{"id":158242,"date":"2026-01-31T18:24:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T18:24:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/158242\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T18:24:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T18:24:11","slug":"seeing-america-through-eyes-of-immigrant-students-could-teach-ice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/158242\/","title":{"rendered":"Seeing America through eyes of immigrant students could teach ICE"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/a>A young relative of a new citizen cheers from the crowd of immigrants at a swearing-in ceremony. (File photo by Chris Stone\/Times of San Diego)<\/p>\n

People are posting pictures from 2016. I look at those posts and the first thing I think is: There\u2019s no going back to that. We are a vastly different country than we were 10 years ago. We are a fundamentally different population. And for the worse.<\/p>\n

\"Opinion<\/a><\/p>\n

What makes me most sad is seeing how cynical I\u2019ve become since then. Even after the current president leaves office or dies, we now know that democracy only works if those in charge agree to the rules. The lack of consequences this presidency has faced will only embolden whoever\u2019s next.<\/p>\n

Really, the only thing that gives me hope in America now is seeing it through the eyes of immigrant students.<\/p>\n

This is my fourth year as a teacher in the San Diego Unified School District<\/a>, and I\u2019ve taught ELD (English Language Development, the updated term for ESL) to newcomer immigrant students for three of those years. I love it.<\/p>\n

I can easily imagine spending the rest of my career teaching ELD. The students are eager to learn and generally more engaged than American students.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve also found that newcomer students are more game to try new things and take risks in the classroom, which was the basis for attempting a big, ambitious project last semester: getting newcomer students to talk about their immigration stories.<\/p>\n

The end product would be mini-podcasts meant to spread awareness in the community and potentially help others in similar situations.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to get these kids to talk about their stories. Most literally don\u2019t have the language. Even if they did, there\u2019s so much trauma embedded in their journeys that it\u2019s often an horrific experience for them.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s also not forget that a project like this has high potential for exploitation. The last thing I wanted was for this to have an agenda, something well-meaning white people would listen to while nodding along, tightlipped and mmhmm-ing.<\/p>\n

But kids are good at spotting ulterior motives and phoniness, and most students were eager to talk.<\/p>\n

To hear these kids\u2019 stories, and then see state-sponsored violence against immigrants, is a disconnect that a fundamentally broken society could produce. As I learned, nearly all these kids came here for better opportunities and more security. The vast majority are thankful to be here.<\/p>\n

I swear, if one of the job requirements for being in ICE was to spend a significant amount of time in an ELD classroom, there would be no ICE.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a sampling of what the students said.<\/p>\n

They shared beautiful moments of their home countries:<\/p>\n

I am from Mexico, Guerrero. My life [there] was \u2026 was good because every day I went to play with my friends and It was also bad because there was a lot of deaths \u2026 in my town. I have many fond memories, but there is one in particular that I will never forget and that is when I was 8 years old, I went to the basketball court, but on that court we played more soccer than basketball, making the goals with two stones. And you know, It was weird because when we started playing, my friends and I noticed that suddenly a lot of people started arriving and they started applauding.<\/p>\n

They talked about the United States\u2019 notable diversity.<\/p>\n

Challenges that I face when I first moved to the U.S we\u2019re had to go to a shelter in Texas. It was very uncomfortable I didn\u2019t sleep well, I didn\u2019t eat well either \u2014 there was a time to go to sleep and a time to wake up, some different laws is the apps use without being 18+. In my country, you can use the apps without that problem. In my country, some of us are very racist with black people, and here, in the U.S., I had never seen someone racist yet, and I feel happy about it.<\/p>\n

And most seemed to believe life here was better than life in their home countries.<\/p>\n

To those planning to come to the United States \u2014 make sure you speak English. Bring a thick jacket, and be cautious so that they don\u2019t deport you. Don\u2019t sign any paper without reading it first. If you don\u2019t understand something, use Google Translate. One thing that brings me happiness in the United States is the beautiful sky. The sky can make you feel happy when you see how much things God is capable of and how beautiful his creations are in their own way.<\/p>\n

Ryan Bradford is a writer and educator living in City Heights. His writing has appeared in San Diego Union Tribune, San Diego Magazine, Voice of San Diego and Vice. He writes the newsletter awkwardsd.substack.com<\/a>, where a version of this piece <\/a>first appeared.<\/p>\n

READ NEXT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A young relative of a new citizen cheers from the crowd of immigrants at a swearing-in ceremony. (File…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":158243,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[77226,2871,2872,77227,74,76,75,3183],"class_list":["post-158242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-esl","tag-ice","tag-immigrants","tag-ryan-bradford","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news","tag-students"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=158242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/158243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=158242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=158242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=158242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}