EL MAGONISTA | SPECIAL EDITION | DEC. 1, 2023 | VOL. 11, NO. 37

Please review the full program details and Frequently Asked Questions below before your apply online to out Spring & Summer 2024 California-Mexico Dreamers Study Abroad Program.

PROGRAM DESCRIPTION:

Given the tenuous future of DACA, the CMSC has decided to create the Spring and Summer 2024 Independent Dreamers Study Abroad Program (IDSAP) in order to offer a broader and a more flexible travel-study opportunity for Dreamers in Mexico and other countries of origin from April 1, 2024 to June 30, 2024 for the Spring Program and July 1, 2024 to September 30, 2024 for the Summer Program. 

This unique model will allow for both, Mexican-origin Dreamers and DACA-mented Dreamers from other countries to discover their birthplace, cultural roots, reaffirm their identity, reconnect with their families, and explore higher education opportunities in Mexico.  

This program will operate under the CMSC’s Mexico City-based collaboration  with a  network of partner institutions, which include: Mexico’s National Autonomous University (UNAM), Facultad de Estudios Superiores de Acatlán Campus and Centro Cultural Universitario Tlatelolco, the five-campus prestigious Mexico City Metropolitan Autonomous University (UAM), the public Mexico City Autonomous University (UACM), El Colegio de la Frontera Norte (COLEF), Centro Cultural Tijuana (CECUT) and the      CILAC Freire Institute in Cuernavaca, Morelos. 

The CMSC’s Spring and Summer 2024 Independent Dreamers Study Abroad Program (IDSAP) has been designed specifically to offer travel-study options for individual Dreamers or in small groups, for colleges and universities to develop long-term and short-term projects for their Dreamers and to continue to require an ethnographic research paper based on their experience returning to their homeland and discovering Mexico. 

The Spring and Summer 2024 Independent Dreamers Study Abroad Program (IDSAP) is explicitly designed for colleges and universities, Labor Unions, Community-based Organizations, Churches and Religious Organizations, and Dreamers’ organizations, interested in contracting with the CMSC for travel-study abroad programs designed specifically for the sponsoring institution’s purpose and participants, including non-Latino and non-Spanish-speaking Dreamers.

In addition, the CMSC’s Spring and Summer 2024 IDSAP will welcome individual applicants who may be interested in conducting extensive independent research for up to a full semester of study abroad activity with a Multiple Entry Advance Parole Permit. Dreamers or groups interested in this option will develop a CMSC travel-study plan and an IDSAP Special Program contract at a slightly higher cost, in order for the CMSC to facilitate Multiple Entry Advance Parole authorization.    

The curriculum for the IDSAP educational program model consists of 2 pre-departure online orientation and travel preparation sessions, a psychological group therapy session, and historical, cultural, linguistic lectures (cátedras) on social movements, the Mexican educational, economic and political systems, with a leadership development focus. 

Moreover, selected participants will have the opportunity to participate in online seminars on Chicano Studies and the U.S. Mexican Diaspora, Cultural Arts, Public Policy Planning and Collaboration colloquia related to the California-Mexico and Los Angeles-Mexico City Sister Cities relationship; and the evolving U.S.-Mexico post-NAFTA relationship in the era of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), now under the AMLO and the Joe Biden/Kamala Harris administrations.  

Program participants will also receive instruction and be provided a unique writing workshop to prepare them for the opportunity to conduct independent travel and ethnographic research on their family origins, which will be applied when they visit their birthplace and families. Most importantly, they will be required to produce a 10-page ethnographic research paper based on their travel-study experience before returning to the US. 

A selection of these essays will be published by the CMSC, in subsequent publications similar to our first journal published in January 2023 as  Anthology of Dreams from an Impossible Dream, a 380-page bilingual book with 38 selected essays from 215 participants in our Summer 2021 Dreamers Study Abroad Program (DSAP), and offered free to the participants and the general public, educators, students and policy-makers, as exemplary human stories by Dreamers and a worthy resource for research, as script narratives for articles, documentaries, and academic presentations.

On October 21, 2023, Anthology of Dreams from an Impossible Dream received gold and silver medals from the International Latino Book Awards for Best College Level Academic Themed Book in Spanish and Best Cover Design, respectively.

PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS: 

• To research, develop, promote, and establish policies and programs between higher educational institutions and cultural organizations that will enhance the teaching, mobility, and exchange of faculty, students, and professionals between California and the U.S. with Mexico and other nations in the Western Hemisphere.
• Establish the administrative framework for a replicable educational program model for Dreamers’ Study Abroad Programs at U.S. colleges and universities, through the DACA-Advance Parole process that U.S. institutions of Higher Education can offer to their students
• Prepare participating Dreamers as ambassadors of the model for them to replicate similar programs at public and private colleges and universities, based on their personal experience.
• Continue and expand video and photo documentation of Dreamers’ human stories.
• Allow Latino and non-Latino Dreamers to conduct independent travel-study and family ethnographic research in their communities of origin, as an integral part of the CMSC’s Mexican Diaspora Studies and Chicano Studies in Mexico initiative.
• Provide Dreamers and Chicanos the opportunity to independently discover their cultural roots in Mexico and reaffirm or define their identity.

ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS: 

To be eligible for consideration to IDSAP program, applicants must meet the following requirements:

• Be 21 years old or older at the time of travel.
• Speak functionally fluent Spanish. 
• Applicants whose birth country is not in Latin America will be offered a Special Program package at a higher cost to cover extra costs of translation and interpreting services, travel guides, safe and secure transportation for field trips in Mexico, etc., provided as a custom-designed program model. 
• Dreamers must have an active DACA status with an expiration date after July 31, 2024 for the SPRING IDSAP, or after October 31, 2024 for the Summer IDSAP
• Have a valid passport from their respective country of origin. Passport must be active 6 months after June 30, 2024, or after September 30, 2024, for the Spring and Summer 2024 programs respectively.
• If the applicant is Mexican-born, they must commit to applying and attaining the Instituto Nacional Electoral’s Credencial de Elector del Instituto Nacional Electoral (INE) before traveling to Mexico. Click here to follow the instructions to apply for an INE Card.
• Must have no major criminal or immigration record with deportable offenses or pending cases that may be deportable violations.
• Must commit to participate in ALL PROGRAM activities.
• All applicants must be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and have received a ‘booster’ (known as the ‘new COVID-19 vaccination’) within 3 months before departure. Must provide the CMSC with proof of vaccination and booster in order to apply and be considered for any and all IDSAP programs, and required in order to depart from the U.S. No exceptions or exemptions unless otherwise approved by Prof. Armando Vazquez-Ramos, our CMSC President.  Note: It is a felony to falsify COVID tests and/or COVID vaccine cards and to do so will lead to immediate termination and forfeiture of all program fees.
• Must test negative for COVID-19, preferably via a lab test, or a self-test, 2 days prior to departure to Mexico (each participant pays for this test).2 days prior to arriving at the Hotel in Mexico City for the academic program (each participant pays for this test).
• Must have at least $1,000 in a bank account to cover the costs of 7 to 10 days for Room and Board at an Airbnb rental, meals and medication, if a COVID infection prevents you from returning to the U.S. 

Please take into consideration that the Advance Parole application approval process time can vary from 2 to 6 months; thus, we will give preference to those applicants who are quick to submit their completed online application and letter of recommendation.

After 20 years, I am finally home.

About a week ago, on November 15, 2023, I arrived at Ramón Villeda Morales International Airport in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, to embark on an independent study travel trip for a month and a half. In 2003, My parents and I immigrated to the United States from Honduras to pursue The American Dream, and we haven't been back since.

As a Dreamer, visiting my home country seemed impossible. However, thanks to organizations like California-Mexico Studies Center, Inc, who help countless Dreamers obtain proper documentation to leave and return to the States, I am blessed to be back in my home country, explore my culture, and reconnect with my roots.

Since arriving in Honduras, I've reencountered with family members, visited my father's elementary school and childhood home, visited the city I was born in, ate a bunch of delicious Honduran food, went to a Honduras vs. Mexico soccer game in Honduras's capital city, Tegucigalpa... READ MORE