Immigration opinion leads to furor, rebuttal, then civil
discourse at Live Oak High School
Students at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill have gotten a
lesson in illegal immigration since a column on the subject in the
student newspaper exploded into controversy.
It’s the kind of controversy that might be more common in a
college paper. An opinion piece was published Oct. 14 that some
thought of as racist, and a letter was written in response with
many student signatures.
Immigration opinion leads to furor, rebuttal, then civil discourse at Live Oak High School
Students at Live Oak High School in Morgan Hill have gotten a lesson in illegal immigration since a column on the subject in the student newspaper exploded into controversy.
It’s the kind of controversy that might be more common in a college paper. An opinion piece was published Oct. 14 that some thought of as racist, and a letter was written in response with many student signatures.
More importantly, since students often mimic the views of their parents, it’s likely a reflection of the varying views held by Morgan Hill parents.
At the high-school level, students might take issues a bit more personally, so it is plausible that Oak Leaf staff writer Ryan Moeller was threatened verbally after the article was published, which is Oak Leaf editor-in-chief Sarah Trauben’s understanding. It was recommended that Moeller go home for the day after he was confronted by students on the other side of the issue.
Assistant Principal Lloyd Webb said he was privy to what was said during the confrontation with Moeller, and none of it was threatening. He stressed that the students representing the opposing view to Moeller’s handled themselves very well, better then most adults. Moeller was unavailable for comment.
“When they first spoke to him, they were upset,” Webb said. “Ryan was reeling a little bit because he didn’t expect his article to have that impact.”
The gist of Moeller’s incendiary column was that illegal immigrants receive social services they don’t pay taxes toward, while breaking the law to be in the U.S. But Live Oak students Yesena Ponce and Maria Juarez say the original column unfairly singles out Mexican illegal immigrants, labeling them as freeloaders and criminals. They put their words into a letter which ran in the Nov. 18 issue of the Oak Leaf signed by 80 students.
“Money gained illegally is money that isn’t deserved,” Moeller wrote, and in his last paragraph, he summarized his issue by insisting “there is a huge invasion of illegal immigrants that must be addressed. Billions of taxpayer dollars are siphoned out of your pocket and into the pocket of a criminal.”
Juarez and Ponce talked about the article with friends and teachers who encouraged them to write back.
Many of Juarez’s friends are undocumented workers, and she felt bad for them being lumped in with common criminals and saying they don’t earn their money, she said. From Juarez’s perspective, the article said undocumented workers are here “just here to break the law.”
“He said we don’t deserve anything, that we are here just to mess up the country,” she said. “That’s what we saw in what he said.”
Juarez, a senior, said her English wasn’t as good as Ponce’s so she let Ponce do a lot of the writing, but she has since been motivated to learn better English writing skills. Both Ponce and Juarez are in a class to better their English so they can pass the high-school exit exam.
“It took a lot of effort … because I felt really strongly about this,” Ponce said. “If we stay quiet and ignore the issue people just get stepped on, I guess you could say.”
In the rebuttal letter it says, “I myself have relatives who are illegally working in the United States, and know first hand that not only do they deserve the money they earn, but that and more. Most illegal immigrants are paid less than minimum wage for labor that has to be done and that American citizens don’t want to do.”
Ponce, Juarez and a few other students asked to meet with Moeller. Moeller listened to them, and they listened to him. Webb said it was prime example of how students could channel themselves in a constructive way.
“He also told us he was very sorry,” Ponce said. “I don’t think he knew it would make that much of an impact.”
Webb wanted to emphasize that Moeller is one of the nicer kids he has worked with. Glass said no one at the paper intended to cause such controversy with the article.
“Chalk it up as an experience garnered by a young journalist about the powerful impact an article can have,” Webb said.
Since the response was published, Glass, also an English teacher, said many of his students who were angry about Moeller’s column started buying into their education more, turning in better work when they saw that all sides of the story could be told.
Trauben was surprised and even excited by the response from such a large number of students passionate enough to sign the letter. But she also disagreed with some of the points made in the response. It argues that allowing Moeller to publish material that unfairly singles out and labels a group “goes against civil and human rights as well as Live Oak High School’s anti-harassment policy,” and “strongly” advises that they apologize. Moeller did apologize to students, Trauben said.
Glass disagreed with the letter’s assertion that the original article violated the schools harassment policy, but happily ran the rebuttal letter.
“They showed a lot of leadership in getting that letter together and getting people to sign it,” Glass said, referring to Ponce and Juarez.
Moeller’s article, entitled “Addressing illegal immigration,” ran without being edited, either because the fledgling staff didn’t save changes correctly or because they never made them. Glass saw problems but decided it was within the paper’s rights to print the article.
“I think we could have been slightly less inflammatory,” Glass said. “The facts might have been somewhat biased. I don’t think what Ryan said is a lot different than what you hear from Bill O’Reilly (conservative talk show host).”
Glass said he doesn’t believe it’s a hard-and-fast rule that columns should have sources attributed, but Ponce and Juarez took notice, writing that maybe the sources were biased. They took particular offense to how Moeller addresses illegal immigrant students.
“The way Ryan worded things made it seem like money spent on educating illegal immigrants is money gone to waste,” they wrote.
Moeller wrote that $500 million is spent housing illegal immigrants in California’s jails which could be enough to fund 41,000 more teachers, reduce class sizes to 20 students, and buy equipment in 79 percent of classrooms.
“The California education system has been hit particularly hard,” he wrote.
It also points out that $7.4 billion is spent annually on the 1.5 million students illegally in the U.S.
Live Oak student Nayelli Ceja was appalled after reading the article.
“My family is Mexican,” she said. “It’s wrong to just point out this culture.”
She said most Mexican immigrants are here because they don’t have a choice. They are here to better themselves, she said, and they do back breaking labor.
“If I would have known before I would have written my name on the letter, too” she said. “I’m really proud of them to stand up for what they believe in.”
Of the 96 signatures included with the rebuttal letter, Trauben said about 80 were identifiable as students at Live Oak. She assumes the rest were community members, which is fine because the Oak Leaf is a “community paper,” she said.
Principal Nick Boden agreed that the kids on both sides handled themselves well, and learned a lot.
