Growing Up in Policy

My name is Shirley Licetti Rubio. I am a first generation college student and a proud daughter of two immigrants who came to this country searching for a better future their beloved homes could not provide. I was born and raised on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, a neighborhood known for its wealth, with the median household income being: $159,241 (Census 2022/2023). My family moved in to our UES apartment in 2005 through a deal in which my father was given the apartment in exchange for his services as building superintendent, which is how we managed to afford to live in such a prestigious neighborhood. I had come to realize at a young age that politics played a role in mine and my family’s lives on a daily basis rather than just during the peak election season. My first experience was one that impacted me to this day and made me want to pursue a career as an educator. When we send our children/ loved ones to school, we expect it to be an environment in which they thrive and learn. We entrust the environment to being supportive and safe for our loved ones and even ourselves as caretakers. However, that was not the case for my family and I. Following our move into the neighborhood, my mom had enrolled us in our closest zoned elementary school, PS290, as the elementary schools you can apply to are based off of your location (state level power). Once enrolled, my mom met with our assigned teachers on our first day of school. When meeting with my brother’s 4th grade teacher, she had threatened my mom with expulsion from the school and reporting her to the authorities for fraud if she found out that my mother had lied about her address in order to enroll at the school. It was unbelievable because of the legitimacy of the information she had provided. We in fact lived at that address and had followed all the zoning rules when enrolling in schools. This instance had made me aware of the reality of being an outsider in your own home, and the structure of the school system itself, where rules like zoning and the people in charge of enforcing them can affect whether a family feels like they actually belong. That moment showed me that politics isn’t just something we learn about in class, it’s something that can shape your everyday life in ways that feel personal and unfair. In retrospect, the experience I had as a child was an example of federalism and bureaucracy playing out in real time. School zoning is a state-level power and school staff first hand enforce the policy. People in positions of power such as teachers/ administrators have significant influence over the application of laws and policies, which reflect the broader concept of bureaucracy in government. In this case, it gave the teacher permission to decide who she believes fits into the school zone, making her decision solely based off of preconceived notions rather than the policies in place. In addition, this experience shined a light on civil liberties and representation for me, as my family was discriminated against even whilst following all the rules/ doing everything right. We had our right to education questioned, which made me question how access to basic rights is not always guaranteed depending on who is enforcing the rules / policies. Lastly, it caused me to reflect on the importance of exerting our right to speak up and participate in democracy, exerting our right to pick those in power as it may affect not only us but those to come in the future.