In the article titled “Diles la Verdad: Deportation Policies, Politicized Funds of Knowledge, and Schooling in Middle Childhood,” authors Sarah Gallo and Holly Link examine the influence of immigration enforcement policies on the educational experiences of Latina/o children. They put forward the idea of politicized funds of knowledge—the understanding and skills immigrant children acquire through their experience with the immigration system but cannot safely reveal in classrooms. Their ethnographic case study of Ben, a little boy who is Mexican-American, shows that trauma, fear, and distrust are not only deeply tied to learning results but also to the very potential of the child being able to take part in the school environment. This viewpoint of structural vulnerability echoes the discussions from the “Equity in Practice” webinar, where scholars such as Dr. Artiles and Dr. Choipena challenge the hegemonic frameworks in special education that push kids who are multilingual and have disabilities to the edge via similarly inflexible and decontextualized systems.
The authors portray the school as a place of silence for children similar to Ben, not support. After he has seen the arrest of his father by ICE agents, Ben is under continuous psychological trauma. However, he makes the decision of not talking about the whole situation in the school. He says that he did not want to feel “ashamed” and thought that “the teacher won’t do nothing [to help]” (p. 368). He is not talking his way into silence out of lack of resilience or lack of interest but rather as a strategic approach to perceived risk and distrust. In the same way, a classmate of his described the situation, “Yo no hablo de esto a las maestras. Todavia no les tengo demasiada confianza para contarles algo” (p. 370), which emphasizes the gap between the students and their teachers in terms of emotional connection.
The classroom being a place where one cannot be their full self directly reflects how the case of multilingual students with disabilities is handled in the education system as per the discussions in the webinar “Equity in Practice.” Dr. Artiles vehemently opposes the “medical model” of disability which dissects and isolates individual students’ cases without paying attention to the broader socio-cultural forces influencing the students’ educational experiences. He argues: “This means that individual factors are emphasized with less attention to contextual and cultural considerations.” Just as the immigrant children are made to feel that their understanding of deportation is taboo or of no use, similarly, the non-English speaking students’ language needs and cultural ways of coping with the disability are often misinterpreted or completely ignored by the school system.
Both sources highlight the unpreparedness of the educators as a central factor in the perpetuation of these injustices. Mrs. Ryan, Ben’s teacher, expressed her hesitation in dealing with the issue: “I didn’t want to dig too deep… I didn’t want to ask too many questions” (p. 369). Ms. Vega was not sure either and remarked, “You talk about cultures, you don’t talk about immigration” (p. 370). This indicates one major concern: teachers with good intentions often feel trapped by the vagueness of the law or the lack of training which, in turn, keeps them from being able to affirm the students’ identities and experiences. Likewise, Dr. Choipena mentioned in the webinar that even IEP documents are seldom translated, although it is required by law, and families are often misinterpreted as "uninvolved" when in fact they are making strategic decisions rooted in care, cultural values, and mistrust of institutions.
Both texts offer a glimpse of hope through the systemic change which is built upon trust, humanization, and intersectionality. Gallo and Link propose that it is only through these confianza-based relationships, formed very deep and centered on trust, that the students would be able to share their politicized funds of knowledge in such a way as to enrich learning: “teachers’ attempts to talk with them… will not work without the foundation of confianza-based relationships” (p. 377). The same way, the webinar suggests that there should be policies addressing issues concerning race, language, and disability simultaneously. One of the panelists remarked, “We need programming options that center multilingualism rather than English monolingualism for students with disabilities.”
In both instances, the problem is not only about accepting but also about changing, establishing new criteria for judging knowledge, defining which relationships receive nurturing, and whose stories are allowed in the classroom. Children like Ben do not lack knowledge; they are rather the bearers of deep wisdom about borders, trauma, resilience, and survival. A student expressed this in the following poem:“Cameras watching night and day… climbing mountains crossing angry rivers… Footprints of police ICE sounds of walkietalkies… Finally! the American flag we made it” (p. 370). This is more than just poetry; it is a curriculum. It is a policy. It is a lived experience.