Given the tenuous future of DACA, the CMSC has decided to create the Fall 2023 Independent Dreamers Study Abroad Program (IDSAP) in order to offer a broader and more flexible México travel-study opportunity for Dreamers from September 1, 2023, to January 31, 2024. This unique model will allow for both Dreamers & Mexican-American/Chicano students and young professionals to discover their cultural roots, reaffirm their identity, improve their Spanish, reconnect with their families, and pursue higher education opportunities in Mexico.
This program will operate under the CMSC's new Mexico Study Abroad Institute (MSAI) based in Mexico City and will offer travel-study options for individuals, small groups, long-term and short-term projects, independent ethnographic research and innovative pedagogical projects, in collaboration with the CMSC’s 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), and Centro Cultural Tijuana (CECUT).
The CMSC’s Mexico Study Abroad Institute (MSAI) is hosted by Seminario Permanente de Estudios Chicanos y de Fronteras (SPEChF) and the Centro Internacional de Lenguas, Arte y Cultura Paulo Freire (CILAC Freire), our 25-year partner institutions in Mexico City and Cuernavaca, Morelos, respectively.
The CMSC’s Fall 2023 Independent Dreamers and Chicanos Study Abroad Program (IDSAP) has been designed specifically for Spanish-speaking faculty, college students, labor union and community leaders, religious groups and Dreamers from anywhere in the U.S., to provide them an independent travel-study experience and flexible academic programs from 1 week to 4 months, based at the educational facilities of our partner institutions or at the CMSC's Mexico Study Abroad Institute (MSAI) in Mexico City.
The Fall 2023 Independent Dreamers Study Abroad Program (IDSAP) is explicitly designed for colleges and universities, Labor Unions, Community-based Organizations, Churches & 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 Dreamers.
In addition, the CMSC’s Fall 2023 IDSAP will welcome individual applicants that may be interested in conducting extensive independent research or up to a full semester of study abroad activity. Dreamers or groups interested in this option will develop a CMSC travel-study plan, and would be provided Multiple Entry Advance Parole authorization.
The curriculum for the IDSAP educational program model consists of pre-departure online historical, cultural, linguistic, and academic 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 California-Mexico, and Los Angeles-Mexico City 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 have a unique opportunity to conduct independent travel and ethnographic research on their family origins, which will allow them to 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.
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 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.
Dreamers living anywhere in the U.S. are welcomed to apply. Moreover, we encourage Dreamers from other countries to apply, as long as they are functionally fluent Spanish-speakers, given that the entire program is focused upon improving their Spanish-speaking skills and their ability to navigate Mexico independently.
Asian and other Non-Spanish-speaking applicants will be considered for admission into the Fall 2023 Independent Dreamers Study Abroad Program (IDSAP), if they agree to participate in a Special Program designed to order at a higher cost to cover 24/7 translation and interpreting services, medical attention, local transportation, field trips, and room and board services, as provided in the regular program model.
All DACA protected Dreamer participants will be provided assistance to apply and secure USCIS Advance Parole travel authorization for educational purposes through our program from September 1, 2023, to January 31, 2024.
Most importantly, the CMSC boasts a 100% Advance Parole permit approval and return into the U.S. rate for almost 650 Dreamers that have participated in 20 programs since 2014, when the program was established by Professor Armando Vazquez-Ramos.
PROGRAM OBJECTIVES:
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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.
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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. institution of Higher Education can offer to their students;
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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;
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Continue and expand video and photo documentation of Dreamers’ human stories;
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Allow Latino and non-Latino Dreamers to conduct independent travel-study, 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;
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Provide Dreamers and Chicanos the opportunity to independently discover their cultural roots in Mexico and reaffirm or define their identity.
