We need you to speak up for our little DREAMers
by Lily
Call this number: 1-866-632-6057
Just call it. Really. Just do it. You call, and something amazing happens. You call, and the National Education Association through some sort of technomagical stuff I will simply never understand and never want to will connect you with someone who has the power of granting a child’s most cherished dream.
But you have to call: 1-866-632-6057
Wednesday (June 5th) and Thursday (June 6th) the NEA is sponsoring a National Call In Day for Dreamers. The Senate is preparing to debate the most important immigration bill our country has seen in decades. Included in this monumental step towards compassionate, comprehensive reform of a broken system are protections for families to stay together; a path to citizenship for hardworking immigrants; and, for our Dreamers – our students who were brought here as children and who dream of belonging to a country they call home, a chance to finally become a citizen.
Did you call yet? 1-866-632-6057 ?
Call, because as an educator, you have a unique perspective to add to this debate. You know the names of these beautiful Dreamers. Those of us employed in a public school know their families. We know their hopes. We know their fears.
We can talk about those fears when we call: 1-866-632-6057
The fear of deportation lives with them. Fear sits at the table with them. Fear peeks over their shoulders as they do their homework. Fear sleeps on the pillows they put their heads on each night.
Even kindergarten children understand, as no child should ever have to understand, that they might come home someday to an empty house because of an immigration raid at their parents’ workplace. They understand that a big sister may be here without documents and a little brother may have been born here, a citizen. They know their big sister can be sent away without a chance to say goodbye.
You know how to tell their story to a senator who needs to know their story. Your senator’s office is going to pick up the phone when you call: 1-866-632-6057
Don’t be intimidated. You are an educator. You can help these powerful men and women in the Senate understand what you so powerfully understand. The bill that the Senate will debate would give these families a chance to live, work, go to school, take a vacation and follow their dreams without fear.
But you must call: 1-866-632-6057
You don’t need talking points. Just tell them you love all the students you serve unconditionally. Tell them you love all the families you serve unconditionally. Tell them many of these students and their families are immigrants who came here hoping for a better life.
Tell them to pass immigration reform that will keep loving families together. Tell them to pass immigration reform that will lead to citizenship.
Tell them to pass immigration reform that will give our students brought here without documents – our Dreamers, all our Dreamers, even our Littlest Dreamers – a five-year path to citizenship; a path out of fear and into the light of limitless possibilities for their lives.
Tell them in your classroom, in your school, in your community, that Dreamers are Welcome.
Make the call. 1-866-632-6057
Then make others make the call. Give your friends and neighbors the number and ask them to make the call: 1-866-632-6057
Give the people who sit next to you at church the number and beg them to make the call: 1-866-632-6057
Give the people who sit next to you at the pub where you have a beer or the coffee shop where you grab something to-go or the cash register where you checkout or your Facebook friends – Give everyone you can email, tweet, message or mail the number: 1-866-632-6057
But start with yourself.
1-866-632-6057
1-866-632-6057
1-866-632-6057
1-866-632-6057
1-866-632-6057
It’s technomagic. It’s making dreams come true.