“Researchers have shown that the flooding of stress hormones resulting from a traumatic separation from your parents at a young age kills off so many dendrites and neurons in the brain that it results in permanent psychological and physical changes. One psychiatrist I went to told me that my brain looked like a tree without branches. So I just think about all the children who have been separated from their parents, and there's a lot of us, past and present, and some under more traumatic circumstances than others--like those who are in internment camps right now--and I just imagine us as an army of mutants. We’ve all been touched by this monster, and our brains are forever changed, and we all have trees without branches in there, and what will happen to us? Who will we become? Who will take care of us?” ChildrenBrainStressTraumaImmigrantsHormonesUndocumented ImmigrantsUndocumentedBrain Trauma Book:The Undocumented Americans Source: The Undocumented Americans
“Because children of color are much more likely to be exposed to lead at a young age, it is devastating to think about what will happen to an entire generation of Flint children. What promises can you make to a child about the world of possibility ahead of them when the state has poisoned their bloodstreams and bones such that their behavioral self-control and language comprehension are impaired? How many graves has the government of Michigan set aside for the casualties of the water crisis that will end with a gunshot in fifteen years' time? We all know how cops respond to kids of color with intellectual disabilities or mental illness.” ChildrenWaterLeadMichiganPeople Of ColorFlintChild EndangermentFlint Water CrisisLead Poisoning Book:The Undocumented Americans Source: The Undocumented Americans
“Strictly as a matter of taste, I do not like children. Small animals are adorable in the way my biology programs me to find large-eyed, small-skulled mammals adorable, and they can grow up into formidable or admirable creatures--cubs become bears, calves become elephants, fledglings become eagles. Babies lack language, which makes me bored and impatient, then turn into children, whose saccharine vocal emissions grate my nerves, and then turn into adult humans, the most monstrous of all animals.” ChildrenAnimalsBabiesCutenessBaby AnimalsAdorableness Book:The Undocumented Americans Source: The Undocumented Americans