On the top floor of a Spanish immersion elementary school in St. Paul, Minn., a classroom of fifth graders is immersed in a world of damsels in distress and knights slaying giants.
Their teacher, Ms. A, is walking them through a lesson on “Don Quixote.” NPR is only using first names or initials for people at this school and are not naming the school because the staff fears the federal government could target them.
Ms. A asks her class to discuss what the word “enchantment” means. The students circle inward at their tables. Above them, flags from Latin American countries are strung along the ceiling. Most of the kids here are Latino.
Enchantment, one student answers, is like magic, like a spell. Spoiler alert on this 400-year-old novel, but Don Quixote doesn't actually slay any giants or rescue any princesses. It's all in his head. Still, Ms. A thinks her students can make connections to their own lives.
“With ‘Don Quixote,’ it's like seeing how this knight, it's not just that he is crazy and out of his mind, but also that he just wants to do good in the world,” she says.
You can't always fix the world's problems, she says, but you can try to help others.
That's the message she hopes her students take away. They've been through a lot. This winter, thousands of federal immigration officers descended on their state as part of the Trump administration's mass deportation and detention campaign. Families hid in their homes, getting groceries delivered by neighbors. Nonwhite citizens began carrying their passports in case they were stopped. Protesters were subjected to tear gas and pepper balls. Many children stopped going to school.
The immigration surge in Minnesota ended last month, but its effects on children linger. Just a few days before Ms. A's “Don Quixote” lesson, her classroom was a lot emptier. During the height of the operation, the school added a virtual option, and more than a third of the students opted in.
“In person, they would talk and participate and ask questions and all of that. They went online and they didn't say a word. They didn't do anything. Their faces were not the same,” Ms. A says.
Early childhood experts say that reaction makes sense. Hopewell Hodges, a researcher at the University of Minnesota who studies the developmental resilience of children, says a child's world is like the rings of a tree, with the child at the center.
“In order to develop well, the child needs to be embedded in these healthy systems: caregiving systems, classrooms, neighborhoods, farther out are entire economies, cities,” Hodges says.
When any of those are disrupted, the effects ripple inward.
“The young ones are often developmentally bearing the brunt of conflicts and tensions and stresses that originate in the adult world,” she says.
In St. Paul, nearly two months of virtual learning ended just this week, but at the Spanish immersion school, not every student came back: One family is now in El Salvador, others are in Mexico and others moved to Nebraska and California, states that felt safer for them. Another family is heading back to Venezuela soon.
Amanda, the school principal, says some kids didn't want to come back.
“They are fearful that their parents are going to be taken while they are in school,” she says. “Not that they can do anything while they're at home, right? But levels of stress are just really spiking in our kids.”
She says it feels like the school is starting over, like half the year didn't happen.
Many families continue to fear ICE. There are still reports of ICE agents in the neighborhood, though fewer now than before. On the day NPR visited, a school district security vehicle sat idling outside the entrance, because a community member had reported an ICE vehicle nearby.
And about half of the staff here are Latino. Amanda, who is originally from Mexico City, began carrying her passport with her. Ms. A, who is Puerto Rican, says she spoke to her seven-year-old daughter about what to do if she is detained.
“I am Latina and I look Latina, which I love, right? But at the same time, at this moment in the place that we're in, I don't feel comfortable,” says Ms. A.
So, the community isn't letting its guard down just yet: Community members still stand guard at recess, pacing the schoolyard in neon yellow vests. One classroom is still being used as a grocery delivery operation, overflowing with cereal, beans, masa, cleaning supplies, diapers and backpacks packed with books and stuffies.
“The pantry will continue to go for as long as we can fund it,” says Katherine, a parent volunteer. “It's the right thing to do. I mean, it's our community. These are our friends, our neighbors. And they need help. So we help.”
Hodges, the University of Minnesota researcher, says community support like that can serve as a protective barrier for children.
“Kids are going to be alright if our community is able to be alright,” Hodges says. “The most important thing that the grownup world can do to protect children's development in light of ICE surges is to prevent this from happening again.”
On the first day back at school from online learning, Ms. A says her students were very excited: “All the kids knew and they were ready and they were in the hallway, and I had one kid who ran in the hallway with open arms running to me.”
“I was really excited and happy that they came back,” says Ellah, an 11-year-old in Ms. A's class who did not opt for online learning. “It feels a lot better. Like, there's a lot more people in our class and it feels like how it was.”
Another student, an 11-year-old named Camila, is one of the children who just returned after weeks of online learning.
“I've been feeling scared, especially for my parents since they go to work,” she says, adding that she feels safest at the end of the day, when everyone is home again. But her first week back at school, she says, has helped.
“It felt good because I got to see my friends again,” Camila says. “They help me feel safer.”
As the class settles back into being together, Ms. A says she just wants her classroom to be a space where these kids can feel normal again: “You know, we're good. I love you. I care about you. I'm here for you. We're all here for you. I think that that's the way we move forward.”
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