Chicano Organizing & Research in Education   

According to the California Department of Finance, about 2,500 students will qualify for Cal Grants as a result of the bill, at a cost

of $14.5 million. This amount will make up 1 percent of the annual $1.4 billion budget of the Cal Grant program.

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/08/california-dream-act_n_1001828.html

 CORE Supports the California DREAM Act (AB130 & AB131)

     The Chicano Organizing & Research in Education (CORE) organization supports passage of the California DREAM Act (AB130 & AB131) that would permit qualifying undocumented college students to apply for institutional financial aid and Cal Grants from the University of California, California State University, and California Community Colleges.
     Undocumented students in California schools are a direct result of the large demand for their parent’s labor by businesses across our state and our country.  Immigration scholar, Alejandro Portes, discusses the direct and indirect relationship that employers and migrants have in mobilizing migrants to come to the United States from several parts of Latin America:

Networks are established not only between migrants and their kin and friends in their countries of origins but between migrants and their employers.  Every time a building contractor or a restaurant owner approaches one of his migrant workers for a referral.  Everytime the manager of a corporate chain contacts one of his cleaning subcontractors for additional services, they mobilize networks that run deep into Mexico, Central America, and other sending nations. (1:00:14, Portes et. al, CCSRE).

Indeed, this underground causal relationship that Portes describes above maintains a constant flow of migrants that fill the economic requests that U.S. corporations and businesses have learned to access and depend on. 
     The plight of undocumented students should not be theirs alone but one that is shared by all of us who benefit from their parents’ labor and their civic contributions to our society and schools.  Max Frisch poignantly said, “We asked for workers, but people came” (Frisch, 1972).  We would like to add that their children came with them.  The end result are undocumented students in our schools which is not independent of California’s and the nation’s role in placing them there.  Hence, as educators committed to providing college opportunities to ALL California students, we find it imperative that legislation such as the California DREAM Act be enacted immediately and fully.

(Download a PDF copy by clicking on the letter below)