By Jan Peña-Davis –

“Thank you for coming today,” was my daily greeting to my class of high school juniors and seniors at Roberto Clemente Community Academy in Chicago’s Humboldt Park neighborhood. I know that the simple of act of getting to school requires enormous fortitude.

Do I introduce metaphors or similes? I wonder, as I scan their faces certain that neither one will immediately impact the amount of money in their pocket or food on the table or simply how to survive another day.

I smile at one of my 16-year-old Mexican students. His father wants him to quit school and work. He hasn’t yet. He comes every day on time.

He’s one of the many stars in my class. I’m almost certain class time functions as therapy for him, perhaps for all of us as well. His stories touch our collective hearts and take our breath away. When we cry, we cry as one, not male or female or black or brown. We cry as human beings with dreams.

He is undocumented. I hate the word ‘illegal’. I’m offended when it’s used to describe one’s status in the United States. And, I feel equally as strong when ‘tolerance’ is used to determine the level of how people of color will be embraced. But this isn’t my story, it’s his.

He wrote of his difficult journey from Mexico to Chicago. Of how he traveled only with his mother and sister because his father was already in the United States. He recounted one difficult portion of the trip where someone died and was buried in an unmarked grave in the desert. Often times, there was not enough food and he was afraid to sleep because he sensed the need to protect the females.

He shared with the class how one of his cousins has taken on the identity of a deceased relative in order to work and maintain his status in the United States. I wonder if that cousin is really his father. But I don’t ask.

This year his ACT scores went through the roof. He’s should be wooed by schools looking for talent not just seeking to fulfill quotas. He wants to be a surgeon or a lawyer. He’s young. In a perfect world, he need not decide right away. He WANTS to go to college. He can’t. He doesn’t have papers. But more pressing is his father’s insisting that he learn how to fix cars so he can immediately contribute to the family’s survival.

Another dream bites the dust, so our tears continue to flow.

How do I connect,? As a female, a ‘Blatina’, black and Cuban, how do I get them to believe that there is a ‘pot of gold’ at the end of the rainbow? What do I teach them. What do I say?

I tell them the truth.

I again scan the faces of my class and ask, “Any homework?” Four hands are raised. Most avoid my eyes.

I asked them to turn their desks to face the window. My ethical responsibility was taking shape. I knew I couldn’t get my students to buy into anything they didn’t or couldn’t believe in, but I could guide them into first believing in themselves.

“No talking” was my directive. “Take out some paper, look out the window and without censorship, write down your thoughts and feelings. But most importantly, begin to dream.”

Maybe I could squeeze in a simile or metaphor before class ends. Just maybe.