My Job

I teach English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) at South Graham Elementary School, in Graham, North Carolina. The children I serve are awesome. Their parents are amazingly involved in their education, and I have come to know many of them.

I have no idea about their legal status. A Supreme Court ruling prohibits school personnel from asking about that, but I wouldn't ask it even if I had a right to do so. Still, I think it is highly likely that some of them are undocumented.

What impresses me about them is the level to which they are involved with their children's education. They attend parent-teacher conferences, show up to PTO meetings (PTA for some of you) and extra-curricular events in amazingly high numbers, and advocate for their children. They show great concern that their children not only learn the academic curriculum, but learn the values of American society.

Many parents have spoken with me about this issue. They want their children to learn respect for law and order, respect for their fellow students and their teachers, the value of hard work and preparing for the future. In essence, they want the same things for their children that I want for mine.

How, we might ask, can they claim to value law and order when at least some of them have clearly broken the law to get here? This is an important question, and one on which I hope to dedicate a good deal of energy in this blog. My own impression is that they do indeed value law and order. What I am interested in exploring is how they understand their own action of crossing the border in light of this value.

What is "Immigrant Economy"?

Immigrant Economy is a blog about the relationship between the U.S. economy and immigration (both legal and illegal).

Why is immigration such a difficult topic to discuss? Who benefits from illegal immigration? Why does the Republican party insist on characterizing any attempt to provide legal status to the millions of undocumented workers among us as "amnesty"? What is the motivation behind the use of that term? What are the factors that motivate people to come to the U.S. illegally? What problems are created for legal immigrants by the current state of the immigration debate?

These and many related questions provide the motivation and focus of this blog.