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We pay our silence with the future of our children

Francisco Miraval

Last week, while reading the front page of a certain publication, I immediately noticed the use of certain words in the headlines of that publication, including words such as “failure,” “struggles,” “divisions,” “problems,” “scrutiny,” and others. And that was the front page of a newspaper devoted to education issues.

A short time later, I read a press release, this time about a health campaign. The document used interesting words, including “risks,” battles,” “impediments,” and “ignorance,” all words with clearly negative connotations.

It was easy to see that both publications used similar words, but there was yet another coincidence: both publications focused on minorities and more specifically on non-English speaking immigrants.

The subtext in both publications seemed to indicate that there are no education or health issues in the United States, but there are people who will not adapt or accept the excellent programs already in place. In fact, it seems those minority groups prefer to keep their culture instead of abandoning their communitarian approach to life and replace it by an individualistic approach.

In fact, in one of the publications, the one about health issues, the subtext was not really hidden and the “implicit” message was so close to the surface that it was easy to see it. The message was that in a certain area of the country all local health issues were created by immigrants who, lacking English and enough financial resources, were unable or unwilling to access available health care services.

In it interesting to note that, in the case of the health campaign, none of the “experts” in charge of the campaign spoke another language and none spoke with immigrants. And in the case of the education publication, none of the stories written about minorities were written by people belonging to the groups those stories spoke about.

In other words, others speak about us, pointing out we are the problem. At the same time, for several different reasons, we remain silent. As somebody recently said to me, “I can’t talk, because I will lose my job.” Whatever the case, we pay our silence, even when justified, with the future of our children.

I am not talking about the silence of saying nothing. I am talking about the silence of allowing others to control the dialogue about us and of speaking only according to the parameters others established for such a dialogue.

However, we cannot be silent when headlines present a distorted version of who we are. It should be obvious I am not talking about yelling at others, being hostile to others, or being disrespectful. All those attitudes will prevent the dialogue we need to generate. Regardless, we still need to say something.

The current socio-economic situation and the rapid demographic changes at a national and global level should be reason enough to speak. After all, in just a few short years, our children will be an important segment of the voters and the labor force in this country. Because of them, we need to speak.

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