Immigrant Pianist Who Inspired Federal Legislation is Honored
Sitting in the front row of the gallery in the U.S. Capitol Building on February 24, directly facing Donald Trump as he railed on live television about the danger posed by immigrants, one member of the audience offered a silent rebuke by her mere presence. Tereza Lee, who serves as Director of Programs at Lower Manhattan’s Church Street School for Music and Art was attending the State of the Union address as the invited guest of Senator Dick Durbin (Democrat of Illinois), for a very pointed reason. The Senator, who is the primary author and sponsor of the DREAM (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act, conceived of this legislation with one constituent in mind: Ms. Lee, who was a Chicago teenager when she first came to Mr. Durbin’s attention, in the late 1990s.
The dilemma that sparked the Senator’s interest was that Ms. Lee (whose Korean family had come to America from Brazil when she was two years old), already recognized as a piano savant before she entered high school, would not be able to continue her music education in college, because of a family secret. “My father had called us together when I was seven,” she remembers, “and said we had to talk about something very serious and important. His tone was soft and sad as he explained we didn’t have something called a ‘green card.’ At that age, a child barely understands the meaning of countries and laws, but as my father continued, I realized that if we were ever caught, my parents would be sent to Korea, I would be sent to Brazil, where I had been born, and my little brother, who was born in America, would be sent into the Chicago foster care system, and none of us would ever see each other again.”
“A few years later,” she continues, “when I was graduating from elementary school, I won an award for perfect attendance from kindergarten to eighth grade. They gave me a savings bond. I was excited, because I knew we were very poor and I thought this money could help my family. But when I showed the savings bond to my father, he tore it up and said that even though we, like most immigrants, paid taxes, no bank would allow me to deposit it because I could never get a Social Security number.”
It was during elementary school that Ms. Lee first exhibited an interest in the piano. “My father served as the pastor of a small church,” she says, “and a parishioner gifted us a piano, so I began practicing for many hours each day. We had no money for lessons, so I taught myself how to read music and play.”
Her skill soon earned her a scholarship to Chicago’s prestigious Merit School of Music, where Ms. Lee was at last given formal instruction, and continued to excel. At age 16, she won first prize in the renowned Chicago Symphony Orchestra Youth Concerto Competition, which seemed to augur a shining future as a classical pianist. But after her brother suffered life-threatening injuries in a car accident, the family faced overwhelming medical debt and financial ruin.
“That’s when I began to think of music as a way to save my family,” Ms. Lee recalls. “I originally wanted to be a scientist. But the one thing I knew how to do was play the piano. It became my escape from a world that did not accept me. But if I could be successful as a pianist, that might mean enough money to solve our problems.” For an aspiring musician with her demonstrated talent, a music college was the next inevitable step. But this plan was blocked. “The Merit School’s artistic director gave me the applications,” Ms. Lee says, “but when I returned them, she noticed that I had left the Social Security space blank. When she asked why, I started crying and I asked her please not to turn me into the police.”
Instead, Merit School officials turned to Senator Durbin, who was so moved by Ms. Lee’s story that he sponsored a “private bill” – an act of Congress that applies to a specific individual, usually to provide them with immigration relief outside the normal channels. Such bills are used only when the merits of a case are unusually compelling, and the hardship extreme. Realizing that Ms. Lee’s history met both of these criteria, he enacted a bill granting her legal residency. This paved the way for Ms. Lee to accept a full scholarship at the Manhattan School of Music, where she went on to earn Bachelors, Masters, and Doctoral degrees.
Word spread among Chicago’s immigrant community about Senator Durbin’s action, and other undocumented students began asking for the same help. “They started coming up to Senator Durbin in parking lots,” she recalls, “and saying, ‘I’m also undocumented. Can you write a bill for me?’” Senator Durbin and his colleagues in Congress realized there were vast numbers of young people who had been brought to America as infants or small children, and had grown up here never knowing any other home. Current estimates suggest that there are between seven and 11 million such people currently living in the United States.
In April 2001, the private bill that Senator Durbin had sponsored for Ms. Lee was expanded into the DREAM Act, proposed legislation that aims to grant temporary conditional residency (with the right to work) to people who were brought to the United States as minors without legal immigration status. The same measure would also open a path to legal permanent residency and (in some cases) full citizenship.
“He invited me to testify at the hearing for the DREAM Act,” she recalls. “That hearing was scheduled for September 12, 2001, but it never happened [because of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001].” Since then, the DREAM Act has been reintroduced at every legislative session but has never been enacted – a victim of the partisan vitriol that any proposed immigration reform now inspires.
“A lot of pain and hurt comes from being othered and demonized,” Ms. Lee says. “There is so much shame, guilt, and fear. This runs very deep. And it is especially true of Asian cultures, which emphasize the stain that comes from dishonor related to official disapproval.”
“Immigrants have always lived and written the history of this country,” she says. “Twenty years ago, I would have described America as a land of opportunity. Today, the climate is very different. But despite all of this demonization and brainwashing, I still believe that most Americans want a solution and very few want division.”
After graduating from the Manhattan School of Music, and performing at (among other venues) Carnegie Hall, Steinway Hall, and Lincoln Center, Dr. Lee joined the faculty at Tribeca’s Church Street School for Music and Art in 2008. In the years since, her advocacy helped build support for the New York State DREAM Act, enacted in 2019, which allows undocumented students access to state financial aid, scholarships, and 529 savings accounts.
As Director of Programs at the Church Street School, she says, “I remember every day that I grew up desperately poor, never able to afford music lessons. When the Merit School opened their doors to me, I grew not only as a musician, but also as a human being. I learned what it meant to be part of a community. They saved my future. Now I have the opportunity to open those same doors for kids like me. That’s what Church Street School tries to do every day.”
On Monday, March 9, Dr. Lee will be honored as Teacher of the Year by the Church Street School at their annual gala, “The Event,” held at the Roxy Hotel (Two Sixth Avenue).