seemed unthinkable to my tenth-grade, Trumpian self. Likewise, some people close to me see my pursuit of immigration law as unthinkable. This past Thanksgiving my grandfather asked me skeptically, “So how does your goal of being an immigration lawyer align with your conservative beliefs?” I smiled. I knew he was bound to ask at some point. While his assumption may have also been debatable, I only had time to give an incomplete answer before we had to go downstairs for a boat ride. “Immigration is about families,” I replied, “and conservatives are for family values, right?” The world is full of false dichotomies, but I see connections where others often see differences.
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In tenth grade I was Donald Trump. Standing on a stage in front of 20-30 people, mostly fellow high school students, my debate partner and I argued that the United States should make it so unpleasant for illegal immigrants to live here that they would voluntarily self-deport. We were debating in a demonstration round for new students in our club, and since it was the beginning of the school year, we hastily chose a case we thought was the obvious solution to an obvious problem. Our case would feel right at home on Trump’s campaign position page on immigration. It was also a comfortable choice in our national, Christian home-school debate league. But by the time competition season rolled around, I had ceased my inadvertent Trump impersonation. Rather than passively receiving opinions from my social context, I developed my own opinions through research. My partner and I were now running an “open immigration” case to lift quotas on green cards. At first this seemed like a risky decision since the judges were predominately hyper-conservative, Christian home-school parents, a group stereotypically against liberal immigration policies. Yet despite this risk, we had a winning record. Though this debate topic sparked my interest in immigration policy, I never even considered going into immigration law until a few years later.
I did not know I would encounter this career idea when I walked into my first class at COLLEGE NAME, an upper-level Spanish course: “Hispanics in the United States.” The reading list included a book by Jorge Ramos entitled La Otra Cara de América, which means “the other face of America.” Even as I struggled with understanding the Spanish, I found the book true to its name. It showed me faces—stories of immigrants’ experiences and struggles in the United States. The course motivated me to better my Spanish and to become involved with the local immigrant community. Up until this point in time, I had always emphatically denied wanting to go to law school, but in my third journal assignment for the class, I pondered for the first time becoming an immigration lawyer. But I usually kept that idea to myself.
Beginning in my second year of college, I tried to immerse myself more in the thriving immigrant community of CITY, STATE. I filled my schedule with off-campus activities such as joining the Spanish-speaking service at my church and helping with my church’s after-school program and ESL classes. Proximity is a powerful catalyst for empathy. Suddenly, I found myself changing from someone who was only “interested in” immigration to someone who cared about immigrants, and as I gained proficiency in Spanish, I could communicate with them too. My favorite day of the week was Thursday when I went to the after-school program and stayed afterward for the adult ESL class. The after-school program was for the kids who lived in the trailer park located behind my church, and most of their parents were first-generation immigrants from Mexico. Over the next couple years, I also began using class assignments to write about immigration law and policy whenever the opportunity arose. For example, in my senior thesis I researched how current hardship standards in cancellation of removal cases affect family unity and the rights and wellbeing of children. The values guiding me were not so different than the ones I grew up with; they just led me to a different conclusion.
Growing up, I had many implicit assumptions about what conservative Christians should believe about politics, including immigration. My current career goals would have seemed unthinkable to my tenth-grade, Trumpian self. Likewise, some people close to me see my pursuit of immigration law as unthinkable. This past Thanksgiving my grandfather asked me skeptically, “So how does your goal of being an immigration lawyer align with your conservative beliefs?” I smiled. I knew he was bound to ask at some point. While his assumption may have also been debatable, I only had time to give an incomplete answer before we had to go downstairs for a boat ride. “Immigration is about families,” I replied, “and conservatives are for family values, right?” The world is full of false dichotomies, but I see connections where others often see differences.
Last edited by Liz18 on Tue Jan 12, 2016 3:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
