Dear Freedom Writer: Stories of Hardship and Hope from the Next Generation

Erin Gruwell took a job student teaching at Woodrow Wilson High School in Long Beach, California in 1994. Over the next four years, she found she changed not only her own life but also those of the 150 students that passed through her classroom

here is a long history of discrimination against people of Asian descent in the United States. Prominent examples include restrictive immigration laws beginning in the 1880s and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Though anti-Asian racism has often drawn less attention than other forms of racism, it has remained a problem into the twenty-first century. Notably, as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) grew into a global pandemic in 2020, documented incidents of anti-Asian violence also began to rise. Watchdog groups such as the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, and Stop Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Hate noted drastic spikes in hate crimes and other discrimination linked to COVID-19 in 2020 and 2021.

Urban schools carry a burden not shared by those in wealthier communities. Like all schools, they’re expected to teach, but in order to teach, they also need to help students overcome the debilitating effects of poverty. Given what amounts to a double mission, it’s hardly surprising so many often fall short, sometimes spectacularly so. Still, some schools, including the four described here, appear to be succeeding, largely by focusing on the whole child and not just on what we traditionally think of as “the student”—a kid who comes to school primed to learn. Mitchel, for one, is hopeful that the approach can work. “If it can be done in some schools,” he says, “it can be done in all.”

This section presents a guide that may help readers make a critical analysis of the debate about the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) Hate Crimes Act that was signed in response to the increasing incidents of anti-Asian hate crimes in the U.S. in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Topics discussed include the need to take note of the contrasting commentaries offered, the differences between facts and opinions, and the bibliographic sources that need to be acknowledged.

Test scores are down, and violence is up. Parents are screaming at school boards, and children are crying on the couches of social workers. Anger is rising. Patience is falling.

For public schools, the numbers are all going in the wrong direction. Enrollment is down. Absenteeism is up. There aren't enough teachers, substitutes or bus drivers. Each phase of the pandemic brings new logistics to manage

The problem in America now is the same one it failed to see elsewhere. The American "super-group" is breaking down into screaming tribes. From the snarling talking heads of Fox News to the students at private universities yelling at their professors for not paying enough heed to their race or sexuality ...

Rob Sullivan still remembers the gun and the sound of his mother's high-pitched pleas. Two thieves had burst into his parents' Hartford home. Demanding his father's dope stash, one of the men placed a gun to Rob's right temple. ''Just give it to them,'' his mother begged his father.

He was 6 years old.

The incident, charred in his memory, was an early trauma among many he recalls from his childhood. He watched his father beat his mother for not having dinner ready on time or for not cleaning the house, he said. Often, she fought back. Sometimes when he got home, his parents were too drunk or high to let him in. Truancy charges landed him in juvenile detention in his early teens.

Immigrant and minority youth are at risk of experiencing victimization due to their ethnic, cultural, or religious background. Despite an increasing number of studies that aims at understanding the consequences of being the target of such negative experiences, little attention has been paid to the factors that might counteract the occurrence of ethnic victimization

The world is facing a learning crisis. While countries have significantly increased access to education, being in school isn’t the same thing as learning. Worldwide, hundreds of millions of children reach young adulthood without even the most basic skills like calculating the correct change from a transaction, reading a doctor’s instructions

Over the last decade, multiple studies of food insecurity among college students have found rates from 20% to more than 50%, considerably higher than the 12% rate for the entire US population. Reasons for higher rates of food insecurity among college students include a growing population of low-income college students, high college costs and insufficient financial aid, more financial hardship among many low- and moderate-income families, a weak labor market for part-time workers, declining per capita college resources, and Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) policies that specifically exclude many college students from participation. This essay reviews the causes and consequences of food insecurity on campus, explores reasons for the low SNAP participation rate, and describes how campuses have responded to food insecurity. It summarizes federal, state, and local changes in SNAP policies that can facilitate college student participation and retention and suggests strategies for more robust and effective university responses to food insecurity, including SNAP enrollment campaigns, a stronger role for campus food services, and a redefinition of the goals and purposes of campus food pantries.