Reflection 3: Education Equity

"I froze when she picked up my book. Here it is. Here is my big chance! She opened it, flipped through the pages in the blink of an eye, then she closed the book shut and put it in the big pile. My eyes began to burn with tears. My book had been rejected." (Reyna Grande, 217)

Is this what immigrants, even undocumented, face? Prior to reading The Distance Between Us, and Affirmative Action Proposal for California Universities Runs into Asian-American Opposition, an article about universities and how they permit students to enter based on race; I had believed differently. Throughout the years, many schools have taken into account peoples ethnicities rather than the students' credentials. As stated in the article, many students are angered by this, and threatened California universities with lawsuit. This continues, becoming a much more heavily debated subject. Should it not be the students who try the hardest that are permitted into college? Why should a fifth generation Hispanic, sixth in their class, get into say Stanford instead of a third generation Caucasian who was second? It should be those who are driven, should it not? 

I feel that The Distance Between Us demonstrates this quite well in the quote above. Reyna Grande put all of her effort into writing her story for class, proud of what she had written. However, her teacher skipped over the story. Not even bothering to read her story. The reason behind this, Reyna is Hispanic and the teacher doesn't understand her language. So the teacher refuses to read the story, not even giving Reyna a chance to win the story competition.
 
So despite where people come from, undocumented or not, they should be given a chance to excel based on how driven they are. Every child should be given a chance, but those who strive, and push themselves, should they not have the opportunity to attend the schools they wish to attend?