A Point of View © 1996
By Paul V. Montesino, Ph.D., MBA, ICCP.
As a concerned parent of two children before and a college professor of many years later, the health and wellbeing of my family and my students, an extended family when you are really a teacher, I always worried about them.
It was important that they had a good breakfast, lunch and dinner. It was also beneficial if they had a good night’s sleep. And do I have to say anything about their environment and the quality of their lives? How about sufficient time for recreation and studying? There’s no question in my mind that those factors help any child grow healthy and smart. I don’t now any other parents who does not feel the same for their offspring. That’s why my mind gets offended and my heart wounded when I watch the so-called “Dreamers” demonstrating in the streets asking for a chance to be simply…. “students.”
Many years ago, as a university student in Cuba, it was impossible for me and thousands of others to study because classes had been interrupted or the institutions of higher education had been paralyzed by strikes and dangerous street demonstrations. The plight of these dreamers as immigrants today has clouded the fact that, at an early age when their only concern should be to understand and learn from their books and teachers, they must abandon that legitimate undertaking because society has abandoned them for new political reasons, none related to education.
As a teacher, I cannot think of any other nightmare that would keep me awake at night. It is cruel and unusual punishment, a violation of the eighth amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Not only that, it’s also unfair and unamerican.
And that is my point of view today.
