By Elizabeth Campos, Staff Writer, L.B. Union February 16, 2016 (Photos taken from Noberto Lopez’s Facebook) http://www.lbunion.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2014
The topic of immigration brings controversy as well as supporters. With it also comes the lives of many people who look for better opportunities that are often limited due to their legal status.
Included with those who stand beneath the curtain of the American Dream are undocumented students.
They are stuck in between what they can and what they want to do. They are called the Dreamers.
While this term might come from the general requirements of the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act, Dreamers is actually a rather fitting name for these individuals.
Being brought to the United States as children, most Dreamers are eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
The program allows children who came to the United States before their 16th birthday and are currently or have graduated school to apply for a deferring period of up to two years.
Being a part of the program does get some pressure off of the Dreamers’ shoulders. They are able to refocus on their education without fear of deportation.
The DACA program offers another, once-in-a-lifetime-opportunityfor these students as well: the chance to visit home.
Enter the Dreamer’s Study Abroad California-Mexico program.
A study abroad program created with the purpose of allowing Dreamers to visit their home country, the process lets them temporarily return to where they came from.
This was an opportunity that Norberto Lopez, a 21-year-old sociology major and Dreamer, was unable to pass up.
Lopez recently was able to visit his home country and get immersed in the Mexican culture.
He and 29 other Dreamer students were approved for the journey. Upon completion of the program’s application and approval, Lopez took to the task of raising money for his airfare and other expenses.
Through Facebook he organized a fundraiser in his home where he sold tacos, aguas frescas and more with the help of his mother and family members to raise money.
Norberto Lopez in front of the Teotihuacan Pyramids
The day of the students’ departure from Los Angeles to Mexico City, an important question was clouding both they and their family’s minds.
Would they be able to come back into the United States?
The advanced parole authorization does not guarantee re-entry to the United States, and the possibility of immigration reforms changing is present.
When asked if he was scared, Lopez calmly explained that while the situation posed risk, it wasn’t likely for U.S. immigration to send back a group of 30 students with permission to leave the country.
“We’re a small group of people, we can organize ourselves,” he said.
“Send one back, you send all of us back.”
The streets of Mexico City make students feel at home
Mexico City was the first stop upon arrival to Lopez’s 24 day stay in Mexico.
Following that was Guadalajara, Jalisco—his hometown—and finally Cuernavaca, Morelos.
The students spent time in their hometowns with family.
Lopez was much smaller when he lived here. Now, a great deal of time had passed.
“Instead of looking up, I was looking down,” he explained.
The little boy who had lived here was a lot taller now, and so many things looked different.
“[That was] the thing that impacted me the most.”
When in Cuernavaca, Lopez attended a progressive Spanish speaking school named CETLALIC where he learned of social movements and justice in Mexico.
There, he also got to listen to activists of the area as well as speak and write Spanish.
A moment that resonated with him the most was seeing the Mexican flag in his home country.
An activist speaks at CETLALIC speaks of important issues
In the U.S., he had always only seen it on a screen.
“When you finally see it, actually standing in front of it, it’s amazing,” Lopez said.
When the opportunity of studying abroad arises, Mexico isn’t the first place a lot of people think of.
“What you see in the media isn’t how it really is over there,” said Lopez.
For many of the Dreamers who once lived there, it is home.
Dreamers all have a story to tell and there are no amount of words or legal documents that can explain what this program did for them.
The organizers of the program are planning a Summer 2016 study abroad opportunity for more qualifying students.
Information on the upcoming program can he found here:
http://california-mexicocenter.org/dreamers-summer2016/
