NEIU hosted the fourteenth edition of the annual “Equity in Action” conference, a part of the Annual Heritage Conference Series, organized by the Academic Development Department. The key topic of this year’s symposium was social justice and immigration, the latter being a recurring theme for the third year in a row. The conference lasted four days, and consisted of round-tables as well as lectures, all free of charge and open to the public.
A multitude of issues was discussed, including immigration law, opportunities and limitations in education, health care, integration and binationality, as well as the impact of immigration on business and economy. The panelists came from diverse backgrounds, many of them NEIU faculty members; however the organizers managed to attract experts from all over the country.
The audience was comprised of NEIU students, especially those majoring in Academic Development and Social Justice, who might one day be in positions to resolve some of the issues tackled. According to Stefan Petre, a program specialist at ADD and one of the organizers, “many teachers brought to the auditorium their entire classes, which made the turnout really good: there were as many as seventy people in the audience for some events.”
One of the third day, afternoon lectures was devoted to the situation of undocumented students in higher education – as it turns out, a predicament that some NEIU students do find themselves in. The four panelists were women, all of Hispanic descent, who shared not only their research and professional expertise but also personal stories of what difficulties this status entails and how to overcome them.
Daysi Diaz Strong, who came to the U.S. from Ecuador when she was eight, recalled years of financial struggle to complete her education. She was able to adjust her status through marriage and is now a project director for Title III Grants at Triton College. She is conducting a study on the experiences of undocumented students of Latin origin in Chicago colleges and universities, which aims at increasing awareness of the problem and exploring policies that can solve it. “It takes safe people like me to come to the public arena and help these students out,” she concluded.
Maria E. Luna-Duarte, at present the Assistant Director of El Centro, shares her memories of a year-long undocumented stay and the obstacles this creates for entering and being able to afford college. She was able to go through with it; however it required a lot of sacrifices on the part of her family as well as herself. Through her current work she tries to alleviate the plight of undocumented students who “excel academically and want to contribute to this country,” but is thwarted by legal issues.
The objectives of Maria Chaves, a program specialist at NEIU’s Adult and Women’s Student Programs are similar; she especially stressed “the need to create networks, which will make it easier to deal with those issues.”
The last panelist began her speech by admitting that she initially declined the invitation to speak at the conference. Being the Assistant Director for Financial Aid at NEIU puts Miriam Ocasio in a complex position, between a rock – the students who need financial help – and a hard place – the administrative and legal regulations which make them ineligible for it. However, being of Puerto Rican descent herself, she feels an affinity with the students and decided to share her knowledge of the intricacies of the issue, such as names of institutions that do aid undocumented students, as well safe Internet sites and resources.
The points raised by the panelists generated a very lively discussion and the audience’s responses and questions represented a wide spectrum of perspectives on the issue.
The participants were visibly moved by one NEIU student admitting to her undocumented status. Carmela, who is an active member of Movimiento Cultural Latino Americano, expressed her appreciation for the panelists’ initiatives and output, and talked about the vulnerability that her status entails, as well as her everyday concerns: medical aid, driver’s license and the fear of deportation. “It affects us in every way,” she sighed. Luna-Duarte responded by pointing out to everyone not sharing those concerns, how easy it is for them to take for granted the freedoms that might not be so obvious to others, such as the freedom to move around and travel. Although she adjusted her status years ago, she admitted she still wonders: “Am I ever safe?”
Then a question from the other side of the fence was raised: “Why do people expect their lives to be easy if they come here illegally and break the law?” In reply, Chaves invoked American history and its tradition of being an immigrant haven, which it should not turn away from. “A hundred and fifty years ago you arrived at Ellis Island and that was it – you got processed,” she reminded the audience. Responding to a question about the crimes that immigrants commit, she called for remembering the difference between criminal acts committed by individuals and the criminalization of the entire immigrant experience. “There is a rhetoric going on, that we just cannot ignore,” she warned.
The question-asking session went on until time ran out, and Yasmine A. Ranney, the Assistant Dean for Academic Development and one of the organizers, was very pleased with the dynamic of the meeting as well as the general turnout. She felt like this particular session met the goal of the entire initiative – to communicate the existence of a problem and provide people with a comprehensive analysis of it. “We are not hoping to resolve these issues here but if we are to resolve them elsewhere, we want everyone to have accurate information,” she said.