Each Child. Every Community.

This post is part of a series written by Smart Start leaders chosen to participate in the Equity Leaders Action Network (ELAN), launched by The BUILD Initiative in 2015. Over the next three years, ELAN leaders will work together to identify, address and take action on issues of inequity based on race, ethnicity, language and culture in our early childhood state systems. 

I choose to look at the world through an equity lens.  It is not an easy choice or even a pretty road, but it is the space I choose to live in.  Looking at the world through an equity lens allows me to see disparities and structural racism that others may pass by for years.  I just recently read Think of Undocumented Immigrants as Parents, Not Problems by Roberto Suro and Marcelo M. Suarez-Orozco and realized that I was not aware of all the equity issues among immigrants in the United States.  Yes, I was aware of the common obstacles such as language barriers, but did not realize the impact on young children as they fear daily that their parents can be taken away from their home at any time.  We hear people complain about illegal citizens, but I wonder if they thought of illegal citizens as parents of young children would they complain less and demand citizenship requirements become more achievable.  I encourage you to step in this space I choose to live in and ask yourself are parents that cross the border so their families can have a better life any different from parents that cross school district lines to get better schools for their children?

Jessica Lowery, Ph.D.