please respond

What does it mean to you to be human?

Please either e'mail me with repsonces and i'll post them for you if you cant figure it out (troutmaster2005@hotmail.com), or leave it here. i want to know what this means to you and let other people know too. it has been a common theme i have been hearing.

faith or lack there of

so i´m not sure how many of you know, but i have had a lot of questions concerning faith since entering college. it´s not like what it was before in high school...like a blind faith. so, last night i was having a conversation in spanish with ryan and kristin about it being hard to study tho and not having really strong convictions or passion...it was my question to kristin because she doesnt really believe in the God or Jesus that most people do, and i just started talking about how there is just this empty place in desire for God in me, and how i feel almost guilty having this scholarship and being here when theology is not my passion. i also miss having that relationship with God where i know. The thing that really got me was when kristin asked me if i believe in God...that is such a hard question for me to answer. i guess right now i believe in God or a higher being, but im still not so sure about jesus. i believe jesus lived and was fabulous, but its giving the bible credit...how can we say the bible is divinly inspired and believe that so incredibly when muslims say that the koran is divinly inspired through mohammad? who is to say we´re correct. then kristin asked other things about both being correct, but more being stories to live our lives by, more than the truth....idk...it was really interesting, and the thing is, we both see our God in people, through people, but thats the only place she sees god, and i also feel there is a greater god in heaven, i just want so much more of a relatioship with that god...more of a passion and trust for that god. so, yea, thats kind of an update here. i´m still searching, still confused, still missing something inside that i´m looking for....maybe i´ll find it. my host mom here is a head of a CBC and totally into liberation theology so possibly i´ll learn a lot from here! i hope.

thats probably the most true to where i am right now in this experience....wanting God, wanting faith....wanting clerity and what i used to have when i was young. so much of me is still drawn to what i am confortable with...but i want to make sure it´s not just because thats all i know...but i do want that back.
other than that here, things are going well. we´re going to a theater tonight with our moms for their mothers day. um, i dont know what else...nothing really has changed. its hot, cold showers actually feel kinda good...thats about it...nothing exciting....you can leave questions or comments and i will respond to them tho! i´d love to have some! if you dont wanta leave comments you can e-mail me. ok, til later! love,
Jessica

i arrived safely!

Hey everyone! I arrived safely!!! Things are going really well! I didnt know that cold showers could feel so good. I missed the hamocks and platanos. My spanish is going alright which is really exciting. The flight was LONG...left at 9 and arrived at 9, but everything has been pretty great already. The organization we´re going through is fabulous. it´s going to be like a second home. they have a really nice center which we stayed at the first 3 nights. The people there are all really great. The first few days we did orientation and took the busses around to orient ourselves. I feel really safe here which is great, even on the busses. I really like it so far...well, most of it. i mean, there are little things like too much structure sometimes, but i guess thats good on your end...haha. Anyhow, Sunday night we went to meet our families and they threw us a huge welcome party. It was beautiful. The jesuit volunteers came which was just wonderful to meet them. They live about 7 blocks away. within walking distance. James (the one i know) played casa abierta for us which made me want to cry because it reminded me of salvador and well, its just a beautiful song! Oh, the night before that we4 went to this resturant kind of things called Ruta Maya. It was more culture!!! FABULOUS!!! really. it was so interesting to see some indigiounous people and hear a little about their culture.

Back to my family...i´m going to jump all around all summer so get used to it! My family is a mother, Doña Nieves (sp) for those of you who know the area. She is awesome and so nice. she´s really funny too. today i told her that another white person taught me to hand was my cloths and she said...no wonder you cant do it...the blind cant teach the blind!!! haha. Doña Nieves has a daughter with the same name, and she has an 8mo old daughter!!! yea!!! it´s fabulous! I have a baby niece to spoil!!!! HAHAHAHA!!! i´m so excited. She also has a husband but all i know right now is that he is with his mom because she´s sick. There are other kids too, but i dont know them yet...and 3 more grandkids...so really i have nieces and nephews.

Yesterday we went back to granada which was nice. We went with Rotarians who are here developing a program. Theyre really great people too! We went to this resterant there for kids that were on the street but an peace corpe volunteer created this program to get them off the street and now they have dreams. IT was really inspiring and gave me hope that some day i may be able to help people have the opportunity to do something for themselves.

Um, tommorrow we´re going to the dump. i´m a little nurvous. I´ve heard stories and i´m sure it´s going to be so sad. I am kinda hoping to have that as my service site. We´ll see tho. There is some community organizing and policy work being done over there so i´d like to do some of that.

hmmm, i dont really know what else. Some information on the country...it´s the second poorest country in the western hemisphere, but the safest...thats good! The only thing i have to worry about is pick pockets! well, and cat calls. Um, the people are funny and loving. There was a bus strike when we arrived because gas is almost $5 per gallon here...and 70% of the country makes $2 or less a day. It´s over now, but the gas is still the same price and food prices are still sky rocketed from the bus strike. The government and the bus drivers comprimised, but Luis, one of the two founders of the program we´re going through said that in about 6 months gas will be so much higher that they may strike again because of the prices.

All in all, i´m just getting here, but things are going good for me. I am just really thrilled that i feel safe here. i think time since El Salvador was good for me to see how irrational i got sometimes. Also, i feel more confident with my spanish now, so that helps. well, thats enough. this is already long and there really isnt that much more to say! I have to save some stories for when i come back.

send me letters!

Jessica Trout

c-o Escuela AKF.

Apdo P-200

Managua, Nicaragua

or call me at 001.505.270.2778

I hope that all is right...i could so be wrong. someone try the phone and let me know!!! haha. ps, my family does not speak english when you call!!! haha. just say Jessica por favor...and well, if i´m not there and you dont understand, they will probably hang up on you...because i would. haha.

love you all!

Jessica!

I wrote this for a class. I think it's important information to pass along.

The topic of immigration, especially undocumented immigration has been a hot topic in recent US politics. Knowing the information on immigration is the area to first address, therefore, the basic information is necessary. Primarily, an immigrant is someone who is foreign-born and admitted to live in the United States. An undocumented immigrant is someone who is living in the U.S. but has not gained permission from the U.S. government to be in the country. They may have entered without documents and inspection or extended their time of stay passed that of their visa’s expiration date (U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2008)

At the moment, this hot button issue of immigration is apparently a growing concern for Missouri citizens. Unfortunately, most people are putting a huge emphasis on policies that should be created far after other legislation has been passed. An important question to as is, why is Missouri focusing on immigration when only 3.4% of all Missourians are foreign born? Ninety-six point six percent of Missouri citizens are U.S. born people, and out of that small percentage of immigrants living in this state, 43% have already become U.S. citizens (Rafaman & Prentis, 2008). This means that 43% of the immigrants living in the state have been here for over five years and went through gaining citizenship, yet many others are legally documented immigrants who have not gained full citizenship yet.

After viewing these statistics, policymakers seem to be a little too concerned with a creating and passing a bill that should be far less important than the enormous situation the state has with health care among other key problems. Nevertheless, the Missouri senate has created various anti-immigration bills to address the seemingly small immigration problem Missourians face. Missouri House Bill 1463 (HB1463) is an anti-immigration bill that states that undocumented immigrants should not be permitted to attend any institution of higher education. These institutions include community colleges, technical schools, and state universities. The bill specifies that the colleges are required to check the status of their students and it would be illegal to admit any undocumented student (MO HB 1463).

This legislation is unfortunate because for most undocumented immigrants entering college, immigration was likely not their choice. The Bell Policy Center (Protopsaltis ,2008) explains that most school age children come to the United States with undocumented status due to their parent’s decisions. In recent years, in grades K-12 throughout the U.S. there are over 1.3 million students that have been enrolled for five years or more. This is about one in five schoolchildren who have undocumented status. Also, only about one fifth of undocumented immigrants, or 65,000, graduate from college (Protopsaltis, 2008). These students have been able to overcome language and societal barriers and complete high school, yet they are being denied access to higher education through HB 1463 even though they have beaten odds to graduate from high school and apply for college acceptance.

House Bill 1463 is unfortunately not the only anti-immigration piece in the Missouri legislature. Various other bills are going through the house and senate in the 2008 legislative year. For example, in the Missouri House of Representatives there have been three major bills this session. They include HB 1764 and HB 2320 which were combined to enforce the immigration laws set by the federal government through prohibiting employers to hire undocumented persons. This bill was passed on March 16^th. Senate Bill (SB) 858 was passed on March 23 to modify the law for undocumented persons, and HB 1317, passed on March 8^th which forces election authorities to check the citizen status of people when applying for registration. In the senate, Bob Onder sponsored HB 1549 which would give highway patrol officers the training and authority to ask about legal status of those arrested. Another bill, HB 1626 prohibits public aid to illegal immigrants (Missouri Immigrant & Refugee Advocates, 2008).

Background and information give basic tools to understanding the immigration issue, but there are various other problems with HB 1463. One of the problems stems from the outlook and myths society has about the larger situation of undocumented immigration, but the main problem with this specific bill is human rights violation. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (United Nations, 2008) provided on the United Nations webpage explains some of the basic rights that all human being are protected through. Many of the aforementioned bills going through the state and senate also violate various articles in the human rights declaration.

The document states that dignity and worth of everyone along with social progress and betting standards for life are human rights. Article 1 directly states that all humans are equal in human dignity. First and foremost, HB 1463 is not allowing this to happen. A violation of human rights directly related to HB 1463 is noted through the statement in Article 26 that says “Everyone has the right to education” (p.5). The human rights document also states that availability of higher education should be accessible to everyone and should develop the person in promoting tolerance, understanding and friendship among all groups (United Nations, 1998). Restricting undocumented immigrants from universities halts equality, tolerance, understanding, and friendship among all groups.

Furthermore, human rights are not specific to race, color sex, language, religion, political or other opinions, national origin, social origin, property, birth, or status (United Nations, 2008), but the laws seem to be based on various aspects contained in this list. Other human rights expressed in the declaration include the right to work and choice of where to work within good condition, the right to a standard of living and well being for families, the right to freely be part of cultural life within community, free and full development of the person, and the general welfare of a society, or the common good (United Nations, 2008). All of these declarations are found to be constrained through HB 1463.

Human rights is the direct crisis related to passing HB1463, but societal outlook and misinformation is also a huge problem within the larger immigration discussion. Many people seem to have ideas that immigrants are taking US employment, draining social service systems and the economy in general, and they do not pay taxes. All of these ideas are false. Immigrants create more positions that they take. Undocumented immigrants cannot meet eligibility requirements for most federal and state benefits provided by the government and they can only receive benefits after gaining permanent residency in the United States for at least five years. They provide almost 10 billion each year to the economy, and pay $90 to $140 billion in taxes. Social Security also has $420 billion from people who will never be able to access this money. Furthermore, in Missouri alone, undocumented immigrants pay $29-57 million in taxes (Rafaman & Prentis, 2008).

After intense research and a policy analysis on House Bill 1463: College Admission of Undocumented Immigrants, passing this bill is clearly a violation of human rights. All stakeholders should be educated on the effects of immigration in the United States society. Legislators, more than anyone, should become aware of the harsh ideas presented by anti-immigration legislation. All U.S. citizens should also begin contacting legislators to address the importance of their decisions and have their voices heard.

References

Dream Act, S. 2205, 109t Cong., (2007).

Financial aid and scholarship for undocumented students. (2008, April 28).

http://www.finaid.org/otheraid/undocumented.phtml

Immigrant & Refugee Advocates, (2008). MIRA Advocacy Day Handout. St. Louis, MO.

Missouri House Bill 1463 (2008)

Missouri Senate Bill 858, (2008)

National Conference of State Legislators. (2008).

http://www.ncsl.org/programs/educ/undocimmigrant.htm

Noble, J. (2008). Missouri senate passed immigration bill on voice vote. KansasCity.com.

Nodler, G. (2008) Missouri cannot wait for Washington to act on illegal immigration.

The Chart.

Protopsaltis, S. (2008). Undocumented immigrant students and access to higher

education: An overview of federal and state policy. The Bell Policy Center Web site: http://www.thebell.org/PUBS/IssBrf/2005/03UndocTuition.pdfMissouri

Rafaman, J. & Prentis, C. (2008, April 26). The State of Immigration in Missouri:

Myths, facts, & implications for our community. Immigrants, Immigration and People of Faith Conference-Cardinal Ritter High School, St. Louis

United Nations. (2008). Retrieved April 26, 2008, from Fiftieth anniversary of the

universal declaration of human rights: 1948-1998 Web site:

http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html

U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. (2008). Justice for immigrants: a journey of hope

[Brochure]. Washington, DC