The month of May is coming to a close, and so too, the
school year.
J.J. Maldonado is ending his middle school career with a
flourish of good grades. This is not unexpected, as he is a good student. The
other day, J.J.’s mother was showing off her son’s many awards. Tucked in amongst the papers was a very fine certificate
from the White House. President Obama had written J.J., offering him
congratulations and encouragement and wishing him “the very best in the years
ahead.”
Sr. Irma, a Daughter of Charity who knows the family well, sighed.
“He is a Dream Act child,” she said, “he will need more than best wishes.”
The Dream Act, a piece of bi-partisan legislation that would
offer a legal remedy to those who were brought to the United States as children,
continues to languish in Congress, one more captive in the polarized national
political scene.
A.B. Troncoso ended his high school soccer career with a
bang. A.B. is an all-star defender and a senior, and when his team was awarded
a penalty try toward the end of a playoff game, the coach sent him out to take
the shot. His family was at the game, and they raced to the edge of the stadium
seating, cameras at hand, watching, anxiously, as their brother raced toward
the ball.
He hit a powerful shot that boomed! as it hit the bar. He
had missed, barely, but he did miss. As A.B. trotted off, disappointed, even as the sound of his miss continued to echo from across the way, his older sister Claudia, herself
quite the soccer player, cheered him on. She knew the nature of
setbacks—temporary in nature, offering an opportunity to recalculate and make
the necessary adjustments. A.B. had one more game to play, and then he moves on
to college, where he might just get more shots on goal.
Claudia is a Dream Act candidate herself, and so knows a bit
about setbacks. She is a stellar student who graduated from college last May. Claudia
was set to return to Mexico when her grandmother came to see her. Her
grandmother told Claudia that she had taken a second job, and hoped that that
income would help Claudia start graduate school in Brownsville. “Matamoros is
no place to come to right now,” said Claudia’s grandmother, referring to the horrors
of the violence of that failed city. Claudia did in fact begin graduate school,
studying psychology in the hopes of having something to offer the many children
of Matamoros who have been witnesses to the unspeakable, and who need someone
to help them heal.
We move from May into the summer and an election season.
There are those amongst us who wish to experience “the very best” and there are
those amongst us who wish to help to heal others. They would like a chance to take shot on goal, and
they are waiting to see if there is someone out there who would offer them that
chance. In the meantime, J.J. and A.B. and Claudia recalculate the course of
their lives, watching and waiting yet another setback—or a chance to score.
