Interview with Monica Teixeira de Sousa Conducted in early May 2009 by Action Speaks! Producer Cheryl Kaminsky

Monica Teixeira de Sousa, born in Lisbon, Portugal, is a shining example of a first generation immigrant success story. Admitted to the American Bar Association by age 26, Teixeira de Sousa has a prestigious resume and a career that resembles the classic parental dream for a child's future. Teixeira de Sousa now works as an Assistant Professor of Law at New England Law | Boston and is a former Rhode Island Legal Services staff attorney. Specializing in Education Law and Education and Class Mobility, Teixeira de Sousa also teaches Family Law and Property. She has also dedicated a great deal of thought and energy to issues of equity and education in Rhode Island and beyond.

Read on to find out just a little of what you are in store for this Wednesday, May 6th at our next Action Speaks Discussion!

CK for Action Speaks: Can you tell us a little bit about your own belief or disbelief in the "American Dream"?  Has it changed greatly over the years?

Teixeira de Sousa:  I think that my belief in the American Dream has always been a little tempered by what I've observed around me.  When my family moved to this country, I was eight years old.  As is often the case with immigrant children, I picked up the language much more quickly than my parents.  Soon, I was translating for them and I had an opportunity to witness how negatively recent immigrants are treated.  It made me feel at a young age that I was responsible for my parents' welfare.  That took some of the shine off the idea of America as a land of opportunity for immigrants.  It's difficult to be true to what my thoughts and feelings were when I was a child, because my view is now colored by the life I've led since, but what I remember most from those early years is a feeling of insecurity.  It seemed as though we, as a family, were on very shaky footing, financially and otherwise.  More than anything else, I think I wanted to work towards security and stability.  Security and stability represented the American Dream to me then, and to a certain extent, now as well.  School provided me with the anchor I needed.  I loved going to school.  I have to say that in my elementary school years in Pawtucket, I was very fortunate to have very caring teachers who made me feel like a million bucks.  Much love to Mrs. Thompson, Mrs. DuBose and Ms. Riley.  I knew as a kid that I could do well in school and I really saw that as my role at that age.  My parents reinforced this belief by telling me that their job was to work outside the home and that my job was to do my best in school.  My parents also told me that education is something nobody can ever take from you, and I really clung to that because it seemed as though everything else was temporary and in a constant state of flux.  Today, I have a better understanding of the different ways in which I was privileged in relation to my peers who didn't experience the same level of educational success and I'm very critical of the American Dream paradigm in which only a few can attain security and stability in their lives.  Throughout my family's time in the United States, we've seen so many factories close in Rhode Island, places like Monet and School House Candy, places that employed so many immigrant women in Pawtucket.  Few, if any, comparable opportunities have replaced those lost jobs, and that was the reality before the economic downturn.  Immigrants are now looking to temporary agencies with little or no benefits and service sector jobs with lower pay, if they are able to find employment at all.  There is less security and stability for families of immigrants today who have to contend with diminishing job opportunities, fewer job benefits, and schools that are struggling desperately to meet the needs of their students.  I believe the American Dream for today's recent immigrants as well as low-income Americans has become even more difficult to attain.  In many ways, the American Dream has become less tangible to me the more I've achieved.  The reason I say that is because it's become clearer at places like Brown and Georgetown that we really live in a society that is incredibly, if not always visibly, segregated by class.

CK for Action Speaks: Do you think the American Dream is interpreted in basically similar ways by aspiring immigrants, naturalized citizens, illegal immigrants, children of recent immigrants and other native born citizens or do you think the concept is subject to diverse personal interpretations or an overall varying relevance?

Teixeira de Sousa:  I absolutely think it's interpreted differently by different people.  I do think there are cultural differences, but I also think that within any one of the groups you mentioned, you will find a stunning array of different opinions on what it means to achieve the American Dream. That said, there are some common themes and I think the pursuit of a better life is one of them.  Whether that means a better life in comparison to the life an immigrant may have had in their home country, or whether it means a better life for the children than the parent(s) have enjoyed, or whether it simply means a better life than the one enjoyed at present, I think the act of striving for something better coupled with the belief your hard work can bring that something better into being, lies at the heart of the American Dream for most people.

CK for Action Speaks: Statistically, the children of immigrants attain higher levels of education than their parents and are also more likely to attain college degrees and advanced degrees than the children of nonimmigrants. Is this a reflection of differing cultural values, a response to the real or perceived higher hurdles to success, or is there other explanations for this phenomenon?

Teixeira de Sousa: This is an issue that I've thought about quite a bit because it relates to the manner in which we fail to design education policies that can truly benefit most children.  There is a dangerous tendency to lump all immigrant children together or to lump all low-income children together.  In some ways, those of us who are "successes" in the traditional American Dream paradigm are partly to blame.  Once immigrant or low-income children achieve educational and professional success, they find that society has a very narrow conception of who they are, and they find that the more disadvantaged they are perceived to be, the more praise will be heaped upon them.  It's no coincidence that almost everybody running for office dusts off some ancestor somewhere who was an immigrant or worked in a mill in order to establish their American Dream street cred.  In 2009, Americans still love a good Horatio Alger, pull yourself up by your bootstraps story.  In my writing, I challenge people's views of those who "make it" and I call attention to the fact that although we tend to focus on status variables such as family income and whether your parent(s) have a high school diploma or a college degree, etc., the research shows that process variables such as how your parent(s) conceptualize and understand the role of education in upward mobility actually play a stronger role.  Many children of immigrants or immigrant children who experience poverty or financial straits are actually being brought up by parents who had positive educational experiences in their home countries or whose family members have experienced educational success, and as such these parents are much more likely to inculcate a belief in the importance of education in their own children.  What we have to grapple with is the fact that our public schools have never been particularly successful at helping students who don't already enter the schoolhouse predisposed to throw themselves into their schoolwork.  This is the single biggest challenge I believe our schools are facing today.  It doesn't help that many of the intervention and/or support programs that receive funding are premised on a voluntary overtime model that provides services such as tutoring only to those students who are inclined to work beyond the regular school day.  NCLB's Supplemental Educational Services is one example of this approach.  We have to stop designing school policies with only a few children in mind.

CK for Action Speaks: You were a graduate of RI's Upward Bound, one of more than 750 federally funded programs throughout the country targeting low-income, potential first-generation college students with guidance and support towards gaining a post-secondary education.  This program has wonderful success rates, quoting high school graduation rates of 99.9% with 98% of these graduating seniors getting accepted to college.  To what extent do you think federal involvement is necessary to back up the promises of the American Dream or offset a problematic truth about the supposed "equal opportunity" playing field?

Teixeira de Sousa: Today, more than ever, federal involvement is crucial to help turn the American Dream into reality for most low-income children.  Local financing of schools does not work in our increasingly class segregated communities, and it is time to abandon an archaic model in favor of a school financing system capable of delivering equal educational opportunities to all students.  The current economic crisis has certainly exposed this acute problem, and there exists an opportunity for parents and education advocates to form alliances with property owners in order to demand more money from the federal government for education as well as social programs that can help to reduce the challenges faced by public schools.  It also doesn't help that the money that the Obama administration has allocated for education purposes is already in jeopardy in light of the fact that government officials in Rhode Island may be seeking to use federal Stimulus Funds intended for children with special needs and children from low income families to replace existing state and local funding of education, rather than to supplement state and local funding. We've become increasingly complacent in the face of a public school system in which a child's zipcode largely dictates the quality of the education to be received.  Those who can are opting out of the public school system en masse whether for charter schools, private schools, or public schools in affluent communities, where the price of homes and lack of affordable rental housing all but turn the city or town into a gated community.  The Upward Bound Program at Rhode Island College was an oasis for me.  They provided me with the individualized support and guidance my urban high school was simply not equipped to provide.  They helped guide my course selection in high school, provided me with a taste of college life during a six-week residential summer program at Rhode Island College and they surrounded me with caring adults who set very high expectations for me.  My Upward Bound guidance counselors encouraged me to apply to a number of dream schools, including Brown University from which I graduated in 1998, and provided me with the support I needed to navigate the college application process.  The support included taking us to visit colleges, providing a stipend to cover the cost of college application fees and providing assistance with the complicated financial aid forms.  I am forever indebted to Upward Bound and its wonderful director, Mariam Z. Boyajian, as well as its wonderful staff for the many opportunities I received.  In addition to continuing to fund programs such as Upward Bound, the federal government must also provide more funding for education, so that the opportunities I received in Upward Bound can be extended to all students within their high schools, and the federal government must also provide more funding for social programs that can help stabilize the family unit.  Only by taking these steps will we, in the words of Langston Hughes, "let America be America again," and "let it be the dream it used to be."  For the large number of students who drop out of high school in our core cities each year, the dream is all but dead.

CK for Action Speaks: First-generation immigrants tend to earn much more than they would in their native countries but still often earn a considerable amount less than their nonimmigrant counterparts.  Do you think this offers a challenge to the concept of the American Dream as it is popularly understood?

Teixeira de Sousa: I have a difficult time answering this question because I think there are many choices and decisions that lead one to earn less money, and I think that many of those choices and decisions actually reflect positively upon an individual's quality of life and their attainment of the American Dream.  In other words, I don't think a high income, beyond what is needed to adequately provide for your needs and your family's needs, necessarily indicates a higher level of success or satisfaction with life.  I think that it is problematic to define the American Dream solely by reference to monetary earnings.  I prefer to define it as the ability to live the life you want to live.  It's possible that I could have obtained a very lucrative position working as an attorney in a firm.  But, I chose to pursue work as an attorney at Rhode Island Legal Services after graduating from law school.  It certainly didn't pay very much, but the work was very rewarding.  That was my dream, and I had the chance to live it.  My tax bracket for those five years probably doesn't do much to help the numbers you cite, but I felt a deep sense of accomplishment and satisfaction from my work during that time.  Perhaps, what should be asked is whether our society is structured in such a way as to enable first-generation immigrants to live the life they want to live.  I know that it became increasingly difficult for me to meet my financial obligations as a legal services attorney.  Attention must be paid to the fact that student loans have become so exorbitant that graduating students are often constrained in their job searches by their need to pay off very high monthly student loan payments.  There is also some tension in the competing pressures often faced by many first-generation immigrants, that I suspect are faced by many other Americans as well.  I can speak personally about feeling a sense of responsibility for my parents and wanting to be in a financial situation in which I can help my parents if they need it.  Other first-generation immigrants have financial responsibilities to family members left behind in their home countries.  At the very least, this population often doesn't have many resources to fall back on and the pressure to create a private safety net for yourself and your family can be great.  It would seem as though this pressure would pull an individual completely in the direction of high earnings.  However, many first-generation immigrants may simultaneously feel a deep sense of obligation and/or desire to give back to the larger community.  There may also be a strong desire and/or pressure to remain close to family.  And in our very mobile job market, remaining close to home can sometimes mean the difference between a low and a high salary or wage.

CK for Action Speaks: There are an estimated 8 to 12 million undocumented immigrants in the US, to what extent do you think the American Dream might apply to or still appeal to these people?

Teixeira de Sousa: Our treatment of undocumented immigrants is appalling.  The recent tragedy at the Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls simply highlights what has been apparent to many for a long time.  As a society, we have dehumanized the undocumented immigrant.  But, it is inspiring and moving to see the manner in which the dream lives on particularly in the students who are brought to this country by their parents at a young age.  These students try to do what is expected of them, they work hard in school and dream of a better future for their family.  They learn at the end of their high school career that higher education is all but foreclosed to them.  The Dream Act has been introduced in both the US Senate and the US House of Representatives and if enacted, would provide certain undocumented students who arrived in the US as children with the opportunity to adjust their status if they attend college or serve in the military.  Enactment of this piece of legislation would certainly help ensure that the American Dream is not illusory for this population.