May 26, 2018
Dear Representative Huizenga,
It is with great dismay that I write to you today. On Wednesday May, 11, I escorted 18 Oakridge High School juniors and seniors to meet with you on Capitol Hill, for you to listen to their thoughts and gauge their needs, as any elected United States Congressman would be excited to do. Your actions in that twenty minute exchange were not worthy of a United States Representative and disrespectful to the young people in my charge.
When you first walked up to greet us, you commented aloud to all of us, “your teacher (me) has raised problems here in the past.” I am paraphrasing because I do not remember your exact wording. Had we known one another, it might have been funny, something that you kid about with a friend. We are not friends; I think it has been four years since you’ve met with my students, with me. We barely know one another; the reaction was unnecessary and served to foreshadow your attitude for the meeting.
Following introductions, one of my students, a 17 year old girl with an intimate relationship of our nation’s absent Immigration policy, took the floor and spoke to you directly about her life, about the United State’s president, and policies that have had an impact on her loved ones. Her story was poignant. She fought back tears. She held her ground. She was respectful and direct and informed. She did not raise her voice. She painted a picture of hardship and hope, of poverty. I think you would agree she eloquently educated all of us. You didn’t hear her though. You didn’t ask her what you, a sitting United State’s Congressman, could do to ease her pain. You interrupted her. You compared your wife’s immigration plight, years ago from Canada (a white first world state) with her family’s struggle from poverty and danger in Mexico. You spoke of immigration law and the dire need to secure the Northern (???) and Southern border of our country, when all that you needed to do was listen.
About ten minutes into the exchange, I leaned over to a student who, along with me, was listening to the immigration memoir, and I whispered to her. You have no idea what was said; and whatever it was, was irrelevant. You interrupted yourself, and spoke directly to me, loud enough so that all nineteen of us could clearly hear you. You said, “So are you feeding her more questions?” And this wasn’t even the girl speaking. I’ve been taking kids to the Hill for over twenty years, and never have I heard a United States Congressman speak as condescendingly to a captive audience of young people. .My students don’t need to be fed questions; they know their rights. They are knowledgeable of their needs. This was their time to talk with you. By claiming I manipulate their questions, you undercut them, their worth, and their intellect as young American citizens. Your remark was disrespectful. And yet, after I challenged your comments as “patronizing”, without apology, you continued on.
This is not the only time in which your office has shown disrespect to my students. On April 11, 2017 Sara Sarene (OHS c/o 2017) spoke with you at a Town Hall Meeting at Godwin Heights High School in Grand Rapids. She and two friends were collecting petition signatures to call for the full funding of AmeriCorps. You promised at that time, to meet with her in Washington for Close Up and accept from her and her fellow petitioners, what would be over 2000 petition signatures. She talked with you and your staff personally and was scheduled onto your calendar. However, when we arrived in Washington in May, you didn’t have time to meet with her, and when she asked to present the petitions to you in your Home District, your aids informed her that you would not have the time there either. Senators Stabenow and Peters each accepted copies of the petition signatures, and talked with the kids.
I encourage my students to call their representatives. We practice procedure, so that the exchange is respectful and effective. If the student works up the courage, they make their phone call in front of the class. Some stay after class and do so. Others call on their own time and share the experience with us. Each call is empowering. Students contact Federal and State offices, Democrat and Republican officials. The issue is always theirs to choose. And while the spiraling cost of higher education serves as the current most concerning topic, students have in the past, called on DACA, on war, on the environment and climate change, abortion and gun control, among a host of other concerns. I tell them that if they merely call and say “hello”, get nervous, and hang up, it is a success. The experience serves to lessen their fears. It opens doors. Some of the interactions are long and detailed, others short and sweet; usually the call is fruitful. Congressional staffers often send follow up policy letters to these kids, to their home addresses The problem with your office, is that more than a few follow up letters signed by you, that are in fact addressed to the student’s home, the kid who was shaking when they made that phone call include the typed heading, “Dear Mr. Wood,” instead of the student’s name which is typed onto the envelope.
How do you think that makes a young person feel, when they receive a patronizing letter from a Congressional office, on official US Government letter head, signed by a United States Congressman, about an issue that they finally worked up the courage to ask about, and yet are identified by that same Congressman as a tool of their teacher? There is a pattern here.
Maybe the most telling segment of our Wednesday Hill discussion consistent with your treatment of my students over the years, took place immediately prior to your departure. You turned to the Capitol Building and pointed and told my students, that this (the government) in the next couple of years. would be theirs. That comment was not missed by anybody in attendance; in fact it is what they most took away from the encounter. It infers that one must be of voting age to matter in this nation If you are fifteen or sixteen or seventeen, it insinuates that you are not intelligent enough, I guess, to formulate your own opinions, make your own demands of Congress. Yet, “we are endowed by our creator with certain unalienable rights,” of which I am sure that you are well aware, and of which it is your duty to protect. Citizenship does not wait for the vote. Each of my students in attendance with you on Wednesday May 11, deserved the full attention and value that any citizen in this democracy has the right to expect from their elected representative. You insinuated that they needed to vote to secure these rights; that they are in fact second class citizens.
You left shortly thereafter. We took no photograph. We exchanged no handshakes. You walked away to the Capitol that you so admire, and left your constituency wondering if they matter…
They do; I can assure you. Even if you struggle to recognize their significance.
Sincerely,
Bob Wood
Oakridge High School
5493 East Hall Road
Muskegon, MI 49442
