March 1, 2017
Page 7
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O PINION
Beating the Odds and Making a Difference
Welcome to
the land of
opportunity
M arian W right e delMan
My mother always
said, ‘Learn what you
can learn for your-
self, and then share
your knowledge with
others.’ My goal
now is to advocate
for equality and help others in
need. Perhaps I have this op-
portunity because the purpose
of my life has been to open the
door for others.”
At a time when the nation-
al conversation is focused on
building walls and closing
doors against immigrants, Car-
los is an immigrant with anoth-
er goal. He’s setting an example
of what’s possible when hard-
working smart young people
come to America determined
to beat the odds and make a
difference. Carlos was born in
the mountains of Guatemala.
As a young child he was fasci-
by
nated by nature and remembers
climbing every tree he could to
get a better glimpse of the birds
and animals around him – but
that kind of freedom didn’t last
long. At an age when American
preschoolers get ready to start
kindergarten, Carlos
went to work.
At first he did what
he could to help his
mother as she cleaned
houses.
He
never
knew his father, and
his mother couldn’t afford any
of the fees for the uniforms
or pens and pencils and other
supplies required for Carlos to
attend school. After a few years
Carlos earned money by chop-
ping wood or doing small car-
pentry jobs. He started leaving
home where work was scarce
to work in other parts of his
country. He was away working
when a boss called him over to
tell Carlos his mother had died.
Carlos was 15 and completely
on his own.
The musical cultural sensa-
tion Hamilton famously retells
the story of the founding fa-
ther who started off in similar
circumstances: abandoned by
his father, forced to work at a
young age, and suddenly or-
phaned, poor, and all alone.
Carlos, too, realized his hope
for survival lay with starting
over in America – still the land
D.C. with his sponsors, and for
the first time in his life was al-
lowed to go to school.
Carlos was now 17 and de-
termined to make the most of
this American dream. He nev-
er imagined he might be able
to go to college, but slowly he
a degree in engineering. He’s
also the recipient of a Chil-
dren’s Defense Fund Beat the
Odds scholarship.
Carlos’s story is part of
America’s long tradition of
welcoming immigrants and
letting them use their talents
The musical cultural sensation Hamilton
famously retells the story of the founding father
who started off in similar circumstances:
abandoned by his father, forced to work at a young
age, and suddenly orphaned, poor, and all alone.
of opportunity in his eyes where
even an “orphan immigrant”
could have a chance. For Car-
los this meant an arduous 2,000
mile journey – most of it walk-
ing – figuring out his way as he
went. He arrived in the United
States with an empty stomach
and swollen, bruised feet. His
relief at making it to America as
an unaccompanied minor was
matched by his astonishment
when he moved to Washington,
was able to expand his hori-
zons: “At first my goal was to
work, but then that changed to
graduate school . . . Now my
goal is to become an engineer.”
He’s already on his way. De-
spite how far behind he was
when he first stepped into a
classroom, Carlos was able to
graduate from high school in
three years and began attend-
ing George Washington Uni-
versity last summer to pursue
to shine and contribute here
– a tradition that’s shaped our
nation since its founding. The
Statue of Liberty still proud-
ly stands in New York harbor
representing freedom from op-
pression and tyranny: “Give
me your tired, your poor, your
huddled masses yearning to
breathe free.”
Marian Wright Edelman is
president of the Children’s De-
fense Fund.
Consigning a Present-Day Monument to the Past
A racial
reckoning
at Yale
M arc h. M orial
Don’t allow any-
one to tell you differ-
ently. Symbols matter.
Whether these sym-
bols are flags, icons or
names on buildings,
symbols are shorthand and they
stand in for those core values we
reject—and those we accept.
After years of outcry, protests,
and an act of glass-shattering
vandalism, Yale University has
recently announced that the name
of the residential college com-
memorating John C. Calhoun will
be changed.
Calhoun, a Yale alumnus,
served our nation as its seventh
vice president, its 16th secre-
tary of state, its 10th secretary
of war, and as a senator repre-
senting South Carolina. But his
service to our country—his leg-
acy—is overshadowed by his
fierce defense of the indefensible
by
institution of slavery. Calhoun, a
self-described white supremacist,
was a slaveholder and an ardent
supporter of slavery. During his
1837 senate address, he
publicly hailed the institu-
tion as a “positive good.”
Erected in 1933, the col-
lege that has borne the name
and the heavy symbolic
weight of Calhoun’s name
for 86 years will be renamed
for Grace Murray Hopper,
a computer science pioneer and
Navy rear admiral, who received
her master’s degree and doctorate
from Yale.
But, changing the name of the
Calhoun College was never a
foregone conclusion. As recent-
ly as last spring, Yale President
Peter Salovey maintained that,
despite the din of protest, the
university would keep Calhoun’s
name. In a campus-wide email to
students, he wrote:
“Ours is a nation that contin-
ues to refuse to face its own his-
tory of slavery and racism. Yale
is part of this history, as exempli-
fied by the decision to recognize
an ardent defender of slavery by
naming a college for him. Erasing
Calhoun’s name from a much-be-
loved residential college risks
masking this past, downplaying
the lasting effects of slavery,
and substituting a false and mis-
leading narrative, albeit one that
might allow us to feel compla-
cent or, even, self-congratulatory.
Retaining the name forces us to
learn anew and confront one of
the most disturbing aspects of
Yale’s and our nation’s past. I be-
lieve this is our obligation as an
educational institution.”
But rather than create an atmo-
sphere of reconciliation and soul
searching, the public sanction of
symbols of division and hatred of-
ten energizes and justifies its adher-
ents, while arousing alienation and
resentment in its opponents. How
can we appeal to our better angels,
when everyday we are greeted by
the demons of our past?
Corey Menafee, a cafeteria
worker at Yale, also made his
feelings known about the build-
ing and the racially-charged
stained glass panels that adorned
the college featuring idealized
images of slavery, which, at one
point, included a stained-glass
window depicting a shackled
black man kneeling before Cal-
houn (the kneeling black man
was later taken out of the pic-
ture). With the poke of a broom-
stick, Menafee knocked down
and shattered a racially-charged
glass panel in the dining hall that
depicted two slaves, a man and
a woman, carrying bales of cot-
ton on their heads. His reasoning
was simple, saying, “It’s 2016, I
shouldn’t have to come to work
and see things like that.”
Menafee’s action, campus
protests, and the racial reckon-
ing taking place across many
American college campuses at
that time, and on the streets of
communities that were fed up
with wages of police brutality
and the insults of judicial indif-
ference, played a significant role
in revisiting the controversy over
Calhoun’s name. In the end, Yale
did the right thing, with the pres-
ident noting in a statement to stu-
dents, “The decision to change a
college’s name is not one we take
lightly, but John C. Calhoun’s
legacy as a white supremacist
and a national leader who pas-
sionately promoted slavery as a
“positive good” fundamentally
conflicts with Yale’s mission and
values.”
While I applaud Yale’s change
of heart, I want to encourage the
university to “confront one of the
most disturbing aspects of Yale’s
and our nation’s past,” not only
by unshackling itself from its
reprehensible symbols, but by
addressing slavery’s legacy of
racial inequality and committing
to increasing the diversity of its
student body and faculty.
According to the New York
Times, the university has prom-
ised to invest $50 million in a
faculty-diversity initiative to ad-
dress the fact that less than three
percent of Yale’s arts and scienc-
es faculty is black. And of Yale’s
close to 5,400 undergraduate stu-
dents, only 11 percent identify
themselves as African American.
While a battle has been scored,
the war to commit to inclusion
still remains to be won.
Marc H. Morial is president
and chief executive officer of the
National Urban League.