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Hello sister citizens and hell-raisers.

I’m mad. For a 54 year old happy mother and neighbor, I still feel fury. I can live with chaos. But I can’t live with disgust. I am boorishly fed-up with our leaders’ incompetence. I’m angry because last week in the Senate, the DREAM Act was ricocheted out of target. The Dream Act, which has been languishing in Congress since 2001 (yes, that’s 9 years) was voted on Sept 22, 2010. Harry Reid amended the DREAM Act to the National Defense Authorization Act for 2011. (Now the Dream is 10 years old.) What ways are the three branches of government improving jobs, health care and education?

Freedom

Freedom

I write this story to all activists who are fighting for their dream. I write to transform anger.

So I went to Scott Brown’s office on Sept 21st with my friend, Susan. I had to give him a piece of my mind. He isn’t giving hard working young people raised for years as US citizens half a chance. Did I tell you I was wild-eyed? Susan, made her own sign and carried it on her back as she biked into the state house. Young people were swarming around the steps of the Statehouse. They looked like a rainbow nation, many in graduation robes. All sat on the steps with funny square hats on. I talked to several trying to keep the grit out of my growl. They spoke about having a chance for a diploma from a US university. They enacted a cap and gown ceremony without the diploma. A few wanted to enlist in the navy. The sun glinted on the gold capped dome. A few crows flapped around the iron fence keeping the public off the statehouse grounds. The sky was cerulean with signs bobbing up against it saying, “I have a Dream. I want to study engineering.” Or “Don’t just Dream, ACT.” The crows were yapping, “Caw, caw, caw.” The wind blew off a black hat and it tumbled close to the curb on Beacon St.

The Dream Act (Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors), introduced when these young folks were 10 years old, hasn’t done anything. No D, development. No R, relief: only a narrow portal for E, Education. No person is illegal and no A, aliens. M, for minors insults these adults. Senators, don’t ignore them, don’t stunt their knowledge. The Brazilian, Chinese, and Dominican, students towered over me that bright afternoon. Long brown locks blew in the wind; onyx eyes spoke out their dreams of education; a Mexican girl in low shiny flats started to cry and sputtered out her hopes to become an architect. Three crows landed in the tree above Colonel Shaw of the 54th Regiment Memorial.

“We will not be quiet.
We have heard the promise.
We knew the dream.
We were promised the dream.
We will be heard.
The Dream Act must pass.”

The crows too, kept harping from one tree to the next, their necks stretched in an open throttle.

So Susan and I and others went up to the 24th floor of the government building. I barely passed the security gates because I had knitting needles on me. We listened to a Salvadoran woman speak to the Senator who’d left her country during the US-fed insurgency in the 1980s. As she spoke of her escape to this country, I looked over the steely Boston skyline and glittering harbor. The Salvadoran said her children didn’t choose to come here and pay taxes. They deserve their full rights and to live here without death squads. We spoke about how the Dream University helps the aptitude of the US as a whole; it brings revenue for the state coffers; it offers justice in a land where the rich rule. But the Senator’s office didn’t give us much mind. It was a polite and heated conversation. Something on the order of how crows talk across the noisy street. ‘Talkin’ about revolution | money pays | anchor babies |no amnesty | which immigrants.” We must teach the fledglings “Who migrates? “Caw, caw, caw.”

Susan and I retrieved my knitting from a safe place (To muster attention from authorities, carry knitting needles!) and strode out to the day. Susan cheered me up despite our defeat. Our Senator was going to vote against the Dream Act sure as a bat out of hell. My eye caught a seagull wheeling high above the T station. Its wingspan a blade of glinting sharpness. These young people, still disenfranchised, are preparing their next fight to pass the Dream Act. They are pugnacious. They know justice is on our side.Why after 10 years are we so hopeful?Where does the will to learn and to stand proud come from even when access is denied?. Something divine is under these high-flying wings. Yes, indeed—caw, caw, caw.