Author: Linh H. Nguyen (LAW '19)

Temple Law Owls Take D.C.: From Rhetoric to Asylum Policy

Words are things. They get on the walls. They get in your wallpaper. They get in your rugs, in your upholstery, and your clothes, and finally, in to you. – Maya Angelou One should never underestimate the power of words, for he who can use words skillfully, strategically, and cunningly may shape another’s mind in his hands. Indeed, rhetoric is an effective instrument, and a power to which the Trump Administration is no stranger—particularly as it relates to shaping public perceptions on asylum policy. Over the past few years, the conversation on immigration, once grounded in human rights, have given way to more serious discussions predicated on national security and labor. Trump’s logic stems from the idea that a strong America requires a thriving labor market, which is the product of an impenetrable border. Such desires to preserve the American worker and defend him from foreign nationals have given rise to an ardent nationalist movement. To his base—voters suffering from the woes of a sluggish labor market, stoked by fears of the “dangerous foreigner”—this message …

Locked Out

Reflections on Locked Out of Learning: Educating Refugees in America’s Schools

I knew attending the Locked Out of Learning: Educating Refugees in America’s Schools forum would ignite in me a deep reflection of my life—a life shaped both by and in the shadow of my family’s immigration to the United States. Born to “Vietnamese boat people,” members of a two-million-people diaspora fleeing communist Vietnam from 1975 to 1995, I immediately saw the similarities between my own refugee parents, the six named plaintiffs in Issa v. School District of Lancaster, and the Asian American students involved in the 2009 interracial-violence incident at South Philadelphia High School. They were all new Americans who left their native countries in pursuit of greater educational and economic opportunities in the United States. However, upon arrival they were faced with the often harsh reality of cross-cultural assimilation, a slow and difficult process of adjustment. Escaping persecution, violence, and war, my mother and father settled in the United States for a better future. Yet, despite their steadfast work ethic, our household was in a perpetual state of financial instability. Growing up in this manner, …