I left the editorship of The New England Journal of Higher Education (NEJHE) in early 2023 and began volunteering in phenology at the Rose Kennedy Greenway in Boston, Mass., and in English language teaching at the Immigrant Learning Center (ILC) in Malden, Mass.

I have posted occasional reflections on the Greenway gig in this blog. I’ve said less about the ILC experience. I’ve worried about drawing attention to the immigrant students who are already made vulnerable by America’s xenophobia and creeping nationalism. It’s about to enter a much darker phase.

But these hard-working and friendly students strike me as great Americans in the making. (Interestingly, one prerequisite for their ultimate goal of US citizenship is “good moral character.” That means no record of crime or fraud—hardly a quality of many of those who would banish them.)

I recently attended a moving presentation arranged by the ILC where a representative of Lawyers for Civil Rights reminded the newcomers, including undocumented immigrants, that they have rights and should know them. These include the right to remain silent (especially, the rep noted, don’t disclose immigration status of place of birth), to call a lawyer if arrested or detained, to access an interpreter and to not consent to entry unless the police show a warrant with the correct names and addresses and signed by a judge (not by an ICE agent, which is a real scam).

In January 2025, the National Immigration Law Center released this revised document: Know Your Rights: What to Do if You Are Arrested or Detained by Immigration

The immigrants were also urged to videotape the encounter with police if it’s safe to do so. And if pulled over by the police, they were advised to have their license and registration ready, then keep both hands visible so police don’t think they’re reaching for a weapon. A thoughtful ILC teacher reminded the students that if the police stopped her driving without her license, she might get off with a warning but, for these possibly undocumented students, it would be a much bigger thing. “I know it’s not fair,” she said.

The lawyers’ group also gave the students a small piece of paper containing info on legal representation to carry with them in case they run into trouble with authorities.

It’s not only police who infringe on immigrants rights, but also landlords, bosses and others.

The speaker also offered some profound tips on cultural norms, noting, for example, that domestic violence and leaving children alone at home or in cars is forbidden in the US.

The speaker also emphasized that immigrants have rights to public benefits like food stamps that they are eligible for, despite all the controversy about “public charge” policies.

Immigrants and the economy

By the time I left the editorship of NEJHE, I had become disheartened by the increasing careerism of college students. But what seemed philistine of many US-born students seems more logical among students whose color and ethnicity might give bosses an excuse to withhold livable wages in their new country.

The ILC students sometimes inform the teacher that they cannot make class because of appointments. Many of these are medical appointments (where, importantly, the students have the right to an interpreter). Many other appointments are job interviews.

Several of the students work at Amazon warehouses. One told me about working as a “stower,” scanning products and handing them off to robots. That’s the kind of “hybrid” work between humans and technology that my previous traditional employer and its corporate partners projected to be a superpower for tomorrow’s skilled worker.

Other students in my latest class spoke of goals ranging from going to technical college to running their own salon to working in import-export to studying airplane mechanics.

In my time at the ILC, I have covered a few subjects probably too subtly for non-English speakers … the history and nuances of Martin Luther King Day, Memorial Day, Juneteenth and Indigenous People’s Day, for example.

Most recently, we celebrated Thanksgiving. The Thanksgiving reading included the word “pilgrims,” who I noted were immigrants like the students (a confusing point no doubt), but also the word “colonizers,” who, ironically, were immigrants too.

“Black Friday” was also included unabashedly as a vocab word. This prompted some discussion among the students of how “sale” as in bargains stores offer the day after Thanksgiving sounds the same as “sail” as in the Mayflower ship that brought the pilgrims to Plymouth. That homophone also offered a lesson in becoming an American.