As Ice deports children, what futures do we lose? | Ariel Dorfman
I was forced to flee my homeland as a child; so were my own children. So the horror can be grasped by our celebrity-driven society: are we removing the next Mozart?
Two children – a nine-year old boy and his six-year old sister – are playing at “house”, pretending to be their father and mother. Absorbed in the game, they repeat the words their parents have been whispering to each other when they thought their progeny were not listening.
Playing like innocent children all over the world play and have played since the beginning of history. But, here and now, in America, the words some endangered children may be exchanging are far from innocent.
Ariel Dorfman, an emeritus distinguished professor of literature at Duke University, is the Chilean-American author of the play Death and the Maiden and, more recently, the novels The Suicide Museum and Allegro.