My new friend

I believe that an underlying theme throughout this section relates to our previous readings regarding collective responsibility, connection, community, mourning, politics and the United States’ (Or individually) responsibility to the global context. Like the essay asserts, I could reflect on America’s recent actions in the war and our place as a nation, a puzzle piece in the world. While this is absolutely important, I don’t quite FEEL the connection. While it is my fault that I do not actively participate or educate myself about politics and international relations, I feel that my place in the world right now is right where I am and exactly what I am doing. My service-learning was simply to tutor impoverished youth, mostly of Latino descent, of the middle school age. Sounds pretty easy and straightforward, right? Well it’s not. My service has become much more than that.

(In the following account, I am changing the girls name)

Laura is 13 and is the seventh grade at a local middle school. She is Guatemalan. She is undocumented. My initial judgment of her was that she was an average, self-consumed, materialistic teenager like I was at that age. I would work with her and she liked me because I let her get away without working on homework for 2 hours straight. I would chat in between math problems, switch off typing definitions with her, and read or summarize or history out loud, while explaining in a context of something she could relate to. This challenge was not simple. For days, and even now, I grapple with the idea of motivation and education. How do you motivate children, especially those in poverty, to want to learn, to be able to differentiate between the life they live now and their future opportunities?
As time has passed, Laura has told me more about her family life. It started with questions about friends and boys, then my parents. Slowly she revealed to me that her home-life was not stable nor a happy place. Her mom hits her often when she is mad or when Laura talks back. The step-father has hit the2 year old baby. The one-room apartment houses 2 uncles in the living room and the single bedroom has the baby, Laura, her younger sister, her mom and her step dad. Once, I asked if she wanted to come to dinner here at Dominican. As we drove to her apartment afterwards, she told me she was not ready to go home, she wanted to just drive in circles for a little bit. My heart was crushed.
Many people have recently asked me “why don’t you tell? You need to tell!”
I don’t tell because it is not that simple. She is aware of her situation and she is aware of her options. She doesn’t feel in dire danger and she is not ready to go to a foster home. Laura is a very intelligent, persevering, determined, YOUNG girl. Although many would say it is my responsibility to tell, I do not think interrupting her life is the best option at the moment. Her family is illegal, and therefore in telling authorities, they could get deported. Sometimes, when CPS gets involved they make the situation much, much worse. Foster children often grow up angrier. There are also many more complex issues involved. I do my best to stay involved with her and be her friend, not an adult, authoritarian figure. After I explained to her my position and my desired obligation to tell, she insisted that I don’t yet. She wants to try to make things better in her household first. Although she is young, I respect her opinion. In America society, we often think, that adults know what is best. In America, we often think that we as American know what is best. I refuse to act impulsively anymore. I refuse to think of my notions of how life should be and what should be done are correct.
I will continue to remind Laura that she is beautiful, smart, tough, and great. I will continue to keep my eyes open for signs of extreme violence or danger and I will act when the time is right. I will also encourage Laura to make decisions, and realize options are always there. I will also, continue to be her tutor in school, her vent with drama, her advice, her answers, but most of all her friend. I respect her as an individual, and not simply as someone younger and therefore lower than myself, but a girl who has just as much to teach me about life as I have to offer her.
“Let’s face it, We’re undone by each other …” (23).