What is Resistance?
Do a Hopeful Thing. And Then Do It Again.
R. Gabriela Barajas-Gonzalez, PhD
First-graders displayed so much anxiety that their teachers were asking for help. I remember that as the moment I decided I had to do something.
It was 2016. I was a few years out of my doctoral program, and I was trying to find my way in academia as a developmental psychologist. I was the project director of a longitudinal study focusing on Latine child development during the transition to preschool and kindergarten. The project had been going on for several years, with more than 20 school sites participating across New York City. As part of our partnership, we offered workshops to educators and parents.
Workshop topics included “the importance of routines” and “supporting healthy nutrition habits.” That election year, though, teachers said that what they really needed was help managing student anxiety. They shared that anxiety among students was presenting at a magnitude they had never seen before. We asked teachers what they were seeing in their classrooms. The day after the election, one teacher shared, “children were crying, children were saying things to each other about the election. We had children who were breaking down, hiding in the closets, hiding in different places in the classroom, afraid that immigration was going to come get them, that their families were going to be torn apart.” Families had been watching TV news and talking politics. Young children were affected by the charged sociopolitical climate. The principal and school counselor visited each classroom, the teacher said, in an attempt to calm the students. The children “were so upset and said they would be sent back to Mexico,” one teacher said. “Some argued about whether they had papers so they wouldn’t be sent.”
Not The Right Kind of American
I not only heard their anxiety, I recognized it. These kids were like me when I was little, in an immigrant family where safety was not assured.
I grew up in California, and la migra was often in the area. My parents are immigrants from Mexico. My mom was educated to 2nd grade, and my dad to 6th grade, and both started working at a young age. Eventually, they were able to get green cards. But I always was aware that I had a different level of safety than my parents did, because I was born here and they were not. And I was also aware that, even though I was born here, I had a different level of safety than my white friends.
“You’re safe because you’re a citizen,” my parents would tell me. “You're an American.” But then I’d go to school, see differences in how kids were treated, and think, “OK, but I'm not the right kind of American.” Despite the lack of formal education in my household, I went on to Stanford University. I then went on to earn my Ph.D. from Columbia University. Motivated by my passion for child health and education, I became a researcher in academia.
If I stayed silent while children suffered—as a U.S.-born citizen, as a daughter of immigrants, and as a developmental psychologist—then what did I do all of this for?
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Parents have the right to make decisions about the care and safety of their children, even while in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody. The 
