This week at the Rose Cafe, our guest was GRF Esmeralda Arrizon-Palomera.  She was speaking to us about DREAMers, undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as young children.  The number of children who are brought to the US in early childhood is shocking, especially when you realize how much difficulty these children will have later in life when it comes to applying for college and jobs.  And it is even more shocking when you realize that many of these children don’t realize they are undocumented until one of these issues comes up.  A child may go through much of their life fine, and then be rejected for a job because they are not documented.

Esmeralda spoke to us about the DREAM act, which provides those undocumented youths the opportunity to become US citizens and live a productive life in the United States like they feel they should be able to.  Unfortunately the DREAM act has not been signed into law, meaning there are still many people who do not have all the rights they should have.  One of the things that struck me about the DREAM act was the criminalizing of the parents of these DREAMers.  The thought process is that the parents brought the children to the US before they could decide for themselves, therefore keeping them from future opportunities because they end up being undocumented.  This criminalizing of the parents turns some people off of the DREAM act, despite its many benefits.

I thought this talk was very interesting.  I was able to tie in some things I had learn from my Multicultural Education class that I took last spring.  In that class, we discussed a lot about students who were undocumented and the challenges they face.  Hearing about it from the DREAMers perspective was very enlightening.