“We never thought things would be moving this quickly.”
La Colectiva and the IDREAM Coalition at the University of Illinois held a forum and panel regarding the DREAM Act on April 23, 2009.
This event came to fruition as a result of hard work, organization, and more importantly active students. We started planning earlier this semester with the ultimate goal of drawing attention from our Congressman here in Illinois. We haven’t had much luck getting our Congressman, (R-IL) Timothy Johnson, to agree with us on previous issues so this time, instead of going to him directly, we decided to go through our university. We felt that if we could get our administrators and the University of Illinois to come out publicly and support the DREAM Act, we would be able to draw attention of not only Rep. Johnson, but also congressmen statewide.
But before we could meet with our administrators to ask them to publicly support the DREAM Act, we needed to gather support from other organizations, students, faculty/staff, and the community. We did so by forming a coalition known as IDREAM, which is currently comprised of other organizations such as M.E.C.h.A - UIUC (Movimiento Estudiantil Chicana/o de Aztlan), UNFAS (Unidos Nuestra Fuerza Avanzara Siempre), G.E.O (Graduate Employees Organization), Jobs with Justice, etc.
We also meet with our Student Trustee Paul Schmitt and surprisingly enough; he also supported the DREAM Act.
So with all these organizations and individuals backing us up, we met with our Vice Chancellor Renee Romano. We spoke with her and asked for her support. She stated that she personally supported the DREAM Act, but she was not sure if she could publicly state her support in terms of making a statement as the Vice Chancellor. She assured us that she would speak with our Chancellor Richard Herman about supporting the DREAM Act.
A few weeks later, as we waited for a response, we introduced a resolution to our Student Senate, just like similar resolutions had been introduced at the University of Florida and at the University of Michigan.
And just a few days ago, V.C. Romano told us that she would be coming out publicly in support of the DREAM Act, not just personally, but as the Vice Chancellor. It had only been a few weeks since we had spoken to her, but we never thought things would be moving this quickly.
We held the forum last night and the guest speaker, Joshua Hoyt from the Illinois Coalition for Immigrants and Refugees spoke about recent immigration legislations and the importance of being active. We also showed Tam Tran’s film “Underground Undergraduates”, which is very helpful because it humanizes the issue and shows actual students that are affected by the lack of having a legal status.
All in all, the event was a success and we hope that we motivated enough people to help support this cause. The resolution that was introduced last Wednesday will be voted on this coming Wednesday and we expect to have a large number of students at the meeting voicing their support.
Also, we have an upcoming meeting with Chancellor Richard Herman to discuss how else they can help us with the DREAM Act.
We urge students nationwide to do the same, even if it is too late to hold a forum as we get closer to summer vacation, you can still form a coalition of students, organizations, faculty/staff that can write letters to your administrators asking them to support this important cause. This is only the first step in a very arduous journey and there will be times when you feel discouraged and everything might seem hopeless, but keep in mind that you are not the only ones. There are others doing the same thing all over the country and that there is massive support for the DREAM Act. All we have to do is come out and show how much support there is.
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