For three years, I was a high school English teacher at 103rd Street and Broadway, the southernmost tip of South Los Angeles, a stone’s throw west of Watts. Many Californians think of this as drive-over, landlocked, and lock-your-doors Los Angeles. But my students know this small patch, one of the lowest income zip codes in the county, as home. There are approximately two million undocumented minors in the United States today, and if I were to guess, I’d say about 20 percent of my students were part of that population. Such young people are often called “invisible” or “voiceless,” But in my time as a teacher there, I came to understand that undocumented students and their families are actually too visible. Which is to say—undocumented students and families feel overly conspicuous as they constantly worry about exposure in matters from the life-or-death to the mundane: Should we go to the emergency room? Should we jaywalk? Is a trip to Sea … Continue reading Using Art to Help Undocumented Students Become More Visible, On Their Own Terms