By Tuyen Tran, EdSource, September 29, 2021
Whether you agree or disagree with the end of the war in Afghanistan, as the conflict draws to a close, our attention now must shift to the challenge of resettling tens of thousands of Afghans across America.
Of critical concern will be how we welcome and accommodate Afghan children within our education system. Today’s Afghan evacuees will be our students tomorrow. Long a magnet for newcomers, California will become home for many of these refugee students. More than 1,700 Afghans are expected to settle in the Sacramento area by the end of the year.
How we respond to their needs will shape their future and ours.
I speak from personal experience. In 1978, after the Vietnam War, my family fled persecution with only what we could carry. We traveled shoulder to shoulder on an overloaded boat in a desperate and dangerous attempt at freedom. After two years of asylum in Malaysia, the United States accepted my family for permanent residence. In 1983, at the age of nine, I was sitting in a third-grade classroom in Sacramento.
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