Overview:
Mindfulness can help students in immigrant communities manage fear and stress amid the uncertainty of immigration enforcement.
Unidentified black SUVs swarming the parking lot, strange, official-looking men yet no badges, and a distinct, overwhelming fear. I will never forget my first encounter with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in my school community. It marked the start of an era in our predominantly Latinx neighborhood, a close-knit community of mostly Central Americans fleeing violence and instability in their home countries, coming to the United States for opportunity and a better future. I followed the raids and subsequent protests in Los Angeles closely, feeling so much solidarity and similarity between our communities despite the thousands of miles between us.
Although I hoped with all my being that maybe we would escape the surveillance and evade the infiltration of our community, the frequency of ICE did not abate, but only increased at an alarming rate. A recent graduate was deported despite a perfect record, free of any arrest, and excellence not only in the classroom but also on the soccer field. Several parents were detained after routine check-in immigration appointments, and the ever-present fear made me acutely aware that this upcoming school year, I needed a strategy that would help me lead our staff in creating a safe environment for students beyond what our incredible teachers already do, or at least, allow students to develop coping mechanisms in a landscape flooded with uncertainty.
As my school has been a safe haven for the growing immigrant population within our community for years, we already have established partnerships with local non-profits that assist with legal aid for immigration, and our district has already created policies for welcoming all students regardless of immigration status and procedures regarding the event of ICE at school. Even with all of these safeguards, I knew that I still needed to create a plan on how to help students navigate the reality of fear and uncertainty. While many of our students were born in the United States and have citizenship, the reality is that many of their parents and loved ones were born abroad and remain undocumented despite navigating the incredibly complex immigration system with legal help.
With fifteen years of experience educating multilingual learners, I have frequently worked closely with lawyers and non-profits that aid immigrant communities, as being an educator and an advocate have increasingly become synonymous. As I work closely with content teachers, pushing into classrooms and helping co-plan, there are many opportunities to discuss current events and create units that are related to immigration, teaching students their rights in the context of our current units of study.
However, we still often are tied to a curriculum that is not related, and find less and less time in the school day as we catch up students from academic loss from the pandemic and poverty in general. I also found that I needed to walk a fine line, one between not losing hope, providing enough safety so students can learn, and also the reality that I cannot control what happens outside of the school walls. As much as it breaks my heart, I cannot promise that the families with which we work so closely will not be deported. Although I understand the immigration system more than many, as a daughter of a refugee and a veteran educator, I still am not a lawyer and do not know the complexities of immigration law, and cannot assuage the very real fear many students have. After hours of conversations with lawyers, advocates, social workers, and community members, I found a solution that was within the realm of my control.
Mindfulness.
I have come to understand that while I cannot control the world outside our school walls, I can help develop agency within my students, helping them stay present in the environment they are in and keep fear at bay. In a study of mindfulness-based interventions with children and adolescents, Zoogman, Goldberg, Hoyt, and Miller (2015) found that mindfulness practices help students develop emotional regulation, which can buffer the psychological effects of stress and uncertainty by increasing their capacity to stay present with difficult emotions. By spending time teaching mindfulness strategies, I can keep my students focused, teaching them content that will help them excel no matter their circumstances, and also teach them a strategy that can help them in this uncertain environment.
Yet more researchers, Klingbeil and Renshaw, found that mindfulness-based programs serve as effective tier one strategies by promoting self-awareness and reducing anxiety, particularly during periods of academic or social uncertainty (2017). With mindfulness, students have been able to enhance self-regulation, reduce reactivity to stress, promote emotional resilience, and navigate unpredictable and challenging environments. These strategies, again, are meant as tier one, meaning they should be taught to all students and can help all students, no matter their circumstances.
Although mindfulness does not cure all, and must be used in tandem with advocacy, along with real change to our immigration system, it does give me a real, tangible strategy I can bring to this upcoming school year. While I must continuously interrogate curriculum and provide opportunities for students to explore immigration topics in a meaningful way, I can still create real change within my locus of control by teaching mindfulness as a skill to stay present and grounded. In the era of ICE, I have more questions than answers on how we can reduce harm to our precious community, but at least, in the meantime, I feel like I have a step in the direction of hope.
Works Cited
Klingbeil, D. A., Renshaw, T.L., Willenbrink, H.B., Cheka, R.A, Chan, K.T., Haddock, A., Yasmine, J., & Clifton, J. (2017). Mindfulness-based interventions with youth. A comprehensive meta-analysis of group-design students. Journal of School Psychology, 63, 77-103. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsp.2017.03.006
Zoogman, S., Goldberg, S.B., Hoyt, W.T., & Miller, L. (2015). Mindfulness interveionts with youth: A meta-analysis. Mindfulness, 6(2), 290-302. Https://doi.org/10.1007/ s12671-013-0260-4
Carmen Hayes is a multilingual learner teacher with over fifteen years of experience in urban school districts. She is passionate about immigrant rights and social justice issues. She loves the ocean and her goal is to find which beach has the bluest water.
