“Education is the currency of love,” says Gabrielle Oliveira, Associate Professor of Education and Brazilian Studies at the Jorge Paulo Lemann Harvard Graduate School of Education and author of the uplifting book Now We Are Here: Family Migration, Children’s Education, and Dreams for a Better Life. She was the featured guest at a press briefing hosted by American Community Media, where she spoke with ethnic media reporters about the role of education in family migration.
Education, she said, is the sphere of life where parents can most clearly express their care and love for their children, because education determines their future. That’s why schooling, the choice of a child’s education and school, plays such an important role in parental decisions, including the decision to emigrate. This is true across all ethnic groups, as Hungarian Americans can also attest. Many Hungarian immigrants to the U.S. were motivated by their children’s education and future.
This matters not only in where families choose to move, but also in why they choose to leave. Many decide to emigrate because they do not see adequate educational opportunities for their children in their home country. Surveys show that, beyond physical safety and livelihood, education is one of the strongest motivations for migration. This means that alongside physical security and survival, a child’s future ranks among the most important concerns of parents.
In many parts of the world, people believe that the United States is the best place to ensure a proper education and a safe future for their children. That perception changed dramatically under Donald Trump’s first and second presidencies. During Trump’s first term, families were confronted with being separated from their children, and many struggled for months – or years – to reunite. The trauma inflicted on both children and parents was immense.
Trump’s second term represents an even greater threat, with ICE raids at schools and efforts to catch parents through their children, turning not only parents but also kids into targets. Schools are no longer safe spaces for immigrant children. Teachers have reported classrooms emptying overnight because children were too afraid to attend, or because their families fled the area altogether.
Making matters worse, the federal government continues to pressure states not to provide schooling for children whose parents have disputed immigration status. The term “disputed” is crucial, Oliveira explained, because immigration courts have in many cases protected these families from deportation. The Trump administration, however, uses false legal pretexts to strip them of their right to a hearing and to legal defense. Yet courts routinely consider factors such as education when making decisions about deportation.
While the United States owes much of its prosperity and global influence to being a nation of immigrants – where talented teachers and students from around the world come to study and teach – it is now endangering its own future. Both educators and students are increasingly vulnerable, fearful of coming to the U.S., and even those already here no longer feel safe. During the briefing, a tragic case was mentioned: a Los Angeles high school student, an honors scholar, was deported to Guatemala at age 17, where her mother died soon after because she was denied access to essential medication. This is the reality now faced by immigrant families who value their children’s education above all else.
Oliveira emphasized that schools serve not only as educational institutions but also as spaces of socialization and psychological healing. Immigrant children often experience severe trauma at a very young age, carrying inner pain and memories that emerge in their writing and storytelling at school, testimonies that can enrich their communities and help them heal. Schools, she argued, should make the emotional and educational support of immigrant children a top priority.
This is not only a moral and public health obligation, it is the best possible investment in America’s future. Past generations endured hardship and horror too, yet those who survived went on to contribute immensely to the nation’s prosperity. A clear example is the Hungarian-American diaspora, whose many accomplished members are well known across the United States—even if most Americans don’t realize they are Hungarian. They experienced hardship and persecution, but America gave them refuge, and they repaid that generosity many times over. Now, however, the U.S. itself has become a source of fear and trauma—experiences that will need to be healed.
Oliveira also explained that education is a fundamental part of the “American Dream,” especially for families from Latin America and South America. In many Brazilian schools, she noted, there are no books and no teachers. Parents simply want their children to learn, to have a chance at a better life. Education truly is “the currency of love,” she said, because parents express their love by striving to give their children opportunities to grow and to realize their potential. For many immigrant families, the leap from such conditions into the American educational system is extraordinary.
This, she argued, has long been the source of America’s vitality. Immigrants tend to be more grateful, more motivated, and more driven to succeed. Studies show they are often more attached to their new homeland than native-born Americans, who may take their opportunities for granted. There is no better investment than educating and empowering these talented, ambitious newcomers who, in many ways, aspire to be “more American than the Americans.” This energy is what has kept America moving forward.
Oliveira called attention to the diversity and openness that have long characterized American education, qualities that make it distinct from the systems in the countries immigrants come from. These newcomers are open to learning and creativity, and benefit greatly from an education that encourages independent thinking. Yet, she warned, the current assault on education—driven by Republican extremists and cultural warriors, targets not only teachers and immigrant students but also academic freedom itself, undermining the diversity and intellectual liberty that fuel progress.
Linguistic diversity, she added, should be seen as an asset, not a problem. The Trump administration took the opposite approach by declaring English the “official language,” a move not driven by practicality but by exclusion and dominance. Instead, America should embrace the richness of its linguistic and cultural mosaic, encouraging bilingual education, preserving heritage languages, and hiring bilingual teachers to strengthen the nation’s multilingual identity. Students will master English naturally but they should also be empowered to maintain their native languages.
If such cultural and linguistic richness did not already exist, she said, America should create it. The social mobility of immigrant families is one of the greatest fruits of education. The U.S. must not destroy or expel this diversity, it must cultivate and integrate it. We hope that today’s destructive political forces will prove temporary. They are too irrational and too harmful to last. The outcome must be a new era of inclusion and renewal. One can only hope that not everything built over generations can be destroyed in just four years.
