Remember turning 16? The first thing most of us did was run down to the DMV, permit clutched in hand, to take our driving tests. We prayed we’d get friendly examiners, that we’d dominate parallel parking, and that our photos wouldn’t look too goofy. With our licenses, we knew, came freedom—freedom from public transportation or begging parents and friends for rides. We could get jobs, run errands for our parents, or go places at night without the fear that comes of walking down dark streets. Visions of road trips danced in our heads. Suddenly, with the possession of driver’s licenses, we joined a new class of members of society. It was an important rite of passage, but one that most of took for granted.
This month, thousands of Californians will know the sweet freedom that comes with being able to move freely through the streets without fear. They will become licensed and insured drivers, despite being in this country illegally. They can go to their jobs, pick up their children, see the doctor, or buy groceries with greater ease than before. If they are stopped for driving infractions, their cars will not be impounded. Life will become slightly easier for these newly licensed drivers, and for us, their neighbors as well.
Of course there are many who will protest. Why reward undocumented residents with a license? Why not make their lives as hard as possible? Even a newly licensed teenager knows the refrain: driving is a privilege, not a right.
I will confess to a bit of a bias. I owe my marriage to a driver’s license. Years ago, when I met my husband, he was planning to move back to Mexico. He’d been here for 10 years, undocumented, and had decided that he was getting nowhere. With the wages he’d earned working two or three jobs, he had bought his parents a home and paid for his younger siblings’ education, but now it was time to do something for himself, and returning to Mexico to set up a business seemed the best way to do that. There was just the tiny pesky issue of a traffic ticket to clear up. He knew the value of protecting his driver’s license, in case he ever returned to the US, and so he decided to stay long enough to complete traffic school and clear his driving record. While waiting for his traffic school date, he met me, we married, and he lived happily (and legally) ever after. Romance meets the American Dream.
My dear husband aside, I tend to err on the side of practicality: I want drivers on the road around me to be insured. I’d like their cars to be smogged and registered, and I want the security of knowing that they have passed a driver’s test. I’m hopeful the fees paid to the DMV will help fill state coffers and boost California’s economy.
Selfishly, I want the undocumented parents of my students to be able to drop them off and pick them up on time and to attend parent conferences, Back-to-School Night, and Open House. I want sick students to go home as quickly as possible, instead of sitting in the health clerk’s office with a runny nose or a fever or pinkeye. I want students to be able to come early or stay late for tutoring, math club, robotics club, or soccer. In the long run, I admit to wanting the lives of my students to be less problematic, regardless of their immigration status, because when their lives are easier, my job in the classroom is easier. I can focus on long division and the American Revolution, instead of comforting Pablito whose father’s car was impounded, or scolding Santiago for being late again because the trolley was delayed.
I’m delighted to see California take this step. While the long lines at the DMV will inconvenience us for a while, in the long run our streets will be safer, our databases of drivers more accurate, and the lives of our children made easier. California got this one right.
