This Monday, Dec. 2nd, 2019, the California-Mexico Studies Center (CMSC) Team had the honor to participate and present at Sacramento State's 4th Annual Keeping the Dream Alive Conference, an event dedicated to enable educators and professionals to become agents of change in their respective institutions and advance the educational success of undocumented and mixed-status students.
Following this year’s theme, “Shifting the Undocumented Narrative from Surviving to Thriving”, the CMSC team led two workshops on the following topics:
Workshop #1: A Plan to Address Parents and K-12 Students' Critical Need for Mental Health Services and School-based Specialized Attention
Presented by: Armando Vazquez-Ramos, Miriam Delgado, Andrea Ortiz, and Alejandra Garcia.
- This presentation informed the audience about the psychological crisis affecting the immigrant community and offered a model that may help educators identify and respond to the emotional and behavioral symptoms that require assistance for immigrant students and parents in K-12 schools. The proposed model is based on the idea that parents must be engaged in a process of empowerment, in order to thrive and to become part of the solution through organizing Immigrant Parent Councils (similar to PTA’s). Thus, creating a safe space for them to participate in the assessment of problems and mapping of solutions. This model will require the initial commitment and leadership from the schools, but Immigrant Parent Councils (IPC) may lead to increased students and parents’ participation in school activities and leadership roles. This concept reverses the deficit-based approach, which assumes that immigrant families need a handout, when in fact they represent an untapped human resource if provided the means to organize and build their own capacity to be resilient through the collective efforts of parents to survive and thrive.
Workshop #2: Self-Advocacy, Agency, and Activism: Developing the National Campaign to Restore DACA's Advance Parole
Presented by: Lidieth Arevalo Hernandez, Citlalli Ortiz, Mayra Garibo, Miriam Delgado, Andrea Ortiz.
- This presentation featured five Dreamers who conveyed their personal stories of how they have developed agency, resilience, and empowerment through organizing and activism, as well as how they have safeguarded their mental health well-being while they advocate. They also discussed the racialized experience of DACA recipients and how they have been impacted during the current socio-political climate that is explicitly racist toward the immigrant community. Moreover, the presentation informed the audience about the progress of the National Campaign to Restore DACA’s Advance Parole and significant accomplishments through student’s self-advocacy, agency and activism.
You can download a PDF of both PowerPoint presentations:
- A Plan to Address Parents and K-12 Students' Critical Need for Mental Health Services and School-based Specialized Attention
- Self-Advocacy, Agency, and Activism: Developing the National Campaign to Restore DACA's Advance Parole
