On March 2, at the top of page six, the Gazette shared Serena Neyman’s guest column “What Bad Bunny teaches us about belonging.” She evokes John Lennon’s “Imagine” as music-as-love. At the top of page seven, Doug Selwyn of Franklin County’s Continuing Ed for Political Revolution talked about how immigrant parents fear of ICE-invoked truancy impacts school budgets based on attendance of all children. It hit close to home because the first ICE deployment in the first term of the wanna-be-dictator impeded my work of recruiting parents of Springfield Latino middle-schoolers out of these same fears… to help develop strategies for keeping their kids in school and helping to create a warm, safe and engaging school environment.
As I read these columns, I didn’t need a drop of Visine to see clearly the many benefits of public education my grandsons receive in the K-6 Caminantes dual-language program of the Amherst Public Schools.
Should I feel guilt or anger that my seven-year-old grandson may have to think about why a first grade classmate’s parent may not attend a parent engagement program at his school out of fear that an ICE agent may be also attending?
My grandsons love to dance. It may be hip-hoppin’ to Afro-Cuban, step dancing to a Irish jig or reel or learning the roots to dancing salsa or merengue to Bad Bunny’s reggaeton rhythms. Music is love. Dancing is love.
Thank you Serena and Doug. Muchisimas gracias Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio (Aka Bad Bunny) for your continuing education and inspiration. Thanks to all teachers and thoughtful educational leaders and mostly to my four-, five- and seven-year-old grandsons who help inspire me through reading, writing, song and dance. Keep language, culture and arts in our schools for all children.
Donnie Gallagher
Hadley