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5.5.1 Tereza Lee and Undocumented Asian America
Grade: 6-12Subject: English, U.S. HistoryNumber of Activities: 3
Overview
PBS Asian Americans Episode 5 - Breaking Through (1980s – 2010s). 11.3 million is the estimated number of undocumented immigrants lived in the United States in 2018. Of these, about 3.6 million entered the U.S. before their 18th birthday. This latter group, the Dreamers, have been advocating for a path towards legal residency and citizenship since 2001. This lesson will explore the origins of the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act (DREAM Act) and connect the story of Tereza Lee, the first DREAMer, and the current struggles of others like her against possible family separation and deportation.
 
Objectives
Students will trace the development of immigration laws in the United States, and contextualize the DREAM Act within this broader historical trajectory.
 
Topic Background Essay
First introduced in 2001, the DREAM Act (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act) provides an opportunity for young undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children to be given a pathway toward U.S. citizenship. This immigration bill came to be established because of Tereza Lee, a Brazilian-born South Korean who moved to the U.S. with her parents in 1985 when she was two years old. She is an undocumented American referred to as the first DREAMer. As of 2018, approximately 3.6 million undocumented youth entered the U.S.
Tereza is a talented pianist and attended high school in Chicago. Ann Monaco, the artistic director of her school, encouraged Lee to apply to competitive music colleges. This led Lee to confide in Monaco about being undocumented because she did not have the required information to apply to colleges, such as a social security number. Monaco proceeded to contact U.S. Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois for assistance. Democratic Senator Durbin co-sponsored the DREAM Act with Republican Senator Orrin Hatch and had wide support from other lawmakers and President George W. Bush, demonstrating the bipartisan support of this bill. However, before the Senate had the chance to vote in favor of the DREAM Act, the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 occurred, which turned the U.S. government’s attention toward national security.
Since then, more than ten variations of the DREAM Act have been introduced in Congress with bipartisan support, but has never successfully passed into law. To qualify for residency status through the DREAM Act, immigrants had to prove that they came to the United States before turning 18 (this changed to 16 in the 2017 DREAM Act proposal), lived in the United States for five consecutive years since their arrival, received a high school diploma (or equivalent) from a U.S. school, demonstrated good moral character, and passed a criminal background review. In 2012, President Barack Obama signed an executive order for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), an immigration policy that provides applicants a renewable two years of deferred action from deportation, and eligibility for a work permit. In September 2017, the Trump administration ended further applications to DACA and let the renewal of DACA expire. As of June 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against President Trump’s attempt to terminate DACA.
Today, immigrant activists and advocates, like Tereza Lee, continue to fight for immigration reform. Media coverage and representation of immigration in the U.S. has often been framed as a Latinx issue. However, people of undocumented status come from all over the world, including Europeans and Canadians. Undocumented Asian American immigrants are currently estimated at 1.7 million.
In 2017 an estimated 8.5 million undocumented immigrants lived in the U.S. In 2018 the number has increased to 11.3 million, with around 3.6 million of those immigrants entering the U.S. before their 18th birthday. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services estimated the number of DACA recipients in 2017 was approximately 800,000.
 

Works Cited
“Approximate Active DACA Recipients: Country of Birth.” U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, 04 Sept 2017, https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/document/data/daca_population_data.pdf. Accessed 07 March 2021.
“Data on Undocumented Asian Americans.” AAPI Data, 08 Sept 2017, https://aapidata.com/undocumented/. Accessed 07 March 2021.
“The Dream Act, DACA, and Other Policies Designed to Protect Dreamers.”American Immigration Council, 27 August 2020, https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/research/dream-act-daca-and-other-policies-designed-protect-dreamers. Accessed 07 March 2021
Gomez, Alan. “Who are the DACAD Dreamers and how many are here?” USA Today, 13 Feb 2018, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/02/13/who-daca-dreamers-and-how-many-here/333045002. Accessed 07 March 2021.
Passel, Jeffrey. “New Estimates of the Undocumented Population in the United States.” Migration Policy Institute, 22 May 2002, https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/new-estimates-undocumented-population-united-states. Accessed 07 March 2021.
 
Vocabulary
  1. Bipartisan: Having support from two parties, and in the context of American politics, the two parties involved are usually the Democrats and the Republicans.1
  2. Undocumented: Also referred to as unauthorized, someone that does not have legal authorization or documentation to enter and reside in a country. 2
 

1Definition is adopted from Merriam-Webster Dictionary
2Definition is adopted from Merriam-Webster Dictionary
 
Discussion Questions
  1. In what ways did the general lack of public knowledge around undocumented Asian Americans and their stories affect Tereza Lee? In what ways may it have protected her? In what ways did it increase her vulnerability?
  2. What is Senator Dick Durbin’s point of view on undocumented immigrants like Tereza Lee?
  3. What impact did the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 in the United States have on the DREAM Act? In what ways do we see that impact continue until today?
  4. Why do you think the DREAM Act focused on young undocumented students who had been brought to the country as minors? In what ways do they change the prevailing perceptions about undocumented immigration?
  5. Who is American? What does it mean to be American? Does being documented or undocumented affect this view?
 
Activity 1: Who is an American?
  1. Activating Prior Knowledge:
    1. Ask students to construct a KWLD chart with a piece of paper. At the top, write "Immigration and Undocumented Immigrants." Divide the page into 4 equal columns and label them the following:
      1. (1) K - What I KNOW
      2. (2) W - What I WANT TO KNOW
      3. (3) L - What I LEARNED, and
      4. (4) D - What I can DO given what I know and have learned
    2. Ask students to think about the following questions before watching the video:
      • What do you know about America’s immigration system?
      • Do you know any immigrants? If so, are any of them undocumented?
      • Ask students to independently fill in columns K and the W of their chart.
  2. Class Discussion
    1. After showing the video, have students discuss:
      1. Why people are undocumented, and how did it happen to people like Tereza Lee?
      2. How does Tereza Lee feel after finding out that her family was undocumented?
      3. What was Tereza Lee’s high school director’s response upon discovering Tereza was undocumented?
      4. What was Senator Dick Durbin’s response to Tereza’s legal status?
  3. Class Discussion
    1. Ask students to read this lesson’s essay. Have students discuss Senator Dick Durbin’s response when thousands of people like Tereza came forward.
      • Jot down new things they have learned under column L of their chart.
      • Write down what they think can be done under column D given what they know and have learned.
      • Write down any new questions under the W column.
      • Share discussions with partners on each other’s questions.
 
Activity 2: The Stories of Undocumented Americans
Ask students to do research on three undocumented Americans. Some can be found in Dreamers’ Stories. (https://www.durbin.senate.gov/issues/immigration-and-the-dream-act/dreamers-stories)
Have students answer the following:
  1. Who are the undocumented Americans you selected, what is their family background, where did they grow up?
  2. What is their educational and/or professional background?
  3. Do you think they will be able to contribute to our country? To advance our country?
  4. What does it mean to be an undocumented immigrant?
  5. How have immigration policies such as DACA, as a substitute for the DREAM Act, assisted them, and will affect them if cancelled?
  6. Do you think that the DACA program should be extended? Why or why not?
 
Activity 3: “While certain actions may be criminal, or illegal, people cannot be illegal”
  1. Ask students to do research on this subject. Here are a few good sources:
    Johnston, Isabel. “Words Matter: No Human Being is Illegal” 20 May, 2019. Immigration and Human Rights Law Review, College of Law, University of Cincinnati. https://lawblogs.uc.edu/ihrlr/2019/05/20/words-matter-no-human-being-is-illegal/
    Vargas, Jose Antonio. “Actions are illegal, never people.” Dec 10, 2012. Tedx Talks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmz9cCF0KNE. Accessed 24 May 2020.
    “Words Matter.” Define American. https://www.defineamerican.com/campaigns/wordsmatter. Accessed 24 May 2020.
  2. Have students debate on if human beings can be illegal. Have students cite evidence from their primary and secondary sources.
 
Extended Activity: Exploring the Diversity of the Undocumented Population
  1. Have students form pairs and explore this factsheet1 on undocumented immigrants in the country. Ask each pair to list four statistics they find surprising on their KWLD chart. Then, using the following two resources, have students select a region of birth to conduct research on:
    • Community Facts2 (If access limited, please print out factsheets.)
    • Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Data Tools3
      Students will independently compose a paragraph describing the segment of the undocumented immigrant community that they selected to explore during the lesson, citing at least three sources they used.
    1“Profile of the Unauthorized Population: United States.” Migration Policy Institute, https://www.migrationpolicy.org/data/unauthorized-immigrant-population/state/US. Accessed 24 May 2020.
    2 “Community Facts.” AAPI Data, http://facts.aapidata.com/nationaldata/. Accessed 24 May 2020.
    3 “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Data Tools.” Migration Policy Institute, www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/deferred-action-childhood-arrivals-daca-profiles. Accessed 24 May 2020.
  2. Facilitate a whole class discussion where students will share their reflections on possible actions in response to the lesson.
 
Further Information
Bulosan, Carlos. America Is in the Heart. Penguin Classics, 2019.
“Data on Undocumented Asian Americans.” AAPI Data, 08 Sept 2017, aapidata.com/undocumented. Accessed 24 May 2020.
“Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) Data Tools.” Migration Policy Institute, https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/deferred-action-childhood-arrivals-daca-profiles. Accessed 24 May 2020.
Hughes, Langston. “Let America be America Again.” Academy of American Poets. https://poets.org/poem/let-america-be-america-again. Accessed 24 May 2020.
Johnston, Isabel. “Words Matter: No Human Being is Illegal” 20 May 2019. Immigration and Human Rights Law Review, College of Law, University of Cincinnati. https://lawblogs.uc.edu/ihrlr/2019/05/20/words-matter-no-human-being-is-illegal/
“Major U.S. Immigration Laws, 1790 – Present.” March 2013. Migration Policy Institute, www.migrationpolicy.org/research/timeline-1790, Accessed 24 May 2020.
“Profile of the Unauthorized Population: United States.” Migration Policy Institute, https://www.migrationpolicy.org/data/unauthorized-immigrant-population/state/US. Accessed 24 May 2020.
Vargas, Jose Antonio. “Actions are illegal, never people.” 10 Dec 2012. Tedx Talks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmz9cCF0KNE. Accessed 24 May 2020.
“Words Matter.” Define American. https://www.defineamerican.com/campaigns/wordsmatter. Accessed 24 May 2020.