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Show A-15 The Park Record Sat/Sun/Mon/Tues, April 15-18, 2017 Amid fear, Latino youth face uncertain future Students, and a school district, grapple with changed world By Bubba Brown The Park Record Editor’s note: The Park Record does not typically grant anonymity to sources, but agreed in this story to use false initials to refer to two high school students due to the sensitive nature of the subject. An undocumented immigrant with brown skin and a Latino last name, B.A. woke up in a different world on Nov. 9, the morning after Election Day. But it wasn’t until Feb. 17 that it came crashing down. In April, nearly three months later, B.A., a student at Park City High School, shakes with emotion as she describes the memory. Her father was the one who spotted it while driving her to school that morning — an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent clearly in the middle of an operation. Her stomach plunged. Her breathing quickened. In an instant, whatever relative sense of security her family had built over the last 15 years in Park City disintegrated around her. Could her parents, who moved here to raise their daughter away from the violence of their impoverished Central American homeland, be the target? The scenario pulsed through her brain. It was all she could think about. B.A.’s family, like the rest of Park City’s sizeable Latino population, had always been apprehensive of ICE, which had conducted operations here before. But less than a month after the inauguration of Donald Trump, who had promised throughout his presidential campaign to rid the country of people like her, the threat seemed sharp and direct. “I felt so heavy that day,” B.A. says. “I was genuinely afraid.” The fear overpowered her when her father dropped her off at class for what she feared could be the last time. Through tears, she describes the terror. She visualized receiving a call from him in jail. She imagined the sound of his voice wavering as he admitted to her that he didn’t know what to do. Only when a text message buzzed her phone, letting her know that he’d made it back home, did the dread begin to subside. The ICE agents were gone within an hour, after apprehending four people Park City police later said were wanted on felony counts involving re-entering the country or other unspecified offenses. For the time being, B.A.’s father was safe. But the sense of danger has lingered. “It’s something I don’t want anyone else to go through because you shouldn’t have to feel this way in a country that’s supposed to, like, glorify diversity,” B.A. says. “It’s a country that represents all these different cultures.” For B.A. and other Latino students in Park City, both legal and undocumented, the ICE operation was just one in a string of events that has shattered any illusions of protection in the idyllic ski town. Many worry about being deported to countries they’ve never known, or what will happen if immigration programs that have given them eligibility for things like driver’s licenses and work permits are ripped away. Others say hateful rhetoric hurled at them, along with multiple racially motivated incidents in the community, make them feel targeted in a way they’ve never been before in Park City, simply because of the color of their skin. Some have begun to wonder if things will ever be the same again. “You can feel the tension in the air, do you know what I mean?” B.A. says. “It’s something that you kind of feel in the back of your mind. You’re carrying it around with you.” It’s left the Latino community reeling and has forced leaders in the Park City School District, which has long espoused diversity and inclusion within its halls, to grapple with an important question: How do you make your most vulnerable students feel safe and welcome at a time when, according to the most prominent voices in American politics and a small but loud segment of the local population, they are anything but? A sobering wake up Anna Williams’ phone began to light up at about 9 p.m. on Nov. 8. She was watching the presidential election coverage with her two daughters and unease had settled in. A few Tanzi propst/park record In the months since the election, Latino students in the Park City School District, both legal and undocumented, have felt anxiety, heightened by incidents in the community. Eric Esquivel, the district’s Latino community relations specialist, is among school officials playing a critical role in reassuring Latino families that their students are safe and welcome in Park City. hours earlier, she had brushed off the early returns favoring Trump but now they were holding. She was concerned for her daughters, but her mind fixated on her students. An English-language learning teacher and Latinos in Action (LIA) adviser at Park City High School, Williams has been a mentor to hundreds of Latino teenagers who have come of age here. And it was becoming obvious that her current crop — who she refers to as her kids — were soon going to need her more than they ever had. Leading up to the election, she had told them to think positively and to trust that Trump, who seemed to personify every fear they held about America, would not win. But as polls closed on the West Coast, they were seeing the same results she was. They started to message her, seeking a glimmer of comfort on an evening that was quickly un- raveling. The most anguishing plea contained only one word: “Señora?” A while later, a single question mark followed. Williams went to sleep before the final results were in, clawing onto hope they would somehow turn. The voice on her radio alarm clock shred that faith first thing the next morning. At once, every ounce of trepidation for her students that had been building throughout the campaign solidified. “All I could think about was, ‘I just have to get to school,’” she says. “Sure enough, it was very, very real. The uncertainty and the fear and the devastation just became absolutely real at that moment.” When she arrived at school, the anguish was thick. The vulnerability exuded from her students’ slumped shoulders and was apparent on their faces, and she decided it would be best if they all stayed together for a while. They crowded into her small office next to her classroom. She tried her best to assuage their anxiety, assuring them they were not going to be deported and summoning any other messages of comfort she could muster. “It was whatever I could tell them to help them pass through the initial shock,” she says. For B.A., the realization began settling in that morning that the world was different. Students who supported Trump reveled in his win and chanted his slogan: “Make America Great Again.” Others taunted the Latino students. To her, it felt like a celebration of everything she is not. She had always been aware in many ways of the differences separating her and the majority of her classmates, but now, for the first time, she felt truly isolated. Please see Latino, A-16 Helping Utah Home Since 1977 VISIT US TODAY 2,633 – 5,001 Sq. 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