- [A Man] And you're goods to go.
- Good afternoon.
Good afternoon, everyone.
And welcome to our DACA
updates and resources webinar.
We are letting people into the
room and we'll begin shortly.
Just give people a few
minutes to our minute,
our soda come onto the forum,
and then we'll get started.
Good afternoon.
And thank you for joining us
for our Pima community college
webinar on DACA,
providing some updates on
what is happening with DACA
and some resources
available in our community.
I will get started in just a moment
with introductions and an overview.
I see that there's been a pause
in how many are coming in,
so I'll go ahead and get started.
Good evening.
And thank you for joining us
for what I know will be
an informative webinar.
My name is Ethan Ladner and I
serve as the Pima community.
College's diversity equity
and inclusion officer.
Tonight, we have three different panels.
The first will provide information
about the latest information on DACA.
The second will be about
resources available
for our documented and
undocumented students.
And the third will be about the
experiences of students here
in Arizona and ways to get involved.
Before we get started,
we have our provost chancellor
to provide a welcome
and framing for a discussion today.
It is my pleasure to
introduce our academic leader,
who is committed to
student access and success
and works every day to build a climate
where we can all feel like
we belong at Pima community college.
She was recently selected as
one of 24 national leaders
to participate in the Hispanic
association of colleges
and universities inaugural
presidential leadership Academy
like at EMEA, the leader
at school, our provost.
(foreign language)
- Thank you Ladner.
Welcome everyone (foreign language).
I would like to ground us in the knowledge
that we gather on the traditional cultural
and ancestral lands of the Tohono O'odham
and other possible Yaki.
Our indigenous brothers and sisters
who are often represented
as being part of the past
are very much still here
and active in the community
as an educational institution
that values learning.
I invite you to learn more about
the lands on which we live,
work and learn.
Good afternoon when a sadness,
my name is dr. Delores (mumbles)
and I am provost and
executive vice chancellor
for academic affairs at
Pima community college.
I would like to welcome all of you
to Pima community college's DACA updates
and resources forum,
and a mutual will still
this and it's the photo,
but (foreign language),
I'd also like to thank our moderator
is the Ladner executive director director
for diversity equity inclusion
for being our moderator.
And she will be facilitating
tonight's events
to today's panelists.
I would like to express our gratitude
on behalf of Pima community college,
for the time guidance, dedication,
and commitment you have
continuously provided
to help support our DACA
and undocumented students,
not only at Pima, but with
also with other institutions,
more than ever.
We need to do all we can
to make college campuses,
a safe and supportive environment for DACA
and undocumented students
and make sure they have the resources
they need to earn their degrees
without exceptional risk
and financial hardship.
I would like to share my
own personal story with you.
Before I became an
administrator at Pima college,
I was a faculty member in the
world languages department
at the downtown campus.
For 10 years.
I taught Spanish for heritage
learners, native speakers,
and I was a faculty member
when SB 10 70 passed.
And I saw how it directly
affected students.
My students.
Students stop coming to class.
They were afraid to come to class.
They disappeared,
later I found out some
of them were deported
when the DACA program came into being,
I was approached by several students
who asked me for letters of character,
which I enthusiastically wrote.
And, my decision to stay in administration
actually was related to DACA
because at that time
Maricopa community college
school district,
they had put into place a
policy for non excuse me
for in state tuition for DACA students,
Pima college followed suit after that.
And I was part of that team
that provided that policy.
And that's what made me decide
to stay in administration
because of the impact
that I knew I could have
for all stuff.
The administration at any
institution needs to show heart.
We at Pima are with our students.
We care about our community.
However, we are limited by state laws
that prevent us from doing more,
but we do what we are able
to do within the parameters.
For example, at Pima,
we have even the Ladner and Yolanda Silas
was one of our panelists tonight
who lead the immigrant and
refugee student resource center,
which is part of the diversity
equity inclusion office
and is under my leadership as provost.
This student resource
center is an excellent way
for our students to access,
support information and resources.
Some other ways are, for example,
we have scholarships
through the foundation.
We have two scholarships
that help our dreamer
and DACA students.
One is called dreamers and beyond,
and the other one is
called the dream fund.
If our community members or
employees would like to donate,
you could also go to the
Pima foundation.org website
and donate through their
employees may also do a payroll deduction
and identify specific fund.
I'd also like to mention
for the high school counselors
in high school students,
we have dual enrollment courses
and that is available to all students
so they can access college classes.
In addition,
Pima recently by the board of
governors approved Stu classes
do classes to be free for
students this semester.
So please keep that in mind.
And there are many other resources
that our panelists will
be sharing such as United.
We dream the national
immigration law center,
Harvard law today to mention a couple,
there are national organizations,
Haku and LULAC who also
support an advocate
for DACA students.
Once again, thank you
for joining us today.
We hope this is the beginning
of a continuous supportive
dialogue going West
Tacony that at this time,
because Greg pleasure to
introduce Pima community colleges,
chancellor Lee Lambert,
who will be providing
some welcoming remarks.
He is a staunch supporter of
social justice of the equity
agenda and is committed
to student success,
including finding solutions
to better serve our DACA
and undocumented students.
Please help me welcome
chancellor Lee Lambert.
- Thank you, Delores and good
late afternoon to everybody.
And thank you
for joining us for this
very discussion around DACA.
I first want to acknowledge
that we have board member Mark Hannah
that has joined us today.
And Mark has been a very staunch champion
for all of our students and really,
especially for our DACA students.
I'm not sure if any of our
other board members are,
have joined us,
but I want to just recognize
that we would not be able to do
what we do at PMO without the support
of our governing board.
So thank you, Mark and
other board members,
if you happen to be joining with us also,
I just want to recognize again
and thank you to Hilda and to Yolanda,
and also recognize that
they oversee the immigrant
and refugee student resource center.
And that was an important
piece of our diversity equity
and inclusion efforts at the college.
And just so you all have a context
for this until more recently,
I believe that college never had
a formal diversity equity inclusion plan.
And so I'm so proud that our board,
myself and the leadership team
and all of the employees
of the college really rally
behind the importance of having
a true plan that encompasses
so much of our commitment
to social justice
and to equity and being able
to support our DACA students
also want to thank all
of you DACA students
who are joining us tonight.
And I want to thank the panelists
who will be speaking a little later,
also as the provost mentioned,
and it kind of breaks
my heart in many ways
that the laws in this country
have made it very difficult
for all of you DACA students
to really be students
at Pima or any other college
or university by cutting
off and making it difficult
to afford the ability to participate
in our institutions of higher learning.
But Pima has been working
hard to do its part to change
that trajectory.
As you all know,
prior to the change in the law
and the state of Arizona Pima,
his board was overwhelmingly
supportive of in state tuition,
not only were they
overwhelmingly supportive
in state tuition,
when things started to
shift in this state,
our board supported a
friend of the court brief
and to support Maricopa's
district's legal case.
Also the board has supported our efforts
to be a signatory to
the president's Alliance
on higher education,
immigration, supporting DACA and dreamers.
And we've been advocating in Washington DC
for the dream act.
We do that each and every year
when we go back to the Hill
and we were so pleased that
United States Supreme court
did not overturn the DACA well.
And we signed on with
Amicus brief challenging
the current administration's
ability to just unilaterally
and arbitrarily and capriciously
change that program.
So let me just add just
a few other pieces.
And when we think about our
work around immigration,
around supporting immigrants and refugees,
it's in a broader
context of social justice
and Pima has really made it
an important part of our DNA
to do what we can to support each
and every one of you students,
and to be in partnership
with our community as part of that effort.
But also I want you to know this is very,
this is not just a
professional calling for me.
This is personal for me.
And for those of you who
don't know much about me.
So my father is from North Catalina,
but my mother is from South Korea.
So I was born in Seoul
and because I was born
to an American father,
I had a certain privilege,
as long as he filled
out the counselor report
of birth abroad, I,
that recognize my citizenship.
I could be like so many
of you born to parents
in another country coming to the U S
and not being recognized.
So I'm very sensitive to that.
That I've been one of the fortunate folks.
So I don't lose sight of the
reality because it's personal.
And I want to make sure that each of you,
that we can stand by you,
do what we can do within the parameters
of what we're allowed to do
as a publicly funded
and recognized institution
of higher learning.
So with that,
I believe I turn it
back over to you, Hilda.
- Yes.
Thank you, chancellor.
Thank you,
provost and chancellor Lee
Lambert for your words today,
and for joining us this evening,
I forgot to say earlier,
(foreign language)
in his final slide to say
that if somebody would
like Spanish interpretation
or would like to hear this in Spanish,
you can click on the interpretation button
at the bottom of your
screen and select Spanish.
So now let me introduce our first panel.
They are going to provide
some of the legal updates
regarding the DACA program here in the U S
and some of what's happening
throughout the nation and here in Arizona.
So our two panelists,
I will introduce them and
then we'll get started
with Jeffrey Silvan.
Jeffrey Sylvan is the general counsel
for Pima community college.
He was appointed as the
first general counselor
for a PCC for the district in 2013.
Previously spent five
years as general counsel
for the Morris and
Stuart Udall foundation,
a federal agency based in Tucson,
devoted to environmental conflict
resolution and education.
His legal career began with
15 years in private practice,
focused on employment law
and commercial litigation,
including representing Pima college.
Jeff served as vice chair
for the alternative dispute
resolution committee
of the American bar association section
on environment, energy and resources,
and is an adjunct faculty for
the James E. Rogers college
of law at the university of Arizona.
He is former chair of the
Arizona state bar labor
and employment law section.
Jeff grew up in Tucson and then
ventured East receiving ABA
in international studies
from John Hopkins university,
and then a J D from the
university of California,
Los Angeles school of law in 1992,
he is admitted to practice
in Arizona and California.
Our other panelists on this legal panel
is Maurice Moe Goldman.
He works in Tucson,
Arizona at Goldman and Goldman PC.
He holds a JD MBA from Hofstra university.
He graduated from Syracuse university
with a BS in journalism.
His law practice is focused only
on immigration related matters,
including employment based
family based asylum removal, defense,
and other humanitarian
based immigration issues.
Mr. Goldman has served
on multiple national American immigration
lawyers association, A I L A committees.
He is the recipient of the
2010 A I L A Joseph McKinsey,
young lawyer award,
and the 2018 Randy to an ad courage
and immigration award Mo previously served
as the A I L A Arizona chapter chair.
He was previously a trustee
to the American immigration council
and sat on boards of the
assister border action network
and immigration list.
So please, let's welcome Jeff
Sylvan to begin this panel.
- Thanks Hilda.
I guess, just by way of a quick,
further explanation.
So as general counsel,
I'm employed directly by Pima college.
So I only represent Pima college,
provide legal service to the college
and manage our outside legal services.
So I thought I'd kick things off
by just giving a little context to explain
why things are the way
they are at Pima college
with respect to DACA students.
So back in 2006, voters
passed proposition 300,
that limited benefits and opportunities
for individuals without
lawful immigration status.
And then there was
disagreement about exactly
what that meant and how
to interpret the law,
which is often the case.
And in 2013,
Maricopa and community colleges decided
that it was within the interpretation
of the law to grant in state tuition,
to students who had been
approved in the DACA program.
Unfortunately there soon erupted a dispute
over that decision.
And the Arizona attorney general
filed a lawsuit challenging
that interpretation of
the law in may of 2018,
Arizona Supreme court ruled
against in state tuition
for DACA students.
So at Pima, beginning in fall of 2018,
we had to begin charging DACA students
the full out of state tuition rate.
But there are also a couple
of other implications
of that decision,
because the way the Supreme
court Arizona Supreme court
interpreted the law DACA does not convey
either lawful immigration status
or presence for those
individuals in the program.
And as a result of that,
DACA holders cannot receive
certain public benefits
that are subsidized by public funds.
So that's what resulted in the change
of the tuition at Pima college.
So just one thing to be clear
about it does not affect the ability
of someone to enroll at Pima college.
So someone in the DACA program
or someone with no documentation,
there's no barrier to
enrolling at Pima college.
The issue is the tuition.
So why does Pima have to charge students
in the DACA program,
the out of state tuition?
Well, as I mentioned,
one of the implications of
the Arizona Supreme court
decision is that the college
cannot use public funds
to subsidize the education
provided to students
who are part of the DACA program.
So at Pima,
the instate tuition rate only covers
about one third of the
cost to Pima college
to provide the education.
The non-resident tuition
rate is approximately
what it costs Pima to
educate each student.
So that's where that
charge level comes from.
One question that comes up
from time to time is, well,
why doesn't Pima offer 150%
of its resident tuition rate?
That's what they're doing
at the state universities.
Well, that's because of what I explained
before about the cost.
So at these state universities,
their non-resident tuition rate includes
a significant markup over their
actual cost of instruction.
So for them 150% of their resident tuition
is at about that approximation of costs,
just like at Pima,
the approximation of cost is
the out of state tuition rate.
So that's why there is,
that's why the tuition
rate is set the way it is.
And really, unfortunately at this point,
given the way the law
has been interpreted,
the only way that's going to
be able to be changed at Pima
is we need either a change of Arizona law,
or we need to change on
at the federal level,
if either of those worst were to happen,
Pima could revisit the tuition rate.
So that's just kind of a quick overview
of the main implications
for the current status
of the interpretations
regarding DACA at Pima college.
- If I jump in here, right, Jeff,
good evening, everyone.
My name is Moe Goldman.
I'm an immigration attorney in town,
and I'm going to just
give you a quick overview
about the status of the DACA program
in light of the Supreme
court decision back in June.
And actually as of today,
we found out what the current policy is
and how it's going to be implemented
by the U S citizenship
and immigration service.
So I'm just going to give
you an overview on that,
and then I'm sure there
are some questions.
And at the end of this
poll from panel event,
we'll take questions.
So just to give everyone an overview,
the DACA program,
as I think most or all
of you probably know
it went into effect June 15, 2012,
and had very specific requirements
in order to qualify for DACA.
Back in 2017 in September,
the current administration
tried to rescind DACA,
and ultimately that was challenged
and went to the Supreme court
where the Supreme court back
on June 18th of this year
found that the process utilized
by the administration was in violation
of the administrative
procedures act and was unlawful.
And the Supreme court sent
the DACA program basically
back to the department
of Homeland security
for some further action,
but in doing so,
the Supreme court said that
the program could be restored
to its original form since 2017,
since the rescission of DACA.
The only part of the
program that still exists
are for people who have already applied
for DACA previously and
are now getting renewals.
And so that's still been ongoing,
but the Supreme court decision
ordered the administration
to accept new initial applications
for people who would qualify
even under the original program,
back in 2012 for initial applications
and also for advanced parole,
which is travel authorization
for some who need to
travel internationally.
So where did it go from there?
Well, it went back to the U S CIS
and department of Homeland security.
And the secretary of DHS,
Chad Wolf came out on July 28th
and basically said that the program
will no longer accept
any initial applications.
So even after the Supreme court decision,
we were very suspicious
of whether any new DACA
or initial doc applications
would be accepted.
And it turns out that our
suspicions were correct
that they are not going to be accepting
new initial applications.
And so what that means in reality, well,
it came out today and
I've got it right here
that the government
will now reject all initial DACA requests.
So anyone that has never
received DACA previously
should not file because
if you file for DACA,
they will reject it and
return the filing fees.
The rejections, what they are doing
is they're rejecting
them without prejudice.
What that means to you in real English
is that if DACA does come
back in full in the future,
you could then apply
for initial application.
So having this rejected
will not prevent you
in the future from filing.
They will continue to
accept requests from people
who have originally received
DACA and are renewing it.
However, those renewals will
no longer be for two years.
They're only going to
issue one year employment
authorization cards, which
is truly unfortunate.
And if you have a old DACA app permit
that you've misplaced and you still have
more than a year left remaining on it,
they will give you that additional time.
But if it's an extension
of your previous one,
you'll only get one year the, let me see,
what else is there.
If you want to apply for advanced
parole travel permission,
which allows you to exit the U
S they're only going to do it
in very limited circumstances.
And that is under urgent,
humanitarian reasons or
significant public benefit.
And they list as examples.
If you have to travel to support
national security interests
of the United States,
or if you have to travel
because of the concern
about immediate safety
or wellbeing of an immediate relative,
a mother or father in the other country,
but particularly the minor
children of the applicant.
So if you have children
and you need to travel
because you have to do something, from a,
especially a medical
perspective than you do.
So it is not recommended
to travel internationally
at all at all,
unless there's an urgent need to do so,
especially right now,
currently with the climate of coronavirus
and also the uncertainty
of whether the person
will even be admitted filing
for advanced parole is not cheap either.
It's like $540 or something.
So you don't want to spend
the money on an application
and then find out you
won't get it accepted.
The other thing that's important
in the implementation policy
that they issued today,
they clearly state that you have to file
for your renewal request,
renewal of the DACA
within 150 and 120 days.
So five to four months
prior to the expiration
of your current DACA status,
if you file outside of 150 days,
so say you file it six
months before it expires.
They could reject it as being premature.
One of the strategies we've been employing
over the last couple years
is because they're taking a lot longer
to process those applications.
We were filing a more
than 150 days before,
but you have to just, be careful of that.
Now, I don't know
if they're going to be
more stringent based off
of what they've written here,
but just watch out for that,
because that could give them
a basis for a rejection,
and then you have to refile it again.
And most likely if it was
rejected in that circumstance,
you'd get the fees returned to you.
So again, remembering number
that employment authorization,
that's the card that you get
when you're approved for DACA
is only going to be valid
for one year going forward.
And a lot.
It really depends on what
happens with the upcoming lie,
because obviously there are
two divergent viewpoints
on DACA.
I mean, we're going to see
one end of the spectrum
or the other most likely after
the election in November.
So it really just depends on,
where things will go with,
especially with the political climate,
to be able to dictate whether
the one year extension policy
will remain in place
or the maybe two years
comes back in the future.
Let me think, Oh, the other
thing to keep in mind is,
and it's always important
to be aware of any time
you're filing an application to US, CIS,
and this shouldn't be as
big a concern for renewals.
You are providing your information,
your private information
to the government,
and the question always comes up.
Well, could they use that to track me down
or use it against me?
There is that risk.
It's always there now,
hopefully that doesn't come to pass.
But I think especially for
extensions or renewals,
it's not as much of a
concern as it would be
for initial applicants
because the government's
already ha you know,
they've already got your information.
So, the risk is already,
been challenged on that.
So I think,
the bottom line going
forward is keep an eye
on the instructions on the policies.
If you're applying for DACA,
definitely, reach out to
organizations like scholarships,
A Z and other local organizations
who often will reach out to me to review
the applications or to
give them some input,
especially on more challenging ones.
And then again, we're just
going to have to wait and see,
I think most likely the new policy
that just came out the past
day is going to be challenged.
And we're going to see
what the courts do with it,
because they're going to
probably face a challenge
that this policy is in direct conflict
with the Supreme court decision.
And I will turn it back over to Hilda.
- [Hilda] Yes.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for
your legal perspective.
It's something that's
changing quickly every day.
There's some, there seems to
be something new in the news.
So please know that our immigrant
and refugee student
resource center is here
to help you navigate
what is happening and
connect you to others.
So now we're going to go
onto our resource panel.
And before we do that,
I would like to just
remind you to please submit
your questions using the Q and A feature.
And to know that we'll ask
your questions towards the end,
there's the interpretation button as well.
So let me introduce our next panel.
They will be talking about
some resources available here
in the community and throughout Arizona.
So on our next panel,
we have Rena Montoya
who is a documented social entrepreneur,
educator and dancer,
Rena is the founder and CEO of Ali Anto.
She is an alumni of
Arizona state university,
grand Canyon university,
and Harvard university's
Kennedy school of government.
Rena was born at the Juana Mexico,
15 minutes from the U S and Mexico border,
and migrated to Arizona
in 2003 fleeing violence,
despite the fear, anxiety,
and stress of growing up
on documented in Arizona
and witnessing her dad go
through deportation proceedings today,
Rena did not lose hope.
That is why she took a leap of faith
and decided to create Ali Anto in 2016,
after years of organizing
and educating both
at the local and national levels
through youth led arts
and healing workshops,
leadership development,
and community organizing
Ali Anto transforms trauma into hope
and action for those most
impacted by the harms associated
with lacking and immigration status
less than four years ago, Ali Anto was,
has touched the lives
of over 25,000 people
of which 15,000 are youth.
The second panelist
has got Catalina Silva.
She is the executive director
of scholarships, A to Z,
and came to the U S at the
age of nine from Lima, Peru.
Her work is situated at the
intersection of education,
immigration, and equity.
She began organizing as an
undocumented college student
at salt Lake city, Utah,
and received her PhD in cultural studies
and social thought in education
at Washington state university prior
to joining scholarships,
AC Catalina was a concrete
congressional fellow
with the education and labor committee
and the us house of
representatives in her spare time,
Catalina enjoys reading, cooking,
and exploring to the Tucson landscape.
And then third on our panel
will be our own Yolanda Gonzales.
She is a proud daughter
of Mexican immigrants
from Nogales Sonora, Mexico,
who resettled in Barrio via
one of the oldest Barrios
in the heart of downtown Tucson,
a place they call home
and where they continue to practice
their faith culture inherited
and planted their roots.
Coming from a family of activists.
Yolanda is an advocate for social justice
and serves diverse communities
and holds a history of a commitment
and deep rooted sense of
passion for her people,
education and student success.
She graduated from Tucson high school
and attended Pima community college.
Yolanda undergraduate coursework includes
an associates in sociology.
I bachelor of science in management,
and is currently working
on a master of science in
management and leadership.
This fall.
She is the coordinator for immigrant
and refugee student resource center.
Who will tell you a little
bit more about that,
but we'll go ahead and get started
with Rena Montoya.
Please go ahead.
- Thank you, Hilda for
such a nice introduction.
I'm so honored to be here today
with Pima community college
and these amazing panelists.
I'm so excited that all of them are women.
So rooting out and shout
out to all the women,
the workforce, especially
during this pandemic,
as you mentioned, my name Rena Montoya.
I am right now,
currently a DACA recipient myself
and I am the founder and CEO of Ali Anto.
I was born in Tijuana,
Mexico, and at the age of 10,
I had my first migration,
which was internal in Mexico.
I didn't know.
At that time,
the reason why we were migrating,
I was just in the fifth grade,
my parents came to pick me up.
They pulled me out of school,
and that was the last time
that I saw my teachers
and that I saw my friends.
So at a young age,
I started developing a lot of anxiety.
I started developing a
lot of internal struggles
about in one hand having
to see my parents worked
so hard and then dead,
you mean this inner resentment or STEM?
If I can be very born of all about like,
why are they taking everything that I know
for me without knowing the context
they didn't on at a later age,
I found out that my father unfortunately,
had been a victim of state violence,
where he was kicked out by Mexican police
and he had to endure
so much trauma and he had
to be so courageous to make
that decision from one migrating
internally first in Mexico,
and then ended up here in Arizona,
where we, where I grew up,
I went to junior high.
I had my first dance.
I had my first case.
I learned how to drive
and eventually was very grateful to
go to Arizona state university,
where I got two bachelor's degree.
And as a little girl
growing up undocumented
with the constant fear
and anxiety of not knowing
if I was going to come home
and got to see my parents back again,
if I was going to be deported
and not having true access
to do instate tuition really
devastated me at a young age,
but I like to say that
I am one of the lucky
ones that through the
generosity of private donors,
I was able to attend university.
And that would have
never been a possibility
without the support of private donors,
but also with the hustle and
brightness of my mom and dad
who were my biggest cheerleaders
and them not graduating from high school.
They figured out ways to get resources
and knock on so many doors
for me to go to college.
So I like to say,
and I'd like to really start with my story
because when I was in college,
I then got to get really
involved in the pre movement
and right in the peak of SB 10 70,
I know that the Lord is,
you mentioned about the impact
that you had as a teacher.
Well, let's than 70.
For me,
it was as a student and
having to see the deep fear
in my mom's eyes really shook me.
So at that moment,
I started to organize, I was 19.
I didn't know what I was doing,
but I knew I needed to do something
so 10 years after I not
only had the privilege
to work alongside other
undocumented brothers and sisters,
but I had to fight the
deportation of my dad.
He was detained for nine
months where I couldn't hug him
where I couldn't celebrate Christmas
or birthdays or important dates.
And that taught me so much
about who I am and the big
sense of responsibility
that we have in order to pay pathways
for our young people
that are still sitting
in our classrooms that
are right now navigating
a very difficult landscape.
And what is our responsibility
as adults who have already
gone through that process
do to make the process
a little bit easier,
or at least more attainable for students.
So I became a high school teacher.
I taught English and
Spanish philosophy in bands,
and I was like, this is going
to be my way to make change.
I had already tried the
student organized inside.
I had like national
campaigns and I was like,
now it's my time after DACA
to go into the classroom
and pay it forward.
So, while I was teaching,
I started noticing that many
educators didn't have the tools
and the resources to
really equip the students.
I suddenly became the
immigration teacher at my school,
if every single question related
to higher ed access to immigration,
all the students were final to me,
which in a way I was really grateful
because I got to build
so many relationships with
students and families.
But at the same time, I
knew it was not sustainable.
What happens if something
were to happen to Ms. Montoya,
what's going to happen to the
students that have fears that
have questions that
have dreams and desires
and where are the supportive adults.
So at that moment,
I started becoming very conflicted
about guessing one hand.
I can support my students,
but what happens to the other students
that don't have a Ms. Montoya?
How do we make sure that
we are able to build
a structure in place from the institutions
to better support our student population
that are undocumented or documented?
So I, alongside three
other colleagues develop
this curriculum that was then adopted
by teach for America to be training
all their teachers, upcoming members,
that to really understand
what is the best line understanding
that teachers need to have
in order to support the
system and population,
how do we make sure that they
have a holistic perspective
and how do we create that impact
that it happens across schools
and it doesn't have to be
dependent on a Ms. Montoya.
So later on,
that's where I started really getting
all these questions about, okay,
I've been in this journey
about pro creating new pathways
where there hasn't been any trails before.
So at that moment, I am,
I really had a hard
question the way continue
to create change in the classroom,
or how can I continue to
make sure that there's
that institutionalized sustainability
so we can ensure all students,
regardless of immigration
status are served
in a meaningful way, because
at the end of the day,
if we deeply believe in education,
we have to deeply believe in our students.
And that takes time and
that takes resources.
And that takes effort.
So that's when I decided
to finally Ali Anto, Ali
Anto translates into breath,
but when you give Alli Anto to someone
it's like even words of encouragement,
and we work in the
intersection between education,
mental health, the arts communication.
Because we maybe thinking about the law
and all the resources
that we need for students to thrive.
But what happens to the human spirit
after you've been having so
many doors closed in your face?
What happens to the mental
health of our young ones,
or maybe the DACA or undocumented adults
that never even made it to college
because they didn't know how,
because they didn't have that
supportive teacher or mentor.
So for me,
it was really important about
how do we create an ecosystem
where we transform all that trauma
and we put it into hope and action.
So now fast forward, while we're here,
it's really to share a
little bit of the resources
that we have galvanized.
As I said, we live in that
intersection between education,
mental health, the arts and immigration.
But through that,
we have learned that COVID-19
is not going away anytime soon.
And we also,
as an organization had
to respond to the need.
We survey over 500 families
and the top priorities
of host families coming
from mixed status families
were around financial need,
educational and emotional
support because people
are in isolation.
They don't have those resources.
So what are we doing in order
to really support families
as they're transitioning into an online
and virtual learning?
So that was something that we did.
We were able to do an initiative
where we're providing up to date,
close to 300 families,
with $500 cash assistance,
where they're able to support,
their needs to be able to pay for rent.
And then at this moment,
if I, as I'm wrapping
up what we really need
to be thinking about
as educators or folks,
school or folks who are thinking
about supporting students,
it's how do we make sure
that when we're delivering resources,
we do it from a human level.
The outcome is as
important as the process.
And if we don't have.
Empathy and compassion,
as we're delivering these resources,
then we're missing the Mark
and we're missing to
really supporting students.
So what I'm going to do,
instead of telling you all the websites
and all the resources,
we have developed a couple
of digital tool kits
that I'm going to leave
on the shot for you all
to access around DACA.
We heard it from, for more,
their ongoing changes
come really, really fast.
So we're putting up infographics,
both in English and Spanish.
We have a tech solar system
where you're able to really get
all the resources that you need.
If you're a teacher and you
might be overwhelmed right
now with all the
responsibilities that you had,
I was in your shoes, not too long ago,
you don't have to be an expert.
We just really need you
to be a cocoa in spider.
And make sure that you
believe in your students
and that you're walking the resources
with them through compassion and empathy,
and you don't have to do it alone.
We got your back and just know
that you can reach out
to us at any moment,
and I'll be dropping up all
of the digital resources
in the chat,
but thank you so much for having me
and I'll pass it over to Hilda.
- Thank you so much for that right Rena.
We really appreciate all
of the work that you do
with such passion and
compassion for our fellow humans
and in this very difficult time
that we're all going through right now.
And now I'm going to
turn it over to Catalina.
Go ahead, Catalina.
- Thank you so much.
Thank you all for organizing
this and being here today
as an attendee or participant panelists,
I'm Catalina Silva.
I use she hers pronouns and
I joined scholarships A Z
as the new executive director on June 1st.
I want to start off by acknowledging
that today is the first day of school
for a lot of university students.
And it's actually been 10 years
since I myself started my college journey
as an undocumented student in Utah.
And unfortunately,
while I want to say that
in the last 10 years,
things have really changed for the better
for undocumented students.
I can say that because it
would be a false claim, right,
where there's a lot going on right now.
And in some instances,
some of the things that undocumented youth
are experiencing today
are not necessarily worse,
but just as bad or almost
most more urgent today
in our political political climate.
But what I can say is
that despite the policies
that at the federal level
and in the state of Arizona, right,
that are holding students back
where we have seed is
a lot of young folks,
the same undocumented people
who are impacted by these
policies come together,
increase basis of support.
We're not existed.
So that's where I want
to talk about today.
That is the story of
scholarship Stacy, right?
We're a product of community.
We exist to meet the educational needs
of undocumented students and families.
And we're committed to doing that work
while being youth mission,
youth driven and youth led.
So scholarship Stacy,
we really believe that the most effective
and equitable way to create
educational interventions
is to send her the voices
of undocumented students
while also of course compensating them
for their time and their energy.
And I'm really glad
that we not talked about
this political moment
and the impact of the
pandemic in our communities,
because we see this is
hitting communities of color,
low income communities in so many ways,
but we know that for undocumented
families in particular,
right,
this is just another thing
that our families have to bear.
So since I came into this role,
and even before scholarship,
Stacy has been responding
to that immediate need,
and we've been able to help
almost a hundred youth connected
to our program with
over $45,000 in funding
for COVID response.
And similar to the things
you had mentioned, right?
We've seen that most of
the undocumented youth
that we've served have
either lost their jobs
or had significant cuts to their hours
about 80% identified food
insecurity as a major concern,
right?
So we're really looking
at essential needs.
And then all the recipients
of COVID really funds
actually reported that
they would use the funds
for rent and or utilities
telling us again, that,
there's a huge need for
essential resources,
including, I guess, on the
higher education level,
emergency student funds
or access accessing
like free food and other resources,
which brings me a little
bit to the best practices
for higher education that
I want to talk about today.
I'll also share the resources we have,
but I think it's really
important to talk about
how to implement this practice.
And I'd love for educators
on this call to basically have things
that they could implement tomorrow.
And some of these are those
and some of them are a little bit harder,
so I'll just put it at that.
And I think the first point
I want to make is that
federal policy is,
it's not,
it's likely not going
to change anytime soon
and yet neither is Atlanta policy, right?
We're gonna work on that with that said,
while we work on that,
there are things that institutions
can do to make change.
I think we've seen that
at Pima with the creation
of the immigrant refugee
student resource center, right?
Like that is a tangible resource
that can be created for students.
Eva, while state policies are,
really are also hindering students.
So I want us to remember
what we do have control over
because a lot of what I heard
in the introduction was like,
our hands are tied and that,
and I understand that feeling
and that's frustrating yet.
There's also things that we
can do as policy trickles down,
right?
And we we're seeing it right now
and how the cares act
funding is trickling down.
There are ways for undocumented folks
and undocumented families to gain support.
And I think if anything,
it's up to us as educators
and community leaders
to find the ways
that we can support students
despite these policies.
And in fact,
even more because these
policies exist right
at an institutional level,
it's up to us to be creative,
to get together and say,
what is it that we do have control over?
So the second thing, right first,
that was my response to everything.
The second thing is be
visible as an educator,
I'm afraid to put it out.
She became the immigration expert
that happens right across
the board for young folks
who do have a lived experience.
I want to urge those of you
that maybe don't even
have the lived experience
to be visible for your students.
In the days you were going to your office,
having something right on your office
that says I support undocumented students,
makes that student feel
just that much, much safer,
because they already have
to right this closer status
in order to gain the support
they need, which is a lot.
So in COVID days,
that may mean putting
something in their signature
that made me sharing that
in your class introduction,
making yourself visible
is always going to make it easier
for students to reach out to you.
The second piece would be to do the work,
to educate yourself if
you're attending this event,
thank you.
You're already doing a piece of that.
And if you're not sure how to
help undocumented students,
it's okay to acknowledge that.
However, it's also your job to find out.
So while we love referrals,
scholarships easy,
and we work with many
students and educators.
We often have folks who
were first students to us.
We also want to make sure
that students have the support
they need at their institution.
So we will work with you.
We do presentations, we did trainings,
but we want to make sure the educators
that are doing student support services
know what those policies, right?
What those policies
and best practices are.
So do follow us on social media,
do check out the toolkits we
have available on our website.
I will share some of those in the chat
in a little bit as well.
The third piece would be to find pathways
to financially support undocumented youth.
I say this again and again,
but there is no better mentor
for undocumented students
than other undocumented students
who have also lived the experience
or who are also currently
navigating those same systems.
So on my previous institution,
we actually were able to support students
by creating a mentor roles.
And the mentors were able to
get small scholarships, right?
For the work that they did
supporting other students,
these social networks.
I mean everything.
When you're going through a
system that is so difficult
and when you feel like you're alone
and let's remember that by
helping students out in this way,
this is also something that is accessible
to our most vulnerable students, right?
Those students who don't have that gun,
who are actually the large majority
or larger percentage of the students
that are enrolling today now,
because they're not eligible for DACA.
Right?
But because they cannot apply
and benefit for the program.
And one of the last pieces
I will leave to you is
just asking yourself,
what can I do today to take the burden off
from the student's shoulders?
Undocumented students are already dealing
with all these anti-immigrant policies,
financial insecurity and
their household, everything,
the emotional toll that it takes
to be an undocumented person
and just exist in this country,
as well as the state
and navigate these structures and systems.
So ask yourself, how can
I listen to this student?
What can I do to validate their experience
rather than passing them
off to the next educator
or passing them off to
scholarship, sees the mean,
please do connect them.
But how can you make
that feel student feel
supported right there in there.
And of course, as your,
continuing to look for
ways to support students
and continuing to look for
ways to create new resources
and structures that will
support our students,
not just to survive, but
to thrive, ask yourself,
how can we let students have
the lead in this effort?
How can we ensure that these
resources are not just created,
but they are visioned and they are created
and implemented in ways
that are student centered.
Because I think that's one of the biggest,
what are the biggest
pieces that administrators
will often leave out?
I actually, I like to say
that student advocacy today
is what will become
best practices tomorrow,
because that is often what
happens across campuses
across the nation.
We've we saw it in the
civil rights movement.
We see that after with the
ethnic studies movement
and then universities,
who've created all these students centers
for multiculturalism,
all of that came out of student advocacy.
So let's ensure that we're,
we continue listening to students,
we continue uplifting their work.
And then we also give them
the resources they deserve
for the labor that they're doing,
because that is what it is labor.
And I want to highlight
three quick resources
and that I will also share
in the chat the first aside
from our corporate relief.
And of course, as far as scholarships,
easy scholarship lists,
we have a scholarship list
that doesn't just highlight
airy soda scholarships.
It started out as that,
but it also has some
national scholarships.
So it's a big resource.
We actually have like
little monthly highlights.
So we post all over social media.
So make sure to follow us
on Facebook and Instagram.
We also have our immigrant
scholarship hustle program,
which is not as fourth year.
We call it ish and just a space
for undocumented students
to really find community and empowerment.
Students participate in
a series of workshops
where they're able to work
with educators and peers.
They're able to apply to one scholarship,
create a professional resume
and leave with a finished
personal statement
that they can use
for both college admission
and scholarships.
And our students really leave the program
with supportive networks,
with be having access
to community resources,
and obviously the confidence
that it takes to apply to jobs
and college and everything else.
Our ish program in Tucson is
going to start October 17th.
So be on the lookout for the application.
We'd love to share that with folks here
because we accept high school students,
as well as folks who may be transitioning
from community college
or who may have been out
of high school for a bit.
And then the third
resource I want to share
with y'all is that each
year in the spring,
we have our educators conference
and this is really a space
for educators across the
state to come together
and being the tools needed
to become better educated advocates.
We have sessions for peop folks
who want to learn like the
educator ally one Oh one piece,
as well as folks who have
been doing this work for years
and want to make work
plans in terms of how to.
Make their institutions
more undocumented friendly.
So with that,
I want to think all the other panelists
for your ongoing work with,
and for undocumented families,
and I will pass it back to Hilda.
- Thank you so much, Catalina.
I thank you for your
passion and your advocacy.
You all are doing such great work here
in the Tucson area
throughout Arizona to
support our documented
and undocumented students.
So thank you for that.
So as we transitioned over to Yolanda,
I am going to go ahead
and play a short video
about our immigrant
and refugee student
resource center for you all.
(upbeat music)
My apologies.
I'm realizing that I
didn't do a share sound.
So you were probably just watching that,
but I'm going to go ahead
and do a quick reshare
and share the sound with you
so that you can hear that whole video.
Here we go again.
(upbeat music)
and with that, I'll
turn it over to Yolanda.
- (mumbles) overview of the work
in fasteners and she needed the big deal.
(mumbles)
So that was awesome.
Thank you for that.
Good evening.
My name is Yolanda Gonzales.
My pronouns are she her?
And I'm the program coordinator for diaper
and I need the immigrant.
(mumbles)
I'm a Mexican immigrants.
I do send my legs on Sunday.
Like parents had 10 children O opinion.
A college degree was financial
comes from my parents.
However, my father was
the strong advocates
for higher education.
He really wanted us to
be educated (mumbles).
The only way he could do this with,
to go work at Pima college.
So he worked there for 10 years.
He was a custodian there
took great pride in his work,
and that's how I was able
to start at a few months.
So, it just,
we go way back because
my father worked there
for some of my sister work there.
So it's just like a big family thing
that we do we worked at,
(laughing)
but it gives me this year.
I celebrate my 30 year
anniversary as employee at Pima
and it gives me great pride
and privilege to be working
with immigrant and student.
I'm going to go ahead and
share my screen provides you
with the PowerPoint.
Okay.
So that's just an overview of
what I'm going to talk about,
but I'll go through the
skip that a little bit.
(mumbles)
So for those of you that are,
I already did this part,
but I just wanted to acknowledge
that we have a new sticker
and it's the sticker
on the left hand side side left and it's,
I can support immigrant
and refugee students.
So if you're wanting to hope
to have a sticker to post
on your office or anywhere right now,
it's posted on your computer
or have it visible somewhere,
just email me and I'll go ahead and email.
So the next slide is a
little bit of history
of the IRS T student
and community advocates
fixes to the IRS 2017.
And our mission is to partner with college
and with the college and
the community together,
resources, information gaps,
and empower immigrant and refugee students
to achieve the educational agrees.
This semester.
We were funded to hire
additional ambassadors
for to 15 hours each with.
(mumbles)
We're really happy about that.
And then if you choose
of all of our doctors,
the pictures of the squares
are our previous ambassadors
circle ones are pregnant.
I'm just going to go over
some of the IRS I R S T work
and just (mumbles) to
do COVID, French 2020,
as we shifted to mold work
because of the COVID-19,
the IRS has circled
and the old fashioned phone call,
even using the three way Colleen picture,
because a lot of times the
parents want to be involved
in the call or even,
three ways to connect with
other staff like counselors
or advisors.
We also offered a
virtual hour with Trenton
and June that like now every day,
and we provide students the
opportunity to meet with
and on several occasions
I have (mumbles) students
(mumbles)
I'm happy to say that we've
had a great use response.
There's been times when
I really get to talk
to someone right away
and the response time where we could sign,
happy about that and actually
be able to (mumbles),
we've also helped
students with black Hawks
during this time, during the pandemic
and dammit to shoot 80 lap
tops and very positive.
And as a matter of fact,
I just emailed someone
(mumbles) that the students
that was just me
and yet their smoothies,
please, thank you.
And letting me know
that she was very happy
about having the last
chocolate chip (mumbles).
So that's really good to hear.
And then also our hats and
for sexual development.
And we've also recently participated
in welcome plastics
school, credit students.
So we were able to do a live
session with our students,
(mumbles)
a we're going to be working
with the first year experience
and emotions to (mumbles)
and then also our website and sausage, we,
our website is up to date and
we've been working with the.
This tablet is like a web page
on the prior to COVID-19.
You provided information (mumbles)
we have a tended to have
a high school career
and college information sessions (mumbles)
and then we also have
counseling office hours
would come every Friday
to the downtown campus
and her office.
I was there that picture, you see,
there is a picture of art
educators group with ship safety.
They actually took the score
when we first opened also
to my training sessions
to talk to the staff,
and then he's been April to present
and a lot of conferences,
but most before COVID, we were,
we did a conference with eight friends
and we could send it
information about making classrooms
for inclusive for immigrant students.
We had are, in fact,
this provide the personal stories.
That that was very impactful
because our practice we're
very interested in and,
adjustment some of her
information on the syllabis,
you know, one of our
investors, Miele, salamis
for heavier Hyatt space
or medium prayer space.
So that was something that
we working on before coaches.
He also provided training to our tutors
and we've partnered up with hardships
and to provide staff with training
on working with shotgun
incident, documentary students,
our student services staff.
And then we also, and the
educators conference with
and there was over a hundred
educators in attendance.
We tend to do this this year
and they'll be at least 10 metal
will be helping us with that.
Okay.
So some of 'em a bar,
how many projects include
and I didn't know, you saw in the video,
there was a safety thing,
and we're going to be a second Haniel
and the breakfast resource fair
in partnership with the
lease and social services.
We're also discussing opportunities
for internship program
with Denise we're in the early stages
of that discussion.
We also are planning to do some work with
a dollar education program.
We want to be able to help
Swedish trends transitioning
to higher ed.
So that's something that we're working on.
And then another point we do
have all of our pillow, 10, 10,
10 is a high school outreach.
Do enrollment come back, increase, boom.
We're going to create
meeting with counselors
and having meals section
for high school students.
And we're going to be talking
to them about (mumbles)
and the opportunity that
Coke, and oftentimes,
and then just making
sure they're connecting
with the correct and five
weeks for chilling moment.
And that's,
we're are the iron IRS
has made significant coffee talk minutes
and empowering students to
pursue their educational dreams
and bringing awareness to college,
deciding the barriers,
immigrants and refugees face today.
Our training offerings and
applicant has PD with 10,
removing happy about that.
Hey, we take great pride
in all of this work
and we know that there's
still work to be done.
So to join us and educators
that are out there,
we invite you to join us
as the help students reach
their fullest potential
and a better tomorrow.
That's all I have today.
Thank you so much,
everybody for being part of this panel
and our contact information
is up there on the screen.
Please feel free to call us at any point.
We are here for you.
You care about you,
and we want to help to
a better environment
for you and also help you
achieve your education.
Thank you so much.
- Thank you, Yolanda.
We appreciate your passion too,
for helping all of our students
and all the work that you do
to create a more welcoming environment
and the place where we
all feel like we belong.
So thank you for that.
As we get closer to the
end of our time together,
we have about 20 minutes
left on our webinar
and want to get to some
of your questions today.
So let me introduce our next panel.
And it is a panel of students
that will talk a little bit
about their own experiences
and how they've been engaged
with some of this work.
So we have one student
that has the recording
and I'll play it at the
end if we have time.
But before that,
we're going to go ahead
and talk to Luiseno Barasa.
She is with a scholarship, say disease.
She's one of their executive team members
and a student at the
university of Arizona.
She migrated from Mexico
when she was 11 months old.
She is the Sunnyside graduate,
completed her first year of college
at Pima community college,
and then transferred to
the university of Arizona
in the spring of 2018.
She's currently pursuing
a degree in ecology
and evolutionary biology
and hopes to attend graduate school.
After she graduates next may
she has been volunteering
with scholarships agencies since 2016
and continues to lead
a student advocacy efforts
through scholarships,
Stacy educational programming,
and then also our other student
that we'll be speaking
today is Janelle Granados.
She's volunteered with scholarships,
eye disease since 2016
during her time with them.
Janelle has been a program
coordinator has created
and presented curriculum rent programming,
given training to high school
and university professionals.
And more.
She is coordinator of the
SAC educators committee.
Janelle completed two years
of undergraduate studies
at Pima community college,
where she earned her associate's degree.
This last may, since then,
she has transferred to the university
of Southern California,
where she is pursuing a master of arts
and teaching and progressive degree.
So welcome to the both of you.
If we can go ahead and
start with Luiseno please.
- Hello everybody.
And thank you for having me.
My name is Luiseno Barasa
my preferred pronouns.
Are she her in AI?
And like I said, I am a DACA recipient.
I was born in Mexico
and my parents migrated
to the United States
when I was 11 months old.
So my immigration status
didn't really affect me
until my senior year of high school.
When I found out I did not
qualify for financial aid,
this kind of threw me into
a loop cause I didn't know
what I was going to do after high school.
Fortunately, I was able to
apply for DACA in June of 2012,
which was the year that I graduated
and I received my first
DACA in the fall of 2012.
With that I was able to
work and pay out of pocket
for my first two years at Pima,
which was a blessing after
that in spring of 2013,
Pima decided to approve
for in state tuition,
which was even better for the help,
because then I was able to
afford a cheaper tuition,
which was really helpful for my family.
In 2014,
my father was detained and
that kind of threw my family
into this really hard,
a hardship of like trying
to stop his deportation,
but it, we were not successful.
And he was later deported due to that.
I think that kind of
ignited something in me
and I decided to become more
involved in my community
because I wanted to see a change,
not just at the educational level,
but also at the community level.
I joined scholarship say XE in 2016
and became their community
outreach director.
That role allowed me
to go into high schools
in order to present and train educators
and better support admin,
especially at my own old high school.
Cause I did not have a good experience
when it came to supporting from educators.
They didn't really know
how to support undocumented students,
but back in 2012 and
nothing had really changed
by 2016 either.
So with that role,
I decided to lead efforts
in doing presentations
and trainings.
And I also became involved
in the policy changes
that was happening at the
institutional levels at Pima
and at the U of A most of
my student advocacy work
has paralleled with other folks
from the org as well in the fact
that we're always trying to change policy
at the institutions.
And we're always trying to
advocate for centers and support.
And due to that, it's
resulted in the IFRC.
And at the I R S SRC at Pima,
we've also been involved in advocating
for tuition reduction, especially now,
since we were then charged
with out of state tuition
due to student advocacy
that also allowed the U
of A to go to charge folks 150% tuition.
So yeah,
my role in student advocacy has been
due to my own personal needs
and also due to my community needs.
I like to think that I don't
want to leave out folks
that aren't just documented.
When we focus on a documented narrative,
we leave the undocumented folks out
and we also leave our parents out,
which is unfortunate.
So my student advocacy work
has also led to doing community work
when it came to the ish program
like Catalina mentioned,
and also be educators conference
and be COVID relief funding support
that we're currently doing.
Student advocacy is very important.
I always encourage students
to advocate for themselves
because I think if we
would want to see a change
it's has to be led by those
that are directly impacted.
Cause we're the only ones
that would know necessarily
what our community and
what our selves need
and better supporting our success.
But that's without saying that,
I also think that student advocacy
can't really be successful
without admin support.
And I look at y'all folks
on this panel list right now
because I know that y'all
are doing great work
and have been doing great work
for the past couple of years,
but unfortunately it's not enough, right?
Like due to the fact that
not all student population
is being completely served
your work isn't finished.
So I think it's very important
to also bring in that tie into
the admin advocacy part as well, right?
Like the ally LA shift of
educators when there's a need,
there's always room for improvement.
So I'm really hopeful to
see after this webinar,
what PCC is doing in order
to include student advocates
in these conversations of
how we can better support
our students because there's
a lot of work to do so.
And I'll pass it back to you, Hilda.
- Thank you so much.
I couldn't get my camera back on here.
Thanks for that.
Just, so important to
hear from our students
and the experiences
that you all are having
and how our work really
impacts all of you,
but really your advocacy,
your work is activists also
pushes us along to make changes
within our organizations, right?
So I really appreciate what you all do.
And I know that you work hard
in our next person, Janelle.
I know is also with scholarships,
say to C and has really been engaged
with a lot of activism work,
including participating with myself
and Yolanda at the Capitol forum,
where we talked with legislators
at the national level about
how some of these issues are impacting
our students here locally.
So now I'll turn it over to you, Janelle.
- Thank you.
Thank you all for having
me, as Hilda mentioned,
my name is Janelle.
My pronouns, are she her hers?
A yeah.
And I graduated in may from Pima
and I'm at the university
of Southern California now remotely.
And so my involvement with,
so I should say Zee began and 2016,
right around the time that
I was kind of learning
about my status and what that meant.
And as new federal mentioned.
And it really became a
problem I'm in my senior year
when I was trying to figure out
what to do after high school.
And so I want to share this
because I think it's
important to remember, right.
That just because I.
I'm following right.
A very traditional path.
Of doing two years at community college.
And trying to bring to the university.
That doesn't mean that it's
true for every student,
especially students hold a documented
or undocumented background, right.
Because higher education
is just really unacceptable
for that population.
And so I just want to acknowledge, right.
That said just because this is like,
my experience doesn't mean
it's every other student's experience
and we shouldn't hold
those expectations right.
Or ever say that just
because the student did it,
you can do it.
And so I definitely owe
lots of my success to folks
that I've been connected with.
So as I mentioned, my, I
started for the scholarship.
They'd be back in like
2016 and thanks to them.
I was able to connect right with educators
and counselors who I was to
talk to who were gonna help me,
enroll in school or find
scholarships and review my essays
and all these things.
Right.
That helped me get to where I am.
No.
So really I'm here today
to talk about one of the,
one of my favorite things
that I did at school,
I should say, Z is working with educators.
I am studying myself to become a,
an elementary school teacher,
but for the meanwhile,
for the time being,
I really enjoy working with educators
in higher education and right.
Working to make our
schools more accessible
because education is a right.
And unfortunately it's being
treated like a privilege.
So I want to show with deal, right?
Some of these resources,
some of the things that
we do that scholarship
specifically working with educators,
because as was mentioned before, right.
We need the educator allyship,
students absolutely have the autonomy
and the power and the
resilience to overcome.
Right.
The very unfortunate barriers
that are placed in our ways.
And often times without right.
We don't even like want these, right?
Like we don't even know.
And there's so many decisions are made
regardless of what we think,
what we want, what we need.
And so this educator,
allyship is really important
in helping students
who all can already do so much
and helping them get even further opening
those doors up and really just being there
for the student and
whatever it is they need,
because yeah, the work isn't done,
there's lots of room to grow.
And so I know that y'all
already do so much right.
In these positions that are often,
looked down on are just
not properly funded.
And so I am aware of that.
Right.
And I also know our
students are suffering.
And so one at school,
I should say through Z,
as Catalina mentioned before
we do annual educators
conferences this year, we
took a break because of COVID,
but as we're kind of,
reinvisioning these things,
I again,
would encourage you to
follow us on social media
and they connected and right
for whenever those things come out and
as we kind of re envision what
it's going to look like now,
remotely, I would love
for y'all to be there,
provost and chancellor, right.
And everyone else who every
other educator on this call,
all right, because it's
very important information.
And I'll have an educators
committee at scholarships
through Z that meets,
we were doing like monthly meetings.
And then we did biweekly during
corn theme earlier this year
when it, when we just
needed community read.
And so these spaces are really
whatever educators need.
We have lots of members on the committee,
educators from high school
and higher education institutions,
such as Hilda Yolanda,
Sylvia has been at a couple of well
and tons of our high
school counselors as well.
So these are a really
great space to connect
with other educators in town and right.
Kind of talk and process
about these things
that you're going through
in your institutions,
as well as learning more resources
and just really trying to
understand our holistic students.
And so I know I'm coming
up short on my time,
but I would love to engage in
commit, get some commitments,
right.
From the provost and chancellor, sorry,
increase its commitment
to undocumented students
specifically at FEMA.
Right.
Because as we heard DACA,
isn't the answer, right?
And it just got,
it's just now even a lot harder
for students to gain this,
this protection.
So I think we really need
to expand our conversation
to include undocumented students, right?
So I'd love to see an increased commitment
as in team with some documented students.
And this also means to
have these efforts led
by those who are directly
impacted, led and compensated.
Right.
I think some great
places to start is having
the IRS first fee space,
physically expended,
because I know those spaces
are very small cubicles, right.
And so our students deserve
an actual space, a center.
I was at that campus.
And the only reason why
I knew of the office
was because I knew
you're Yolanda and Hilda.
Right.
And so, right.
I mean,
I just think you have
to support the student
or holistic student.
Right.
And so having a space for them
where they can go hang out,
do homework is going to be so
essential and vital, right.
Just like the other
spaces that are on campus,
we need to do the same thing
for our immigrant and refugee students.
I know we talked a little
bit about at the beginning,
how Maricopa County,
Maricopa community colleges
do the 150% tuition rate.
This is a conversation
that I'd love to revisit it
and talk about more because
I don't quite understand
why America book ended up enough.
Right.
And so I think as we
kind of talk about that,
I think another great solution
to this would be to create
more scholarships that are
open to undocumented students
and allocate some of those fiscal funds
and REITs to provide the,
that money for students
who deserve to be in school
and get through school,
lots of other ideas.
And I'm happy to connect
with you all later.
We can talk about these things,
but thank you all so much for your time.
And I am excited to see
what else PMO will do
chancellor and provost.
Thank you.
- Thank you so much, Janelle.
I appreciate your advocacy
and your I'm really respectful
a way that you're, again,
advocating and pushing for
us to do more in our chat.
There's a commitment from
our provost to be committed
and to do more.
So I think the voice of
students is of utmost importance
in all of these conversations.
Like thank you, both who said,
Oh, and Janelle for being with us today.
So in our last few minutes,
I'm going to go ahead and
turn it over to my colleague,
Sylvia Looser.
Now to do a presentation,
a quick presentation on some
of our mental health resources
at Pima community college,
I would provide you with her very amazing,
brilliant introduction of her bio,
but now we are running
really short on time.
So I'll just turn it right over to you.
Sylvia,
- [Sylvia] I think that's fair.
Hi everyone.
And I just wanted to
briefly introduce myself.
So they have the Sinatro metal.
I've, I'm a counselor,
primarily pre COVID times.
How is that?
The desert Vista campus.
I'm really excited to be
here and to see Janelle
and to see Luiseno and everyone,
and meet Rena and see Catalina.
And just all of our colleagues here,
because this is such
important work briefly.
I am the daughter of immigrants.
My dad went to Pima to get his
air conditioning certification,
but you didn't know that.
Did you have bosses?
My mom worked for Pima
college adult education
until she retired.
I'm a first generation college student
and it just growing up
and going to the Sunnyside school district
and graduating from
desert view high school,
going back to college, starting at Pima.
I should say a few years after high school
and then going for my masters.
And now my doctorate through
out my experience I've seen
and have had the privilege
of working with students
who are mixed immigration status,
families who are undocumented,
who are documented.
And every time I get to
meet a student like this,
I am trained even more, right.
So my skill set expands
even more so in no way,
do I ever want to come
across as the expert
because the students are
the experts on their lives,
their situations.
And they're so powerful.
And they've taught me so much about
how I can better serve them.
And so I think for myself
and using my privilege
as a counselor here with
Pima is to ask my leadership,
Hey, we need to hire
some more of these folks
for training, right?
We need scholarships,
easy to come back and train
a small group of counselors
or the small group of program advisors,
because we need to have
these conversations.
And I'm so grateful that provost
and chancellor are willing
to support our students because,
I can go get my master's in counseling
and I can get my doctorate
in educational leadership,
but both areas we're lacking
on how to better serve
our students from the
immigrant community still.
So if we can do that,
I think that we're going to
really be helping our students.
I wanted to share briefly
here a presentation
and let's see if I can figure out
how to do this because they showed me
how to do this earlier.
And if I learned correctly,
then I'll know how to do it again.
All right.
So just to play, thank
you to dr. Jeff tees,
who made the space for
fellow counselor, Erica,
Les, and I to promote this
professional development
for our faculty colleague
just wanted to let folks know,
when it comes to,
I think I'm having trouble here.
Let me see if I can.
Here we go.
When it comes to our student challenges,
many of our faculty,
many of our advisors counselors
know that our students,
sometimes many times
they'll struggle with paying
for school and we'll struggle
with adequate childcare.
We'll add adequate food suppliers.
Now with COVID limited
access to public wifi areas,
I'll use Starbucks, right?
When his when's the last time
you saw one of those seating
areas open a lot of times,
our students without internet at home,
that's where they would go.
All of those.
And on top of that,
there's this constant
pressure, DACA, roadblocks,
current administration's throwing up more
and more roadblocks between
immigrant folks in DACA,
credentials, asylum seekers,
even those who are permanent residents,
there's that constant stress,
fear insecurity hanging
over our students have
in addition to many, many other challenges
that our students have.
And regardless of that,
they are still coming to
school working many times.
It's our DACA recipient.
Who's the primary source of
income for the entire family.
Now in these times
of even more targeted and
anti-immigrant sentiment
that we've seen in
community and the nation,
the DACA recipient,
sometimes as the person
who feels the safest going to work
and traveling outside of the home.
So just additional, awareness amongst us
as workers to let us,
just be aware that it's rough, right?
It's rough.
One of the things that
peanut has offered now
to all students as of July one, 2019,
is the student wellness
assistance program,
which many times
we'll hear it be referred to as SWAT
and students can access
it by going into there
might be mock accounts,
clicking on students, scrolling down,
clicking on student resources,
and then clicking
on the student wellness
assistance resource.
Don't be turned off by the 800 number.
A clinical professional is waiting
for you on the other line.
And we'll help you sit
up either in person,
more likely now telephone
or via Google meats
or Skype or something.
One on one counseling
sessions free of costs
for our PMO students important to know
that students can have access
to this counseling program.
24 hours a day, seven days a week,
we meet and six free counseling sessions
per problem per year.
So this is really
important for us to share
with our students or community members,
dual enrollment students
to European DMA students.
So this applies to you.
In addition to that one on one counseling,
the student wellness assistance
also has many different areas
of excellent pieces of
information articles,
audio recordings, even,
short webinars that are
prerecorded for students to access.
And so I just copied a pace
of the parenting area that
the student mom assistance
will offer here.
And just encourage folks to
continue to explore that.
We also have our Penn academic counselors
for peanut college as well.
We primarily assist
students in making sure
they understand all facets
of their program of study,
including how to be successful
as they're working towards those programs
or those certificates and degrees.
And that could be anything
from a really important lesson
on how to manage your time,
where as for other students,
it's all about testing anxiety.
So I always like to tell our students,
if anything is getting in the way
of you being successful at Pima,
that's an okay thing to come
and talk to a Pima counselor about.
And as Yolanda had said was really lucky
to have a leadership who was supportive
in having me go to the downtown campus
on Friday afternoons to
provide walk-in services
for our students,
utilizing the immigrant refugee
student resource center.
We also have career counselors
at Pima and students
who are unsure about how or what to study
or what they're passionate about,
or even more, even if
I get XYZ certificate,
if I'm undocumented,
how am I going to work?
Right?
Those conversations need to happen.
They need to be normalized up front.
And we as counselors need that
training from the experts,
scholarships, Daisy AlienVault United.
We dream.
That's not something
they teach at NAU, right?
That's not something
they teach at the U of A,
as far as I know, I never had
a class on that I would love.
So I need our folks here.
Catalina, Luiseno, Rena
to continue to train us.
I always like to highlight
the additional resources
in the community university
of Arizona, their cup clinics,
commitment to underserved
people are very important
and things that we will also utilize
with our undocumented students or students
who are running short
DACA students frequently
don't have insurance.
They don't qualify for access.
So we still need resources such as these.
So there's these cup clinic,
women's health family
medicine shot clinics.
There is even the latest, the
integrative medicine clinic.
And specifically for
students who are uninsured,
it's not often you can get acupuncture
unless you have the discretionary
income to pay for that.
Right?
So when we have partners in the community,
like the U of A whose professionals
and graduate students are providing
these services very important,
the mind clinic is another
mental health provider
with the university of
Arizona, graduate students,
supervised and counseling, I should say,
supervised by professional counselors
and faculty of you have
a areas pretty much
a three month waiting list,
but it's a really useful
and free resource.
And when medication and therapy
and oral are prescribed,
this is a free area or free resource
for students to get a hold of that.
We will also partner and refer students
to the crisis response
center, 24 hours a day,
brief overview on the
crisis response center.
Many times students, even
students with private insurance,
sometimes students have private
insurance through employers.
They're frequently the
only person in the family
that has insurance and
asking their parent,
"Hey, how do I get therapy?"
It's not a resource for these students.
So going to the CRC and knowing
that they can help a student navigate
their private insurance is
a really wonderful thing
that source of support for
our students as counselors.
We know.
Well, I know I should
say that it's important
when I am going to refer
a student to a resource
that I call the resource first
and say, "Hey person,
over there giving away,"
the supplies with assistance.
Is it okay for students who
are undocumented to come
and get those resources?
Right.
If I go to the homeless
shelter and I ask there,
is it okay for undocumented people?
It's incumbent upon me to
learn about those barriers
before I send the student
off to those resources.
And I can't imagine the
harm that is done even more
to a student who's already in prices.
If I send them to a homeless shelter,
only for that student to
then be turned away and,
or potentially discriminated
to additional kinds of discrimination,
bullying the threat of law
enforcement being called in.
So that is something that, again,
you don't learn that
right in graduate school,
we learned this from the
Loiseno's and the Janelle's
and the Catalina's and the Rena's.
Those are the folks
that have the knowledge.
If there's anything I would
say on my wish list of going to
graduate school and becoming,
and going to counselor school,
I like to call it
is having access to the
experts to teach us.
And so Pima, I know that you can do this.
You can totally help us
get these experts on board.
I think that that is all I have.
I just want to kind of shout out
with the additional laptops, all students,
we have a finite number of
laptops and internet hotspots
that we can launch the
students for the semesters,
many basic skills,
videos, and text support.
And he's additional resources
are going to be provided
for you all with this.
And that's me.
- Thank you so much, Sylvia.
You are such a great colleague
and such wonderful support
for all of our students.
Our panelists are all clapping
for you and lots of shout
outs in our chat for the
work that you're doing
(laughing)
snaps to everybody.
So thank you,
thanks to all of our panelists
and for sticking with us,
for this over hour and a
half that we've had together,
we knew it wouldn't be enough time.
There's so much information
to share and to discuss,
I've tried to answer all
of the different questions
in the Q and A type them out,
sent you some links and resources
to answer those questions.
We will,
we have recorded this session
and we'll be posting it on our website.
If you go to the pima.edu
website and to student resources,
the IRS RC,
the immigrant and refugee
student resource center
is listed there.
And we will have it posted along
with some FAQ frequently asked questions,
to try to get more information out there,
and then just keep your
eyes out for information
that we'll be sharing as policy changes,
continue to come our way.
It is really important work
that we're trying to do
with all of you and with all
of our wonderful partners
that have been here today.
So again, thank you for joining us today.
Please look at the Q and A
for the answers to your
different questions,
and we appreciate all of you
just getting more familiar with this.
Thanks so much, everyone.
Good night.
