Jesus Iniguez, a Cal State Long Beach student, is handed his diploma; his degree is finally in his hands. The moment is bittersweet as he feels he has accomplished his dream, but knows that many others with the same dream will never have it realized.
Iniguez attended CSULB as an AB 540 student. To receive AB 540 status, a nonresident of California must have attended three or more years of high school in California, must have graduated from a California high school or the equivalent, must have registered at a California college or university, and, if the person is an undocumented immigrant, he or she must file an affidavit to apply for residency in order to be exempted from paying nonresident tuition.
AB 540 students may or may not have legal status in the United States.
Iniguez spoke last Thursday evening at a teach-in hosted by the Long Beach Immigrant Rights Coalition(LBIRC) at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Long Beach.
Iniguez, as well as other AB 540 students from both Cal State Long Beach and Cal State Dominguez Hills, shared their stories of struggle in the United States and educated their audience about the California DREAM Act.
The DREAM Act, or SB 1301, is a bill drafted to assist AB 540 students in furthering their education by providing them with access to student financial aid from California Community Colleges, California State University and possibly University of California campuses. SB 1301, written by Sen. Gilbert Cedillo, will not have any fiscal impact on California.
SB 1301 currently sits on Gov. Schwarzenegger’s desk. The California State Senate passed the bill and now the governor has until Sept. 30 to give it his stamp of approval or veto it.
James Thing, a member of LBIRC and lecturer in the sociology department at CSULB, said coalition building is imperative to push the governor to sign this bill before the deadline.
The DREAM Act has been on the governor’s desk for the past three years, and with each year there have been adjustments made to it.
“I’ve been to several different events in the past few years that highlight this issue,” Thing said. “We decided, as the coalition has gained strength, that this is one of the issues that we think is very important, especially when so many of us are affiliated with [CSULB].”
Annette Quintero, the organizer of Thursday’s event, is part of the LBIRC and studied sociology at CSULB for her undergraduate degree. She is currently a geography major studying for her post-baccalaureate in GIS. Her involvement in immigrant rights began in a sociology class that contained a service learning aspect.
“I just started working on student issues,” Quintero said. “I looked around me and everybody was just like me except that they hadn’t been born in the United States. They had grown up here, gone through similar experiences, but then had the extra baggage of not being born here.”
Quintero explained how most people have stereotypical ideas of who undocumented immigrants are.
“These were my friends, my co-workers, fellow students of mine, and you wouldn’t even know [they are undocumented immigrants] because for me the image of an immigrant is very stereotypical. You think of a Mexican, not even just a Latino of another country but you think of them as being a field worker or washing your car or mowing your lawn. That’s not necessarily true,” Quintero said.
Those in support of SB 1301 encourage others to take action. Attendees at last Thursday’s teach-in took action by leaving messages on state legislators’ voicemails, signing petitions and donating to the 25,000 pen campaign. The number 25,000 comes from the estimated number of undocumented immigrants who graduate every year from high school. Individuals will send pens to the governor to try to convince him to sign SB 1301.
Quintero said that Thursday’s event was an “opportunity for us who are documented to act as a voice for the voiceless.”
Jane Kim, a junior studio art major, attended the teach-in and said she was really glad to see an event of this kind in Long Beach.
“I wanted to sign the petition paper and get some information to take to my friends,” Kim said. She explained that her and her family were in the same situation.
“Everyone should have the same type of opportunity,” she said.
To get involved and learn more about immigrant issues, the LBIRC meets on the first Thursday of each month at the Unitarian Universalist Church at 5450 Atherton St. at 7 p.m.