One example stands out starkly in my mind: during a district specialist meeting a few years ago a presenter shared student demographics. He mentioned the growth in refugee student populations for Somalian and Ukrainian students. A teacher raised her hand to question the inclusion of Ukrainian students under the refugee category with the Somalian students. She said she understood why the Somalian students were included but not the Ukrainian.

The answer to the question is that Ukraine has been at war with Russia for years, causing the displacement of thousands of people and the deaths of many more. However, I understand her perspective. Many Ukrainian families in our district lived in the U.S. for many years and are now economically successful in comparison to the relatively new influx of Somalian refugees. However, it’s important not to conflate the established immigrants with the ones who only recently moved.

Also, during group discussions at many diversity trainings, I find myself explaining why I am the first person in my family to go to college. In elementary school my mother would be called out to the front during assemblies by the principal, who would then tell students not to be friends with her. Why? My mother also wanted to attend college, but she was denied access to a secondary education because of her religion—she was Christian. This shocks many colleagues because Christianity has been a dominant religion in the U.S. That is not the case for much of the world.

I hope you appreciate the irony of the story I will share next.

Some time ago two Slavic high schoolers volunteered with me at an after-school club. They shared that the previous year a counselor at their school systematically called in Slavic students who had signed up for the Running Start program. According to the high schoolers, they had also been called in but had not heard of a single non-Slavic student being called to speak with this counselor. The counselor then pressured the students to drop out of the Running Start program, driving many of the girls to tears. This constituted many students, because their high school has a high Slavic population and most of them opt into Running Start. The girls did say that the counselor does not work there now.

I’m not going to dive into e-mails sent between staff members, warning one another to watch out for “the Russian kids.”

However, in bringing these few instances to light, I hope to increase awareness for issues I have not previously seen addressed. It’s important to look at every person as an individual. We don’t know their story or background. Beware of making assumptions or conflating groups of people. Listen to the story of the immigrant.